Bavarian

Slovakia

... and Edward Kennett has broken his arm in this meeting.

True ! But what a stupid rule anyway ! Martin Smolinski is prevented from riding in a German 2nd Division meeting at Landshut today ! The local fans expecting to see him here are not happy !

The European Ice Racing Champion Igor Kononov has return to speedway racign this year, re-satrtign hsi summer career with STK Oktyabrsky, the club were he started out as a junior speedway rider. Interview with Kononov in Russian with English subtitles

Riders schould not be excluded for a tapes offence, especially in this pairs event. Imagine this happening in any of the semi-finals or final heats, when one rider on his own can't beat the other pair, even if he wins the race! Any offending rider should be penalised with a 15m handicap for the re-start, but no exclusion.

Tomorrow's encounter in Poznan will be the 54th Poland v Sweden speedway test match. It is nearly 27 years since their last meeting, when the Swedes defeated the Poles by 67 points to 41 at Linköping, on 29 August 1991 The Overall Test Match record (since 1949) between these two nations reads: Test Matches: 53 Sweden wins: 28 Poland wins: 25 See all the matches raced in Poland here http://www.internationalspeedway.co.uk/polvswe.htm and all the matches raced in Sweden here http://www.internationalspeedway.co.uk/swevpol.htm

Erik Riss is not picked either. And it was Riss and Huckenbeck who finished fourth in last year's World Games Best Pairs Event in Wroclaw. The dilema for the TM is that You only have two SoN spots to fill now instead of four in the SWC. He could never leave out Smolinski, who is the most experienced of all the German riders and has been the top and only reliable point scorer in most of the Germans' SWC appearances. So it was a straight choice between Wölbert and Huckenbeck, and the Team Manager has decided against Wölbert. I can see nothing wrong with that desicion.

Apparently the Poles are selling two-days tickets only for the SoN Finals on Friday and Saturday. They need to, otherwise the stadium would be half empty on the Friday.

Best Swedish line-up possible - I am looking forward to their performance against the mighty Poles !

The current formula in the SGP with sixteen riders, twenty heats, two semis, and the final, and all points scored counting for the world cahmpionship is simply the best they ever had.

Torun is a club rumoured to be run by the so-called "Polish Speedway Mafia". Some very unpleasant peole involved there, but they seem to have a lot of influence in Polish speedway. Lots of money on offer for the riders. Each year they can buy the very best of riders, but no wonder the riders don't feel happy riding for this club and often perfom below expectations when riding in the Torun colours. Last year they were nearly relegated, but escaped under suspicious circumstances. There was a bribery scandal when Torun were riding in the relegation matches with Gdansk and someone (said to be a sponsor of the Torun club) offered one of the Gdansk riders (Kacper Gomolski) lots of money if he doesn't perfom so well, has just been swept under the carpet. Gomolski went to his Team Manager and they informed the PZM. But nothign much happend. The Torun Club escaped without punishment ! It's a scandal ! By the way, the Torun team loses more an more of their supporters. Friday night's crowd at Torun for their home match against the league's number one Team Unia Leszno was disappointing to say the least (less than 5,000).

Germany has Michael Härtel and Lukas Finhage still under 21 years old

Holder didn't have a Crash in the Torun meeting last night. Did something happen to him in the pits?

For a round of the Czech U21 Championship, including the 125cc U16 Championship round, at Plzen a couple of weeks ago, the admission prize was 60 Czech Crowns (ca. 2 GBP), and this was inclusive of a full coloured 12 page progamme. Still there were less than a hundred spectators in attendance.

Could a new (fourth) rider come in on the secdon day (Saturday) of the final to replace a rider who was injured on the first day (Friday) of the final and is unable to ride on Day Two?

An Overseas Final as an regional qualifying round before teh SGP Challenge would be a very attractive meeting in itself. As it would carry a title of its own (Overseas Champion) it is certainly more attractive than the current annonymous SGP Qualifying rounds. that we again have spread out across the continent, taking place in Slovakia, Germany, Denmark and Italy over this weekend. Imagine an annual Overseas Final with 6 British, 6 Australian, 2 USA, 1 New Zealand, and 1 Argentinean rider. (No places needed for Canada or South Africa at the moment) Top 5 from the Overseas Final to go through to the SGP Challenge. Add the top 5 from a Nordic Final with 6 Danes, 6 Swedes, 2 Finns, and 2 Norwegians, and with the top 5 from a highly competitive Continental Final with the top Poles, Russians, Czechs, Germans, and all the other European nations, who should probably contest some preliminatry roudns first, to give each nation a fair number of representatives. That makes 15 qualified riders for the SGP Challnege, plus one seeded rider of the host nation. Top 3 from the Challenge to qualify for the SGP as we have it.

Agree, it would be better as some riders seem to have only one really outstanding good season, and are unable to replicate this in the following years. For the European Championship (SEC) they do the qualifying rounds at the beginning of the season April / May, before the finals series begins. There is no reason why it couldn't be done in the same way for the SGP World Championship series. I'd like to see something else changed. Why not return to regionalised qualifyiers ? Would spare many a rider much unneccessary traveling. Lets have three zones like we used to have many years ago, with a Continental Final, a Nordic Final, and an Overseas Final (in the UK), from where the top five riders qualify for the SGP Challenge.

... and Vadim Tarasenko is another nephew of the Laguta brothers, he is the son of their sister.

Is Neil Vatcher part of that new Great Britain Speedway Team set-up, or is he working independantly from them ?

It shows us that Denmark as a team are no longer on the same level as Poland, especially when they have to race in Poland. This 31-59 loss is a big one for the Danes and for their manager Hans Nielsen. Wouldn't it be an ideal opportunity now for the new Great Britain Speedway Team management to invite the Danes for short international series of three Test Matches to the UK this summer ? A British Lions Team, maybe with Tai Woffinden, vs Denmark would surely make an attractive Test series with crowd pulling potential !

It is a 4,000 crowd today, understandably small for this match against the Danes, compared to the huge 17,000 the local club team had for their league meeting with Wroclaw the other week.

Taking a look at the Edinburgh fixture list for 2018 I notice that they do have a "Caledonian Riders Championship" on June 6, but I can find no date for the traditional "Scottish Open Championship" ! Will this most prestigeous of all Scottish Individual Speedway events not be held this year ?

but isn't it sad there is no Scotsman riding in this meeting ?

Totally agree with You. I have just returend home from this meeting, and was like all the other people in the stadium covered in dust from head to toe. This was cruel - if speedway was always like that I would never go again. It was not only the tv cameras, we in the stadium could not see the riders at times, either. The Polish promoters of this sereis have a habbit of leaving the tracks dry and dusty. Someone has told me they dont want the advertising boards on the fence covered with wet mud, so that the spnosors nams are always visible. Don't know if that is true. Perhaps they were cautious because some rain was on predicted for later on the day. Anyway, I can't remember seeing such massive dust clouds at a speedway meeting, and so little water being put on the track. I know that the people of AC Landshut would want to prepare their track very differently, but they are not allowed to by the Polish OneSport people, who take full control of this event. One Sport rents the race track and runs the show. Let's hope for the sake of the sport, that we will get a well prepared race track for this year' SGP challenge, which takes place at this track. I am confident it will be good, because AC Landshut will be in Charge of the track again for the SGP Challenge.