GoTigers

If you have any kind of sales talent at all you should be able to make a lot of extra money on sponsors when you are in the GP series and you can guarantee them that their name will be shown to millions of viewers across Europe and Australia every other week.

Thanks very much guys

Apparently it's been a really long time since I've followed a Swedish match live cause I can't even find a link for live updates. I used to use speedway.nu but it seems like they stopped doing live updates and I can't seem to find another site for it. Does anyone have a link? I'm looking for updates on the Indianerna-Elit Vetlanda match.

Have to say it's an interesting idea though. I don't think you will see Sweden, Poland, Australia or Denmark participating in something like that for several reasons. Injuries in the beginning of the season can ruin the whole year, they already seem to be doing a pretty good job of developing their young guys for big races and they probably aren't interested in helping the other teams get better. But maybe you could look towards Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia or the US instead. All of them have at least one good veteran who could be a good captain and teacher and a couple of young guys who seem willing to learn and could really benefit from a test series. The more teams that can legitimately go for the race off and finals, the more interesting the SWC is. Who would have thought 10-15 years ago that you would Sweden, Denmark, Australia and England fighting for just two spots in the final.

First off, it wasn't Klindt in the heat, it was Hans. According to Danish TV there had been a misprint in the official program and that is what caused all the trouble. The gate pattern is the same for every SWC race and if you look at the first two races you'll see that in heat 22 the team with the red helmets have gate two and the ones with the white helmets have gate four. So the guys where lined up right according to the program, but the program was wrong and they got it right in the re-run.

Do you expect people to be able to understand Russian? Only part I understand are the two danish commentators you hear in the background but they aren't saying anything funny. I think most of us are going to need a translation.

You can't really compare the term Scandinavia to Great Britain. We don't have a Scandinavian flag or national anthem and the three countries don't have any political ties whatsoever. Sweden has had the Scandinavian GP for years but I always thought of it as just another Swedish GP. And I'm certain they have played Swedish music there as well, and I know they open with the Swedish national anthem. Maybe even more important, the wild card to the so called Scandinavian GP has always been given to a Swedish rider. Now this year we finally have a GP at Vojens again and they decided to call it the Nordic GP, because apparently a country can't officially have two GP's so they have to think of some other bogus name. But I'm fully expecting the organizers to treat it as a Danish event with our national anthem and the speeker to get the crowd pumped to support the Danish guys, not the Swedes or Holta.

The problem is that people look very differently at drunk people, especially if they themselves are sober. Two people can be standing right next to the same group of drunk fans and one might think they are funny and just having a good time while the other gets uncomfortable, even if the drunks aren't aggressive. Personally I think it sounds like a great idea to have some family friendly sections that don't have access to a bar that sells alcohol, if that is possible. I haven't been at Cardiff but although I haven't seen a fight break out there are certainly plenty of drunk fans at Parken as well and beer all over the place. As for cheering for someone from another country I don't see the problem at all. At the world cup, sure I will always cheer for Denmark. But I'm getting fed up with how it seems you have to think Nicki is a God if you are Danish. Personally I can't stand the guy, and he even races for the team in the town I grew up in. Now I love the rest of the Danish guys and would cheer for them at any GP, but when Tony was still racing I wore a TRick cap to two GP's in Parken. Speedway is a very individual sport and we are fortunate to have athletes who are, for the most part, very down to earth and open to the fans. You can easily get a pretty good idea about each rider's personality and I don't know why you should feel forced to cheer for a guy just because he is from the same country as you, if there is another you like better on or off the track.

Emil and Scott ended up in the gate to the left of the opening. Emil was in the inside, how could he have cut Scott off? Scott gives Emil a push with the elbow, Emil gives him a slap back on the arm and then Scott starts turning left and keeps leaning to the left until they ended up in the fence. Emil isn't stopping him from from going straight ahead and turning into the pit after the gate. But Scott is completely cutting off Emil, who has no chance of going around the gate and into the pit. And I really like Scott and feel sorry for him this year. And it doesn't change the fact that Emil really needs to grow up fast and learn to control his temper if he wants to ride with the big boys. And his pit crew's behavior was disgusting. On Danish tv they have a reporter in the pit who said that after everybody had returned they showed the fight again on tv and Emil and his pit crew started cheering like they felt Emil had won the fight and that was somehow something to be proud of. But I can't see how it could be Emil's fault that they ended up in the fence.

