Bavarian

Just for fun, here's my current Top Ten of German speedway riders: 1 - Martin Smolinski 2 - Kevin Wölbert 3 - Kai Huckenbeck 4 - Erik Riss 5 - Max Dilger 6 - Michael Härtel 7 - Tobias Busch 8 - Mark Riss 9 - Lukas Fienhage 10 - Valentin Grobauer

Oh no, don't panic, he's definitely not another Henning Loof, who was a no hoper, even here in Germany. Grobauer is a pretty good speedway rider, much better rider than Loof. He's a useful second string for my local Bundesliga Club Landshut. I would rate Grobauer in the top 10 here in Germany. He has made steady progress in recent years, riding in Poland's second division last year. It will be interestuing how he adopts to British speedway. That's always unpredictable, as it is a complete change of livestyle. It may be a gamble for Somerset, but he could turn out to be a good signing. After all, the SGB Championship is not full of world beaters theses days. Grobauer may surprise a few over there. He deserves a fair chance.

Grobauer is a team mate of Mark Riss at Landshut in the German Bundesliga. He is not yet riding at the same level as the Riss brothers, but is not far behind Mark Riss in the German league averages.

Norwegian speedway rider Edgar Stangeland in the colours of Newport Wasps

... and here's a team picture with the Gordeev brothers in the USSR Test Team on their 1974 UK tour http://www.internationalspeedway.co.uk/engvsu.htm Valeri Gordeev (no.1) and Vladimir Gordeev (no.2) in the front row (center left side)

... and here is a picture of the Gordeev Brothers ! Valeri is seen on the left side of this picture (wearing the USSR No.9 racejacket) and his elder brother Vladimir is on the right

1928 to 1931 1949 to 1955 1970 to 1983 1990 to 1995

my favorite Aussie rider was Bob Valentine and the rest of my personal top 10 includes Alan Rivett, Steve Regeling, Rod Hunter, John Titman, and Gary Guglielmi. ... and my favorite Aussie of the pre-war era, is the one-and-only Sig Schlam plus Frank Pearce, Ernie Evans, and Tiger Lewis. there are so many more, of course

Russian International Sergy Darkin is a native of Uzbekistan, formerly of course part of the USSR

Here are some magazine quotes of 1928/29 about Irish Speedway IRELAND From MOTORCYCLING: 19 September 1928 A COMPANY with the title The Belfast Speedway And Sports Club, Ltd., are to erect, at an estimated cost of 15,000 Pounds, a dirt track known as Looplands, and situated in Belfast between the Castlereagh and Cregagh roads. From THE MOTOR CYCLE: 20 September 1928 IRELAND’S FIRST TASTE OF THE DIRT ON a track which in the opinion of Buzz Hibbert and Taffy Williams, compares favourably with many in England, Ireland’s first cinder meeting was held by the Leinster Club in Dublin on Saturday. Apart from exhibitions given by Hibbert and Williams, the feature of the meeting was the riding of T. G. Byrne (Ariel), T. Jenkinson and P. Keville, local lads who were only introduced to the cinders a month or so ago. Best time for the mile (four laps) was 1 m. 43 s. by Hibbert. From THE AUTO –Motor Journal: 23 May 1929 Larry Coffey, the North of Ireland champion, has now signed on with the B.D.T.R.A. Ltd., for their Manchester White City track. Larry was a popular favourite with Salford crowds towards the end of last season. So far he has not managed to reproduce last season’s form, but there is still time for improvement. From THE AUTO –Motor Journal: 20 June 1929 “Dab” Boston, the half-mile champion of the United States, was the premier attraction at the Audenshaw meeting on June 15th, and he justified his inclusion by winning the third place in the final of the “Flying Nine” Scratch race, which was won by E. Jennings (Rochdale) with Larry Coffey, the Northern Irish champion second, in 2 min., 27 4/5 secs., for the two miles. From THE AUTO –Motor Journal: 20 June 1929 Larry Coffey, the Northern Irish champion, provided the thrills at the Audenshaw half mile track on June 18th. From THE AUTO –Motor Journal: 15 August 1929 An Irish correspondent reports that there is every sign that the old B.D.T.R.A. track at Windsor Park in Belfast is likely to be re-opened very soon. The Motor Cycle Union of Ireland have already been approached and have informed the Company that provided all the rules and regulations of the Union are complied with, a permit will be issued for their meetings. The new Company has amongst its directors two well-known figures in the Northern Speedway World, C. J. P. Dodson and “Ossie” Wade, and with these two live wires at the head of affairs it should not be long before there is something doing.

