AndyM

He was even reminiscent of Peter Collins, and I can offer no higher praise than that.

I bet he did!!

Minor miracle there's any racing, let alone beyond heat 8. Shadders reckoned the track was best suited to power boat racing, so they must have drained the lake somehow!!

In which case, shouldn't a fall be awarded minus one point?

Perhaps Andersen made it because Ole likes him better? The rules seem pretty arbitrary anyway so your guess is as good as mine.

You can't stop there!! Do tell all...

Nothing wrong with the scoring system, only the decision to use places in the final to determine the overall positions in preference to the points totals.

Not as desperate as Mort and Booey, anyway!

Sure quite a few of us would be grateful to share a hiding place with Ewa!

...except Zagar!

Lindback zero? Ah good - doing his chances of an Aces team slot no harm at all!! Seriously, it shows that he's an all-or-nothing rider - needs to get his mind in order to win races when the chips are down, but doesn't seem to have the toughness to do it at the top levels. Might get there but needs a cool head to guide him... a Briggs, Mauger or Rickardsson, maybe?

Can't last - he's bound to crack eventually and tell the ref he won't be his friend any more!!

Semi-final 1 was the finest individual heat of speedway I've seen in some years - great race and a superb performance by Harris. Greg must have been totally bewildered about how he came to be eliminated. Brilliant stufff - give us more, guys! And to finish with a couple of bonus points in the final ahead of Crumpie - the best we could possibly hope for from a Brit

Agreed. Fine performance. Well done, Chris.

Poles will undoubtedly have some trouble acclimatising to the track, but it is a promising line-up. Hope Stevie B gets a chance in lieu of Frenchman no 2! Mind you, what are the chances of running the event today? Looks a bit dodgy to me... but that's better than what I have to do tonight - sleep in a tent in a muddy field populated with lots of camping cubs. A very in-tents experience (groan!)

Most times I go to Manchester, I drive past the site of where the Hyde Road stadium used to be and sigh deeply!

Blimey - we've got pages of debate about selection of a squad at a time when we're struggling to find enough decent riders to make up the squad. Try and pick the team 30 years ago - there was intense competition among the riders for WTC slots. Someone in form and genuinely world class was bound to get left out, whichever choices were made! Don't try to kid me that we have even a fraction of the selection dilemma now!

Just for information, I suffer from periodic depression, as to many other people. When the illness afflicts us, many sufferers find themselves thinking and fantasising about suicide, even if we never do anything about it. We don't want it - it just comes with the territory. When you're in that mindset it might only take one event to push you over the edge to enact those fantasies and to do something totally beyond all reason. And while you're doing it, it might appear totally reasonable and justified - but that's the disease talking. The moral is not to judge too harshly, however terrible the circumstances might appear - KC might have found himself in a position beyond all control due to an illness.

So he did - it was a crime passionel. He wasn't the first and he won't be the last to kill his partner and himself in the name of love - people do, from many walks of life. But we shouldn't judge KC for that act, nor even speculate about the mental state you need to be in to carry out such a tragic and desperate act - it was nothing to do with speedway; our job is to remember him on the track.

Anyone remember Pete Bailey? As I recall, he died in a car crash and Coventry speedway set up a dependents fund for him in about 1972. He was a very promising young rider.

The cases of Kenny Carter and Billy Sanders were both over a woman, though, P28N.

This is getting very silly - worthy of a Monty Python sketch!

Yes, I was wondering whether the Vatican GP would be staged at Nuremberg on behalf of Pope Benedict....

You're referring to Kenny Carter, but Billy Sanders also took his own life. RIP

In fact 6 world titles in the past 52 years (Craven twice, Collins, Lee, Havelock and Loram.) Not great, is it?