Finnish News

[f-s-p 832]

Petri Koskela will replace Joni Keskinen in the EC-qualifier in Hungary and Juha Hautamäki will replace Kauko Nieminen at Czhestochowa.

Edited May 13, 2008 by f-s-p

[f-s-p 832]

I finally got my hands on the results from Hallstavik's practise meeting.

 

Suomi 51

Rene Lehtinen N322 7

Joni Keskinen 01301 5

Teemu Lahti 21333 12

Kalle Katajisto F3333R 12

Tomi Reima 3N3N 6

Timo Lahti 000 0

Niko Siltaniemi 2013d 6

Aarni Heikkilä 210 3

 

Stjärnorna 45

Linus Jansson 12113 8

Andreas Westlund 310121 8

Niklas Larsson 1T00 1

Jens Oskarsson 32222 11

Robin Burestad 111 3

Peter Wall 12002 5

Jonas Messing 3222 9

Harald Andersson NS

Heat by heat:

1. Westlund, Heikkilä, Jansson, Keskinen

2. Messing, Siltaniemi, Wall, T.Lahti

3. Oskarsson, Lahti, Larsson, Katajisto F

4. Reima, Wall, Burestad, Siltaniemi

5. Katajisto, Messing, Westlund, T.Lahti

6. Lehtinen, Oskarsson, Keskinen, Larsson T

7. Katajisto, Jansson, Lahti, Westlund

8. Katajisto, Oskarsson, Siltaniemi, Larsson

9. Keskinen, Lehtinen, Burestad, Wall

10. Reima, Messing, Jansson, T.Lahti

11. Siltaniemi, Messing, Heikkilä, Wall

12. Lahti, Oskarsson, Burestad, Keskinen

13. Katajisto, Lehtinen, Westlund, Larsson

14. Lahti, Westlund, Jansson, Siltaniemi d

15. Jansson, Wall, Keskinen, Heikkilä

16. Lahti, Oskarsson, Westlund, Katajisto R

 

Pictures from the practise a day earlier here.

Edited May 4, 2008 by f-s-p

[Vicar 2]

When was this meeting?

 

What good finnish speedway sites do you know except teamlaine.com?

Edited May 6, 2008 by Vicar

[f-s-p 832]

When was this meeting?

What good finnish speedway sites do you know except teamlaine.com?

There arent any good websites, except JMS of course (had to edit for that ). Check out www.jarimakinen.fi and the Linkit-section that has all the Finnish links under Suomi.

 

The Hallstavik meeting was on sunday April 20th.

Edited May 6, 2008 by f-s-p

[f-s-p 832]

Just a couple of pointers regarding the Kaj Laukkanen article in Speedway Star (week 18) by Peter Oakes.

 

Laukkanen say's he's the latest Finnish rider to qualify to the U21 semifinal stage...

- Indeed Laukkanen is currently the latest Finn to be in a shouting distance of the title itself. A win in his last heat back in 1995 would have given him the U21 title, but he came third. Like written at the time by Lasse K Laitinen in the local paper Laukkanen was late from the tapes, as have been known to happen later in his career also. He also qualified for the final in 1996. After that Joonas Kylmäkorpi came 5th in the 2000 final and lost a final place in a runoff in his semi 2001. Also Kauko Nieminen qualified and was a reserve in the semifinal back in 2000. Since then it's been very quiet with Tero Aarnio being the closest back in 2004 losing a reserve slot by finishing last in his semifinal heat in the Scandinavian qualifier.

 

Regarding the two team tournaments...

- Not all the teams were happy about it last year. The whole situation came like a lightning from a blue sky. Kaupunki Cup was supposed to/is/has been be aimed for the up and coming or otherwise starting riders. Well last year sometime during late March new rules were presented to the clubs that had shown interest in the past (not to all the clubs) to ride in the KC. As a result the idea of it being a beginners league was tossed out the window and in the first round of the KC at Seinäjoki most of the 14 riders present had represented Finland in SWC qualifiers. This is how it went through the season and in the end it worked OK, alltough not all the meetings were ridden because there wasn’t enough date’s or similar reasons. I wouldn’t say to any reporter that it was a success or even OK regarding crowd figures. Or that the meeting format was the reason it got good crowds. That’s bs. The Pori club saved the figures in both our leagues. They’ve been doing a good job in bringing new people through the gates for a few years now. On 17th of May (week from now) they are having Yyteri Speedway and have distributed 9000 free tickets to the local schools. Their aim is to break 2000 spectators.