Fay Taylour certainly was/is the most famous of all the Irish spedway products. However, I rate another late 1920's pioneer rider from Belfast way above her. The largely forgotten Larry Coffey was a great rider but unfortunately his career didn't last long enough, as he was killed ca.1930 in a race accident, not sure at which track, though Of the 1950s the top two Irish speedway riders were Dom Perry and Eric French, some others from Dublin were Alan Marr, Ginger O'Bierne, Mick Savage, Des Monson, Derek Edwardes, and Cherlei O'Hara.

... and this Gene Tella (the French referred to him as Mohammed Tella in their World Championship programme) was certainly the one and only Abyssinian / Ethiopian speedway rider I have ever heard of. He may have been the son of an Abyssinian diplomat in Vienna, where he started his motorcycle race career in the early 1930s, with a little help from Leopold Killmeyer and the Austrian Motor Riders Club.

Sabrina Bogh certainly was the most successful of all the young speedway girls I remember. Michaela Krupickova from the Czeh Republic was also quite good a few years ago.

My top four Norwegian speedway riders of the 1950's period would be: 1 Leif "Basse" Hveem 2 Henry "Stompa" Andersen 3 Reidar Kristoffersen 4 Aage Hansen Four of the of the 1960s/70s era: 5 Sverre Harrfeldt 6 Reidar Eide 7 Dag Lovaas 8 Edgar Stangeland and two of the 80s/90s/2000s: 9 Lars Gunnestad 10 Rune Holta

We had and have a few girls racing on our speedways and longtracks here in Germany. Our current number one is 17-year old Celina Liebmann. Nadine Frenk was quite a usefull long-track and grass-track rider until a few years ago. In the 1970s there was Petra Lange, to the best of my knowledge the very first German female solo rider in long-track racing, and in the late 80's-early 90's Tanja Jöckel rode speedway at senior level. She even rode Overseas in the Argentinean Championships. Currently there's plenty of girls competing in the youth classes here iin Germany.

Tella lived in Vienna and rode in Austrian Long-track meetings in the 1930. He sometimes did accompany Austrian number one Leopold "Poldi" Killmeyer for race meetings in some other countries on the Continent. Tella once competed in the unofficial Dirt Track World Championship in Paris, France.

Do they really expect Speedway to become popular with the younger Generation just because supporters can vote for the line-ups in the nominated riders race? Forget it. All it does is alienate the old fans even more.

Total rubbish this. The team manager alone should decide. Imagine this in any other sport, supporters voting for player's substitutions in Football. Come on, man!!! This is another unneeded gimmick. The BSPA is making a mockery of this once great sport of speedway racing. Just as bad as the Golden Joker for double points. I for one can't take this Supporters Cup serious. Too bad the traditional Knock-Out Cup has been sacrificed for that.

Can't believe the problems You have with the visas for Your British Commonwealth Australian brothers. Yet, here doesn't seem to be such problems if an Aussie comes over to base himself and ride in Poland or Sweden or anywhere else in the EU! Why??? How is this Problem solved in other professional sports in the UK, like in football, rugby or cricket? Do they have the same visa problems as speedway has?

at Stralsund in Germany

Nothing compares to the magnificent Hamburg dirt-track, no other track received such good publicity and newspaper coverage, and no other had so many and such great international riders, as You will find out. The Hamburg promoters payed out fortunes to these international stars, which eventually led them to bankrupcy. I am sure that there were some other tracks in Germany in the early 1930s boom years, such as Saarbrücken, that are still unknown to me. By the way, another pre-war German dirt-track venue I just remember and forgot to name yesterday was this one here at Gladbeck https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadion_Gladbeck

