Bavarian

Round 15 at Peoria, Illinois (August 18, 2018)

Round 14 at Rapid City, South Dakota (August 7, 2018)

Round 13 at Sturgis, South Dakota (August 5, 2018)

Round 12 at Weedsport, New York (July 7, 2018)

Round 11 at Lima, Ohio (June 30, 2018)

Round 10 at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (June 16, 2018)

Round 9 at Lexington, Kentucky (June 2, 2018)

Round 7/8 at Springfield, Illinois (May 26 & 27, 2018)

Round 6 at Sacramento, California (May 19, 2018)

Round 5 at the Turf Paradise, Phoenix, Arizona (May 12, 2018)

AFT Round 4 at Calistoga, California (May 5, 2018)

AFT Round 3 at the Texas Half-Mile, Fort Worth, Texas (April 28, 2018)

Something to watch in the Off-Season - the American Flat Track 2018 Series on NBC Sports Network, now on YouTube Round 2 at Dixie Speedway, Woodstock, near Atlanta, Georgia

Meeting at Leicester was rained-off and there seems to be no chance of a re-staging so late in the year. Anyone know now who is the British Sidecar Speedway champion of 2018?

Don't think so. Since SGP practise isn't compulsory anymore, the riders will go where the money is, and that is Polish League meetings.

Just like the Hammers have moved from Lakeside to Rye House, maybe the Robins will have to move from Swindon to Oxford one day ?

I can't understand why You need doubling-up of riders. There are loads of Young Aussies waiting to come over, who would be happy fill the teams.

Interesting that Harley-Davidson has taken steps to introduce flat-track motorycle racing to India. We have heard from Armando Casatgna this year that there is some interest to take Speedway racing there, too. https://www.drivespark.com/two-wheelers/2018/flat-track-racing-in-india-harley-davidson-brings-new-motorsport-to-india-025375.html

Following the example set by the rather successful launch of the UEFA Nations League for Football last week, I believe that a scaled down version would work perfectly for Speedway ? Instead of having four Leagues (A B C D) as in fooball, there should possibly be only two (A and B, with two Groups of three teams each) to start with in Speedway. The A League would consist of the big six nations (Great Britain, Poland, Denmark, Australia, Sweden, Russia) The B League would have the next best six nations (Czech Republic, Germany, France, Italy, Ukraine, Latvia) Teams should met each other team in their respective group only once in a round robin style tournament, giving each team one home and one away meeting. This should be determined by draw. The top two from teh Group stages would go on to meet in a Grand finale (possibly two legs home and away). The bottom two from the A League would either get directly relegated and replaced with the two winners of the B League Groups, or alternatively could go into a promotion / relegaton battle against them. This would created a meaningful competition for full six- / seven- / or eight-man International Test Teams in Speedway.

Great News ! I have just read that there will be an AUSTRALIA vs Rest of the WORLD speedway test match series in November/Dezember of 2018.

INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY TEST MATCHES 2018 01/05/2018 @ Pila (PL) . . . POLAND 53, AUSTRALIA 37 13/05/2018 @ Czestochowa (PL) . . . POLAND 59, DENMARK 31 30/05/2018 @ Poznan (PL) . . . POLAND 54, SWEDEN 36 04/08/2018 @ Glasgow (GB) . . . GREAT BRITAIN 33, AUSTRALIA 57 01/09/2018 @ Chorzow (PL) . . . POLAND 46, Rest of the WORLD 44 13/10/2018 @ Dohren (GER) . . . GERMANY 30, Rest of the WORLD 59 13/10/2018 @ Auburn (USA) . . . U.S.A. 52, The WORLD 57 2018 International Season Standings . . . wins - losses (points for-against) 1 - POLAND . . . 4 - 0 (212-148) 2 - Rest of the WORLD . . . 2 - 1 (160-128) 3 - AUSTRALIA . . . 1 - 1 (94-86) 4 - United States of AMERICA . . . 0 - 1 (52-57) 5 - SWEDEN . . . 0 - 1 (36-54) 6 - GREAT BRITAIN . . . 0 - 1 (33-57) 7 - DENMARK . . . 0 - 1 (31-59) 8 - GERMANY . . . 0 - 1 (30-57)

