salty

Interesting info, Kiwi. Certainly sounds like it is still a possibility.

Now that is interesting!

Spot on.

You have a strange definition of interesting....

Back to the list of qualifiers, I thought Povazhny had qualified?

With Emil out for the season that is one of the nominations taken care of. As someone else said BSI have dug themselves a bit of a hole by giving Tai a nomination for this season. I am sure they are hoping he can show something in the last 4 GP's to justify sticking with him for next year. More of the same and you can't really justify giving him a pick even taking into account his youth.

Thanks for the photos - looks like a good crowd.

Agree that it makes it a bit pointless to have a run-off. Sets it up for a great final round though.

Are you talking about the Gaffer qualifying from Vojens or getting a nomination? Would have to be the latter, I don't think he qualified for the Challenge Final. Certainly looks fascinating for the weekend and further ahead to see who will make up the 15 for next year. Unless BSI strike lucky, as you say, their nominations system will be under a bit of pressure. I'm sure they will be looking for a Swede and a Brit to qualify from Vojens, to give them a bit more flexibility with their choices, but it's possible that the Brits might be struggling to get their 2 free passes this year.

I was at that match at Plough Lane. Early season League Cup match. Rooted out the programme which shows that Wimbledon were 8 points ahead with 3 races to go and indeed the Cheetahs got 3 consecutive 5-1's to clinch a 37-41 victory. For Oxford Taylor, Wigg and Rasmussen all got paid wins in their last outings and they were their only ones of the night. Gordon Kennett only got 1 point from 4 rides and John Davis was last in Heats 11 and 13 for the Dons. Ref was Reg Trott. Next night Wimbledon won at Oxford.

We'll just have to disagree then. The key word you use is "should" (or as you wrote it shoul), the fact remains that the rules allow Holta to ride as a Pole, just like back in the 60's they allowed Bob Andrews to represent New Zealand even though he had previously ridden for England. If you think that makes sport a "joke" fair enough, but does one Norwegian riding for the country of which he has been a citizen for 8 years make it any more a joke than the England cricket team having 4 South African born players and an Irishman?

Try writing your second sentence in English then I'll know what point you are trying to make. My comment about the English cricket team was in response to Sudden Sam's comments so needs to be taken in context. Whether they have played tests or not is splitting hairs really, Pietersen and Trott for example were both born and raised in South Africa and played for their Youth team. Morgan was born and raised in Dublin and played a number of 1 day internationals for Ireland.

I take it you don't celebrate the victories of the England cricket team then?

Morgan never played a Test Match for Ireland because they don't play Test Cricket. He did play 25 one day internationals for them though. He played for England one month after he played for Ireland.

In your world, but not in the Speedway World. Whatever rules that were in place allowed Holta to ride for Poland about 5 years ago, even though he had previously appeared under the Norwegian flag. Not ideal I guess, but can't understand why people are still mithering about it, I think he was the Polish Champion as long ago as 2003.

He tries the young guys (to more or less universal support). The young guys did Ok last year but have, by and large, not performed as expected this year, therefore, he has gone for the guys who have been performing better, which happen to be the old guys. Did you want him to stick with Kennett and Bridger the way they have ridden this year?

Change the record mate, Holta's reasons for becoming a naturalised Pole are well documented. It's just a fact of life in international sport nowadays. Just look at the England cricket team. As for your comments about the Danes, what are you on about? Do you think they could just recruit a top class rider from another country?

As long ago as......last year! Poland won with 44, Russia 4th with 35. Best team won today, fantastic effort from the Poles to come through and win after the start that they had. Even then I couldn't see them beating the Danes in 4 of the last 5 races. I think the Brits put on a good show, certainly seemed well motivated and were in the mix throughout.

Not strictly relevant to the "Tom Farndon" book, but I was searching on Amazon and found that Jeff Scott's latest tome is available at the bargain price of £443.98 (plus postage) from a seller in the USA! But more importantly whilst looking for the Ivan Mauger tome I came across a few books similar to the one in the link. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Newcastle-Diamonds-Riders-Pedersen-Emiliano/dp/1155636074/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_4 Can you spot the most obvious mistake on the cover of that one? A wee bit of searching and apparently these books are simply reprints of Wikipedia pages and are therefore to be avoided.

Did they use an air fence in the past couple of years at Rye when they hosted Under 21 qualifiers? And will they have one in place for the Under 21 Team Final in September?

Might not be the end of the world. The Swedes got 14 points from the first five heats in the run-off from the same draw. Whether our gating will be up to it is another question.

Agree it's poor that there are no Brits in the Final, in fact only Haines got to the semi's. Why Bridger and Woffinden didn't do the qualifiers I have no idea (though I would imagine Tai wanted to concentrate on the GP's). Woffinden obviously got the GP pick as the second Brit in the absence of anybody else worthwhile. Sure it is probably a bit early and he has struggled. For what it's worth I hate the fact the Brits have to rely on nominations and I think the whole system is flawed. Was a good ride by Ward at Lynn, but he hardly "stalked" him. They swapped positions 2 or 3 times. If you are interested bet365 have Ward at 14/1 for the Under 21 title. Given that he is only 4 points behind the leader you might want put some dollars down....

Just about scraped in the top 5 Aussies! Good job Batch only had 4 rides otherwise he would have been 5th. To be fair it was a gater's paradise, but often that's the name of the game.

Definitely John Titman. Go onto the Retro Speedway site, click gallery, British teams and on page 6 of the Halifax section there is a pic of John from the same era.

"form rider" ! He got 8 points from 5 rides, including three consecutive 3rd places at the business end of the meeting. You can't get away from the fact that he and Schlein were the weakest two in the Aussie line up. Granted he did well to 3rd place from Woffinden, but it was only for 3rd place. Most would agree that Lindgren's ride from 4th to 1st in the same race was a more stunning ride.