- During 1997 the Finnish league was run with the British format. A friend who rode in the championship winning team that year recently said that R/R was used plenty of times as teams regularly turned up with only five or six riders. I remember being present at a meeting at Kaanaa, Tampere. Petri Kokko scored a full max and thanked our efforts in supporting him by a decent set of wheelies after the meeting. I know they were meant for us since there were only three of us in that sector of the grandstand. The other twenty were at the other end of the stand…

- The fact is that the some Finnish clubs don’t want to organize more than the two home league meetings they do. Without these clubs there isn’t gonna be a league of any sort. They are not the smallest clubs either. Credit to them for what they are doing in getting the things done they do now.

- It has been discussed in almost every conference in recent years that the only way for Finnish speedway to get staged is to have no points limit allowing clubs to use local riders in order to get people come and see them. Introducing points limits will break this and since some of the clubs don’t even pay points money it would leave some riders without team place. Not even Kaj Laukkanen is ready to ride for the Kuusankoski team for no money.

- The number of Finnish riders is also our downfall at the moment. Riders of similar age as Laukkanen are starting to retire and we dont have a half a dozen new riders coming in next year. We are on the far edge of the speedway world paying crappy points money, so there's only so many riders of a decent level that will come and ride here.

 

Regarding the Laukkanen dossier

- I’d say there something odd in his look towards Finnish youngsters when he totally neglects Teemu Lahti. Lahti is the 80 cc Finnish champion from 2004, 3rd in the U21 –05, U21 champion 2006 and 2nd in the U21 –07 and also finished 5th in last years individual final (hometrack but still). He was also a part of the Extraliiga winning Keittiöpiste in the past two seasons and also has won the pairs title in the last two years…

 

Deveploment of Finnish youngsters

- Finnish federation has offered to fund a junior program to get new riders in to the 80cc scene. Aake Mustonen successfully ran the program for a couple years resulting in the very first Finnish 80cc league back in 2003. There has always been junior riders riding in Sweden and in the occasional Finnish meeting, but suddenly there was over 10 riders more and voila, we had a league. After Mustonen quit, other people tried but couldn’t match his results. In last years conference (funding was still available) the plug was pulled on the whole thing for the last time making the whole 80cc scene the responsibility of the local clubs. This is not to blame any single individual, but a fact that no progress had been made on that front in the last two years. Thankfully the new track racing supremo is trying to re-launch it. What will happen nobody knows. I’ll keep you informed.

 

Speedway career of a Finnish youngster

- An example was given in Kalle Katajisto how a young (Finnish) rider can move to UK and live from speedway. Here are the stats for Kalle: 3 months of living in the UK, 21 meetings and an average of 1,8 points per match. This according to premierspeedway.co.uk. There’s been plenty of post’s on BSF regarding the amount that a rookie gets paid per point. Add the fact that Kalle’s dad took 3 months leave from work without pay losing a quarter of his annual income. They also bought at least one new bike for the trip and lived with Laukkanen in Manchester. You do the math if it was financially worth it. I’ll just say that I’m giving a HUGE credit to Kalle’s parents for making/allowing it to happen. Direct quote from Timo Katajisto himself says that 95% of the expenses in Katajisto Racing comes from the family pocket.

- Total number of meetings in Finland was “about” accurate. Last year we had 10 Kaupunki Cup meetings, 12 Extraliiga meetings, 3 individuals, 3 Championship meetings (including U21) and the U19 qualifier. All this while taking in to account the rules of the different leagues allowed for a young rider to take part in 24 meetings. He just had to be good enough to get in to the pairs. Appe Mustonen did about 18 speedway meetings in Finland last season with a few longtrack meetings on top of that. He was the busiest. For this season the rules have changed again and it’s not possible to ride in that many meetings. Even 15 might be too much. But even still we have riders who cant financially survive the whole season and not ride in meetings the middle of the season.

- Jari Mäkinen’s move to the Premier league was blocked by BSPA’s assessed average last season. He still managed to ride in about 35 meetings last year with a couple of short breaks due to injuries. That includes a few appearances in the UK and other countries after our season had ended. He also did a full season in the Swedish 1st division, a league that was closed for foreigners this year. With Allsvenskan being only five teams also a new and real problem has arisen, since last year I think we had eight riders riding in the Swedish 1st division. Almost all of them are now on the mercy of the Finnish calendar, since they are not good enough or interested in riding in the UK for example. This just to point out that you can do 35 meetings in a season without living in the UK for 7 months/year. You can also keep practising while you’re at it. You don’t need to do 80 meetings per season in three countries at the age of 17 to make steady and even fast progress.