Interesting topic this ! Well I already knew about the Cologne Dirt-Track, promoted by an Englishman, in November/December 1929, but it did not last long. They staged the opening meeting in late November of 1929, and another two in bitterly cold conditions in early December, before closing for the winter. The Cologne track re-opened on Easter Monday in April of 1930, when Slider Shuttleworth was the winner of the opening main event. The track was 350m long. Other tracks popped-up all over Germany like mushrooms, following the huge succcess of the Hamburg Dirt Track, which had been Germany's first purpose built venue for motorcycle dirt-track racing, opening in July of 1929. But none of the other tracks in Germany would be able to match the success story of Hamburg, and even Hamburg itself closed down for some reason after a few years. Berlin was always thought to be an even bigger would-be success than Hamburg, but this did not go according to plan. The scheduled opening meeting early in 1930 was "snowed-off" on a very cold day in March. A week later, about 8,000 spectators attended for the re-staging on a Sunday afternoon. Englishmen Nobby Key and Gus Platts, and the New Zealander Spencer Stratton rode in Berlin's inaugural dirt track meeting. The Berlin track was only 333 metres long, much shorter than the Hamburg 1/3-mile oval (532 metres length). Berlin's dirt track was laid inside of an existing concrete banked cycle track at the "Olympia Radrennbahn". This was a similar set-up to the one at Cologne, and just the same as several other German tracks (Breslau, Chemnitz, etc). But somehow these type of racetracks on the infield of a Velodrome did not seem to appeal to the public. It is hard to understand why, because in Paris (France) this exact same type of set-up worked brilliantly and drew big crowds for many a year at the huge Stade-Velodrome Buffalo. One of the more successful conventional dirt track set-ups in Germany was the one in Munich (Bavaria). This was a big 400m track around a football pitch at the Postsport Stadium, located not far from the Munich Central Train Station. A 15,000 crowd saw Nobby Key take the win in the international event of the Munich dirt-track season opener on the last Sunday of March, 1930. Another rather successful German dirt-track, a big and pacey oval of originally 440m length, was the one at the Niederrhein Stadium in Oberhausen (Rhineland). This was in fact the only one of the German pre-war tracks that was re-opened again after the war years and continued to stage speedway, even FIM World Championship rounds, up until the 1960s. In 1930, all in all there were at least about another dozen or so dirt-track venues in Germany, for example at Stuttgart, Hannover, Breslau, Dortmund, Essen, Mannheim, Chemnitz, etc., but none of these lasted long. Germany's pre-war Dirt-Track "craze" came and went very fast, within a year or two, starting in 1929, reaching its climax in 1930, and then dying out very fast and nearly completely in the next couple of years. By the way, I had no knowledge about the Saarbrücken track You mentioned here. Do You have any more info about any race meetings at Saarbrücken-Dudweiler ?

ECSR Southern X Sidecar Teams Championship Australia V New Zealand (select) Plus Speedway Sidecar Support Oakburn Park Speedway, Tamworth Friday Night 11th October 2019 ECSR Southern X Sidecar Individual Championship This will also double as RD2 of the 2019 ECSR series. ALL NOMINATIONS ACCEPTED Oakburn Park Speedway, Tamworth Saturday 12th October 2019 The ECSR Southern X Sidecar Championships was originally going to be run over two rounds, however due to a number of factors, 2019 Championships will be run over one round for each, “teams” & “individual” at Tamworth, on the dates as listed above. There will be a HUGE tow money/prize money pool of $12,000 on offer for the ECSR Southern X Sidecar Championships double header on the Friday & Saturday nights of racing! CALLING ALL KIWI TEAMS!!! We would like to invite any New Zealand Sidecar Teams that are interested in racing in Australia in our series & the ECSR Southern X Sidecar Championships in 2019, to put forward their EOI to me via email ... garnhams@bigpond.com or phone +61 412858666. A rough timetable is to have you here in Oz by September or even earlier, and have your bike loaded some time after the Indoor race meeting on 30th November, ready for shipping back to NZ. At this stage we don’t have a limit on the bikes to come over, but are hoping for at least 8 Kiwi teams in total will compete in our series and in the ECSR Southern X Sidecar Teams Championships against the Aussies! Initial thoughts are that the NZ bikes will be based out of Newcastle, where we have free storage available & only 3.5 hours from Tamworth. Newcastle is about 2 hrs drive or 3 hrs on the train from Sydney, 9 hrs drive from Brisbane, or about 1 hour flight from Brisbane or Melbourne. Costs..... Each Kiwi bike that we are transporting across the ditch, will contribute $1,000 to that freight cost, with the ECSR & hopefully some sponsors, picking up the balance. As we did when the Aussie team went across the ditch in 2017, we encourage the sidecar teams to do a bit of fundraising or maybe arrange a fundraising race meeting to help us make this happen & keep it happening. As we are a not-for-profit entity, we would love to have sponsors from both countries help us fund this task and make it all happen, so feel free to get in touch and donate some coin, remembering that tax Invoices are supplied for all sponsorship donations. The 2019 series is looking exciting and once again, has a few unique pieces in the puzzle, just to give the racers & new challenge!! Keep an ear to the ground for some fundraising to bring the Kiwis to Oz! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1658284211101515/permalink/2140781266185138/