If you thought it was bad what was said in english you should have heard the nice things Nicki and Hans had to say to each other in Danish interviews. Thought Hans was pretty fair though, said that Nicki had had a great night and he could understand that he was frustrated about losing in the semis but he wished that Nicki would learn to lose with dignity and that his behavior after he went out took away from an otherwise good performance. He even acknowlegded that you could say he fought too hard for his lead but if Nicki had had his position he would have done the same which is absolutely true. Nicki on the other hand went on some crazy, selfish rant about how Hans was focusing way too much on him and that Hans needed to worry about himself first and remember that he also had other opponents than Nicki. I'm not sure where he was going with that. And then he was asked about the number of clashes that him and Hans have had in the past and he answered that if you kept score of who crashed into who then Hans was leading 7-0 over the past couple of years. So apparently e thinks that he has done nothing wrong but that Hans just keep running into him. The guy is simply a 1st class jerk and he is the only speedway rider who has ever made me embarrased about being Danish.

obviously but that still surprises me a little bit. I have discussed it a lot today with other people who were there and people who only watched it on tv and it seems like a lot of the Danes who werent there are embarrased by the way the crowd behaved. The tv commentators talked about it a lot too and thought that people should just shut up and enjoy the show. But I'm glad it doesn't seem to have offended the rest of the speedway nation, maybe except for a couple of Swedes.

I'm a little surprised that not a single person has mentioned the crowd yet and the insane booing of Jonsson after he took out Hans in the semis. Did they even talk about this on British tv? I was at the race and the place was absolutely electric in the last half hour. I have never heard buhs that loud before. At least everybody was behaving pretty well, I didn't see anybody getting even close to starting a fight even though there were a lot of tension in the crowd. The only time I thought they took it a little too far was when most people were still sitting down and booing and using their horns during the Swedish national anthem. I couldn't even hear the song. And unfortunately I saw a couple of Swedish kids while leaving the stadium who did not seem like they had had a good time at all. And yes I was extremely upset and booing as well. Even after a three hour drive home I still had a lot of adrennalin rushing in my body. There is no doubt in my mind that Jonsson should have been excluded from the semi and that refs in general should use the option more often to stop a race and exclude a rider for a dirty move even if the other guy doesn't fall of. If Hans had crashed then Jonsson would have no doubt been excluded but he shouldn't be punnished for actually knowing how to control his bike. If that had been Holta getting hit he would have flewn off.

Agree with you 100%. I get more and more disgusted with the guy every time he steps in front of the camera, which thankfully isn't that often anymore. He always seems to be bitching and whining over the refs and the other riders. Has he ever been excluded and not went straight to the phone to argue with the ref? Not very often at least. No doubt he is extremely competitive and that has gotten him very far in the sport. But so are most of the other guys. You can't tell me that Hancock for instanse isn't competitive. Yet him and even guys like Gollob and Crump who are also known to have bad tempers seem a lot more likeable both on screen and in the pits. I can't wait till the next time he loses his mind in the pit at a GP and get excluded for the rest of the year. If only he would just leave Holsted and go to another team. They already have Puk anyway who is definately not in Nicki's league yet but he will get the job done.

Getting jealous of everybody going to several GPs. I'll be at Copenhagen as usual and at least we have the SWC in Vojens as well. Should be a nice trip to Copenhagen. It will be the first time I will actually be rooting for the Danes, except Nicki, along with the rest of my countrymen, instead of cheering for TRick. And the night train back home to Jylland is always a lot of fun.

Just heard on the news tonight that they are opening up the negotiations again and will try and find a solution. I always thought it was a little early to just call the whole thing off completely. Especially Brovst would really suffer from the cancelation as they are the only Superliga team who doesn't already have a team in the 1st division. I don't have as good insider intell as I used to and after reading several press releases and announcements from riders, managers etc. I'm still a bit confused as to who wants to do what and why it is so hard to find a compromise. Apparently the main issues are about how many teams should be in the league and if it should be 2 or 4 team meetings. This year the Superliga did 2 team meetings but that is the first time they have ever done that and the lower leagues still had 4 team meetings. I just hope they come up with a solution somehow. If they don't there have been talks about the 4 teams who were in the Superliga this year, starting a new private league.