 

Crowd figures in Finland 2007

Kaupunki Cup 2-team tournament

LahtiForssa – Pori 95, LahtiForssa – Sjoki 90, LahtiForssa – Kauhajoki “rainoff”, Pori – LahtiForssa 310, Pori – Sjoki 180, Pori – Kauhajoki 142, Seinäjoki – LahtiForssa “rainoff”, Seinäjoki – Pori 35, Seinäjoki – Kauhajoki 115, Kauhajoki – LahtiForssa 70, Kauhajoki – Pori 100, Kauhajoki – Seinäjoki 70, Total of 1207 with an average of 121

 

Extraliiga 4-team tournament

1/12 Pori 322, 2/12 Kauhajoki 198, 3/12 Seinäjoki 177, 4/12 Lahti 350, 5/12 Sjoki/Vaasa 70, 6/12 Kuusankoski 210, 7/12 Seinäjoki 122, 8/12 Pori 265, 9/12 Kauhajoki 100, 10/12 Sjoki/Vaasa 40, 11/12 Lahti 125, 12/12 Kuusankoski 210. Total of 2189 with an average of 182.

 

As the crowd figures show, there’s plenty of work to be done to get more people through the gates. Seinäjoki as the most successful club in the past ten years (Laukkanen’s home club) has a lot of work to do too. Maybe instead of trying to force others to a system that is more expensive, more work yet has no guarantees of being a success they should try and make their own “business” an example of how things are run first. Changing the meeting format doesn’t make riders better in a year or two. It might give a more media sexy scoreline of “ Seinäjoki 46 – Kauhajoki 44” but if the riders and racing are/is still crap…

 

The problem I have with the article in question, is that it gives a very negative picture of the current state of Finnish speedway and that’s not true. We have loads of new and wonderful people working in the sport. The Finnish league was at it’s lowest a few years ago when it had five teams with 3 riders each! It was back to four man teams only a couple of years ago. Yrjö Laukkanen came on board as the “boss” for 2006 and as “the train had already left” we had a “4man6team” league in 2006. For 2007 Laukkanen had the time and tried to enforce 7man teams and a 6team league. He had a well represented case to show at the conference, but the reality in the clubs was totally different. Cant remember how many, but I think only three clubs wanted to take part in that league. In the end a “4team4rider” league was in place for 2007. For 2008 he planned the Danish model, but this time only three clubs enlisted resulting in a “4team4rider” league with 5 teams for the coming season too. If there’s any sense in people’s heads they will lock this option for 2009 in the conference after the season giving clubs the chance to get organized in time during the winter. I know for sure that the track at Seinäjoki might be gone by next year, alltough they are told to be given a new site before closing Routakallio. Kuusankoski has the same situation. Lahti and Pori are safe for a few years to go and Kauhajoki is brand new so they might have longer. If an over ambitious move, like the Danish format (and it is over ambitious), would now be forced in to action, it would without a doubt put an end to at least one club’s involvement in Extraliiga speedway. In the long run it would close their track. Forever.

 

These things don’t make me angry. They are facts that I/we have to live with.

 

Most of this is documented in the Finnish News threads of the past, so I’m not just making this up. If it's not, then it's just traslated from the stories I've done in Finnish.

[f-s-p 832]

This years Extraliiga started off worst than anyone could have expected. The meeting was abandoned after Timo Villanen hit the fence in heat 7. He picked some drive on a very soft track as he was getting his wheels in line entering the home straight and wheelied across the track hitting and stopping on impact to the fence. The extent of his injuries are currently unknown, but I'm told he was first taken to the local hospital at Seinäjoki, where they very quickly decided to move him to Tampere. Even one of our national tabloids have picked up on this tragic news... EDIT His injuries are not life threatening though, thank god.

 

Apart from heat 1 and the re-run of it the track was very poor. The track had been left untouched after last season and had received new material last weekend. Thankfully the crushed granite was sized under 7mm this season (not 8-12mm like last year). I'm told that it was unrideable even as late as last tuesday. Anyway it had not binded, and the watering was left until the start of the match. It had a serious dust problem from the start and it was getting softer on every lap. I did not see the crash itself, as Kaj Laukkanen was losing control at the same time on the other end of the track. That give's a pretty good impression on how bad it was. The riders then got together and informed that they would not ride anymore leaving the ref no other option but to call the meeting off.

 

Couple of other notes from the meeting... Jari Mäkinen was pretty well on the pace in heat one, until his new JRM FIM-approved kill switch malfunctioned entering turn 3. I just wonder if FIM is trying to kill a couple of riders with this rule so they can stop speedway for good. Idiots. I read from SS that even the GP-riders havent got them to work and they were allowed to use the old ones in Krsko. Why force a rule that isn't possible (yet) to be carried out. Thankfully no one hit Mäkinen as his bike straightened. Mäkinen's engine got running again before he stopped and that eventually resulted him touching the fence and falling. In the re-run Tomi "Silver Bullet" Reima outgated Kaj "Speedway Superstar" Laukkanen from the outside and led from tapes to finish without giving any kind of chance for Laukkanen. Katajisto wasn't all that far back.