2019 SOUTHERN CROSS SIDECAR TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS - AUSTRALIA v NEW ZEALAND (Select) Just so everyone is aware, the Australian team to take on the Kiwis this year in a two round ECSR Australia v New Zealand (Select)Test Match Series, will be results based for the majority of the team, with two wild card selections making up the balance of the Australian team. To be eligible for selection in the Australian (Select) team, including as a ‘wild card’, you must have competed in a minimum of three ECSR events since the start of our series in 2015. This is for obvious reasons and our way of saying ‘thank you’ for supporting the ECSR series. The inaugural running of the ECSR Southern X Sidecar Championships in 2019, will be two DOUBLE HEADERS (Friday & Saturday nights at the same venue) consisting of ..... • a two round individual championship run on the Friday night of each double header, • a two round Australia v New Zealand (Select) teams championships run on the Saturday night of each double header So the ‘Southern X' Sidecar Individual Championship will be run over two rounds. The 'Southern X' Sidecar Teams Championship will also be run over two rounds. It is anticipated that each double header will be 4 to 8 weeks apart with dates and venues to be announced once we have confirmed them, but one venue is definitely Tamworth, the other we are still negotiating. Remember you must have raced in 3 ECSR events to be in the running for the Aussie team!! For the Kiwis, obviously you are all invited to compete in the Friday night individual Southern X Sidecar Championships. The Kiwi team will also be selected from results and if we are lucky enough to have more than 8 Kiwi teams competing, results and ECSR support will also form part of the selection process. If there are any Kiwi teams in NZ that would be interested in racing in Oz in this championship, please contact either Aiden Thwaites or myself. We know there is a fair number already racing in Oz but would like a minimum of 8 Kiwi outfits if that is possible & would certainly welcome more if you want to compete. We will be trying to include some other race meets while the Kiwi teams are in Aussie, like an indoor sidecar meeting, but will have more on that in due course, assuming we can get the venue etc.

In 2019 the F.I.M. runs an official Individual Flat Track Motorcycle World Cup series over three finals. http://www.fim-live.com/en/sport/sport/flat-track/ F.I.M. Flat Track World Cup 2019: July 13, 2019 - Final 1 at Terenzano (Italy) September 7, 2019 - Final 2 at Morizès (France) September 14, 2019 - Final 3 at Misano (Italy) This year, the F.I.M. Flat Track Cup final was held as a one-off Event at Misano (Italy) on September 8, 2018. http://www.fim-live.com/en/sport/ranking/flat-track/ 2018 F.I.M. Flat Track Cup results: 1st ... Francesco Cecchini (Italy) 2nd ... Gerard Bailo (Spain) 3rd ... Franc Serra (Spain) 4th ... Ferran Sastre (Spain) 5th ... Mikko Kostinen (Finland) 6th ... Adrian Garin (Spain) 7th ... Maikel Dijkstra (Netherlands) 8th ... Guillermo Cano (Spain) 9th ... Lasse Kurvinen (Finland) 10th ... Gianni Borgiotti (Italy) 11th ... Hanson Schruf (Austria) 12th ... Niclas Poytalaakso (Finland) 13th ... Lorenzo Villamagna (Italy) 14th ... Pavel Pucko (Czech Republic) 15th ... Carlos Espinosa (Spain) 16th ... Paolo Piccinini (Italy) 17th ... Florian Eder (Austria) 18th ... Yasmin Poppenreiter (Austria) 19th ... Wilfried Delestre (France) 20th ... Jiri Kraus (Czech Republic) 21th ... Vaclav Gehart (Czech Republic) .