The final at Wembley of the 1973 Daily Mirror International Speedway Tournament is my ultimate favorite Speedway meeting of all-time ! http://www.internationalspeedway.co.uk/tourdmit73.htm How I wish we could have a proper Speedway World Cup Tournament along these lines every four years ! This Meeting has all that I love about the sport. After 19 days of a round-robin tournament with twenty-one meetings held at tracks all over the country with the world's top seven international teams, followed by two semi-finals, the top two of England and Sweden met for the Grand Finale of this wonderful tournment at the greatest of all speedway venues, Wembley, with a fantastic crowd in attendance. Even the tv coverage of this event is better than most of today's often drawn out live coverage, there are no boring breaks between the races, no restarts and warnings for riders moving at the tapes, it is action all the way in a condensed form that keeps everyone's attention high. The introduction of the Swedish and English team riders is beautifully shown before the racing commences. There is no track grading shown and no need for mostly boring interviews with the riders, to fill any gaps between the heats. Commentators Lanning and Briggs make this TV show even more enjoyable to watch. The sound of the old-style speedway bikes (plus the unmistakable smell of the burnt Castrol X oil), engines roaring majestically deep, instead of today's unpleasantly shrill sound, and the 13-heat format (remember: Happiness is 40-38!), and the main event to be followed by a full second half's racing which offered some variety for the spectators. This is all so damned good, I wonder why oh why they ever gave it up for what we have come to today. Poor fools we all are, to have let our once proud Sport go to pieces! Today's speedway promoters and TV producers could learn a lot from how they did it back in 1973 !

dudek n-pedersen madsen lambert

St.Petersburg only have a very basic dirt track oval (next to a mx course) where thy are practising, but there is no proper speeway track/stadium there to stage a meeting. They have ridden their Baltic League home meeting at Riga. Daugavpils Juniors were the best team througout and won four of the five rounds for the inaugural Baltic League Championship. The Ukrainian club Rivne only rode in the opening round but didn't show up for any of the other meetings.

Forget teh Southern hemisphere. This is not intended for that at all, as it would be exceedingly expensive and unrealistic, and could not work in the way suggested above. A Nations League in speedway would be very easy to run. Take Group A with the six nations mentioned above, make a draw of the two Groups of three. Let's say it is Poland, Sweden, and Great Britain drawn in Group 1 , and Denmark, Australia, and Russia in Group 2. (by the way, Australia would probably have to name a British track as their home ground for this competition, if they (or the FIM) will not be able to pay for the visiting team to travel to Australia. Likewise with the USA, who could easily participate in the B League. Teams of therir respective Groups would meet only once, either at home or away, decided by the luck of the draw, giving each nation one home meeting and one away meeting. Let's suppose Great Britian would face Poland in the UK, then the British team would have to travel to Sweden to meet the Swedes over there. Poland would then have their own home meeting against Sweden. To reserve three dates (plus one for the final) in the FIM international calendar, should not be impossible, even more so if this Nations League isn't held each and every year. With only three meetings per group, either first place or last place (or both) would still be undecided until the third and final match in each Group of the Nations League A. Even if one team wins the first and the second meetings and is therefore already confirmed as the Group winners, the third meeting would still decide who finishes last in the Group and gets relegated, an d be replaced by the winner of the Nation League B for the next time. I honestly believe this would be a very popular competition, and it would be taylor-made for national TV stations. The national team in almost any sport attracts the highest attention with the general sports public, that's a fact. Only in speedway there is no such showpiece event for the national teams (we once had a 4-team SWC tournament, but now we only have the F.I.M.'s rather insignificant SoN Best Pairs). It is highly likely that a big tournament with the full national speedway teams such as this supposed Nations League would create much more sponsorship for the national team, and that young riders would find a new achievable goal in their speedway career, aiming to make the national team. If someone says that Poland would nearly always win this competition, they may be right for the time being, but even then this is no different to teh total dominance the All Blacks of New Zealand in Rugby Union International Tests and the World Cup. Yet the All Blacks' dominance has not done the ever rising global popularity of Rugby any harm at all. Speedway should be prepared to take some unprecedented steps to find a new audience and such a Nations League could help it in a big way.