 

Joni Keskinen starts his journey towards UK today with a practise scheduled for tuesday at STMP. Keskinen had tried his bikes on thursday at Routakallio resulting in a fall and a sore neck. He was supposed to ride yesterday but Rene Lehtinen took his place.

 

Extraliiga 1/10 Seinäjoki 9.5.2008

 

Kotkat 13

Kaj Laukkanen - 2 - 2

Juha Hautamäki - 33 - 6

Rene Lehtinen - 3 - 3

Petteri Koivunen - 11 - 2

 

Paholaiset 10

Jari Mäkinen - d3 - 3

Petri Koskela - 1 - 1

Marko Suojanen - 22 - 4

Alexander Edberg - 2 - 2

 

Jokerit 8

Kalle Katajisto - 1 - 1

Jani Eerikäinen - 02 - 2

Timo Villanen - 1 - 1

Markku Autio - 31 - 4

 

Haukat-Royals 5

Tomi Reima - 30 - 3

Juha Mäkelä - 2 - 2

Joni Kitala - 00 - 0

Aarni Heikkilä - 0 - 0

 

Heat by heat:

1. Reima, Laukkanen, Katajisto, Mäkinen d 63,12

2. Hautamäki, Mäkelä, Koskela, Eerikäinen 63,12

3. Lehtinen, Suojanen, Villanen, Kitala 64,20

4. Autio, Edberg, Koivunen, Heikkilä 64,96

5. Mäkinen, Eerikäinen, Koivunen, Kitala 65,55

6. Hautamäki, Suojanen, Autio, Reima 64,01

Meeting called off after a crash in heat seven, result

will not stand and the match will be re-staged

at a later date.

 

EDITED

There was a mistake in the results.

Edited May 12, 2008 by f-s-p

[tarabanko 5]

Heard from Alex Edberg's father that Timo is badly injured.

Fredrik heard that Timo is paralysed from the chest down, broken ribs and internal injuries.

If it is true it is so f*cking sad. Not another rider put in a wheelchair :cry: :cry:

 

/ Mikael

Edited May 11, 2008 by tarabanko

[f-s-p 832]

Heard from Alex Edberg's father that Timo is badly injured.

Fredrik heard that Timo is paralysed from the chest down, broken ribs and internal injuries.

If it is true it is so f*cking sad. Not another rider put in a wheelchair

/ Mikael

Thats what I've heard too. Was gonna wait until tomorrow to find new info. I'm told in cases like this 48 hrs is the time it takes for some of the swelling go away, so I was hoping he might get his legs moving again...

[tarabanko 5]

Thats what I've heard too. Was gonna wait until tomorrow to find new info. I'm told in cases like this 48 hrs is the time it takes for some of the swelling go away, so I was hoping he might get his legs moving again...

 

Yes its true that it takes upto 48 hours to some swelling to go down, so we can only hope for the BEST!

:cry:

Edited May 11, 2008 by tarabanko

[f-s-p 832]

Yes its true that it takes upto 48 hours to some swelling to go down, so we can only hope for the BEST!

:cry:

 

I'm hoping for an official press release on the subject. We'll just have to wait.

[Vicar 2]

Isn't there mistake in results? I didn't see second Laukkanen's heat. Doesn't he had only 2 (2)?

Edited May 12, 2008 by Vicar

[tomazpozrl 8]

f-s-p, do you perhaps know which riders will represent Finland in SWC qualifier in Ljubljana? I'm starting to work on the programme for the meeting and I need names and details .

[f-s-p 832]

f-s-p, do you perhaps know which riders will represent Finland in SWC qualifier in Ljubljana? I'm starting to work on the programme for the meeting and I need names and details .

Hautamäki, Laukkanen, Nieminen and Kylmäkorpi are certain with the fifth decided later. They all have websites and you can find the links to their sites via the JMS-link in my sig. You need pics?

[Anders 0]

Hautamäki, Laukkanen, Nieminen and Kylmäkorpi are certain with the fifth decided later.

 

Can it be anyone else than Tero Aarnio? Must admit he has surprised me with his scores for Berwick so far.

[f-s-p 832]

Can it be anyone else than Tero Aarnio? Must admit he has surprised me with his scores for Berwick so far.

Aarnio has a good chance of getting there. Riders like Lehtinen, Aarnio and even Mäkinen were all known to be busy and riding around Europe from the start. The door is/was left open for them to prove themselves. I'm with you on this one, Aarnio has been surprisingly good.