Ghostwalker

Ward was representing Australia in the SGP, although an individual event, it counts as a national team event. However whether or not he is representing Australia or just himself is probably not relevant. His violation of the rules happened at a FIM meeting so I assume that means that FIM is responsible for investigation and suspension, while Dudek's case was handled by the Polish Federation since his violation happened at a Polish league meeting.

Of course and I am sure that it also applies to at least all FIM sports as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_Arbitration_for_Sport

There were no WADA back then so even if FIM gives him 6 months, they are obligated to inform WADA of their decision and if WADA feels that the ban is too short, they have the right to appeal to CAS. The same applies to Darcy, if he is found guilty he also have the right to appeal to CAS if he considers the penalty to be too severe.

I disagree, it's about penalising a rider who have broken the rules. You say that he will learn a lesson, I don't think he will unless he is given a long suspension. Saying that he broke the rules without penalising him will send a signal that he can screw up without any consequences. His previous scandals have proved that he unable to learn a lesson. Each time he have said that he have learnt his lesson but each he have been involved in a new scandal. Each time his apologists (including Matt Ford & Neil M.) have defended him, trying to sweep it under the carpet. Why would it be different this time? Darcy is standing at a crossroad now, he could continue down the same party road he currently is on which likely would lead to more scandals and a premature end to his career. Or he could choose the other serious road which could lead to a world champion title. I hope that he gets a long suspension and that he choose the second, serious road.

Arson fire, in the Swedish Elitserien there is Swedish rider quotas (3 Swedish riders/line up required). This have been respected since the rule/agreement was implemented a couple of years ago. However for next season two teams have decided to sign one foreign rider each on a Swedish license so that they can use that foreign rider as one of the mandatory Swedish rider. I have nothing the against those riders but the agreement is there to provide Swedish riders with a place in the lineup, it's not there for teams to exploit by using foreign riders on a Swedish license. However the 80cc youth series and the lowest 500cc series, the Division 1 is exclusively for Swedish rider although a Finnish team have been invited (for the second season) since there is only 9 Swedish Div1 teams and both the federation and the other teams want to have an even amount of teams.

Do you have a link to this rule?

Daniel Henderson said to Smederna.nu that he was disappointed to not getting a pick since a few of those who got picked finished after him at Strömsund. http://www1.idrottonline.se/SmedernaSpeedwayforening-MotorcykelochSnoskoter/Nyheter/Nyhetsarkiv/BesvikenHendersonreservtillVM/ I can understand his point but I have no opinion on the actual matter.

Weight depends how large sections you make. A 10x20m section will be 200m2, the weight of it would be around 120-140KG. 3-4 persons would be able to handle that. Obsviosuly there are also lighter fabrics but the lighter it is the less durable it is, Also a coated fabric, something like this: http://www.jpoks.se/images/produkter/lbc_karlskoga_presenning_w.png, is water resistant. Najjer, a ight weight tarpaulin like this: http://images.biltema.com/PAXToImageService.svc/product/large/2000023235 is indeed light weight but also of poor quality which means that it wouldn't last that long and that it would easily get ripped into pieces. The only team I know of that uses track covers is Elit Vetlanda and here are a picture of their track while covered by Tarpaulins: https://www.facebook.com/elitvetlanda/photos/a.386239436218.165368.355009296218/10152417908896219/ http://www.elitvetlanda.se/nyheter/bildligt-countdown-infor-sapa-gp-challenge/ As I said, a tarpaulin made out 600g/m2 uncoated fabric will last about 5-6 years if deployed extensively during season since the sun light will affect it pretty hard. A coated fabric will last an additional couple of years.

Fixtures for Elit-B, Div1, Div1U (80cc/youth) & Div2U (80cc/youth) have been released; http://www.svemo.se/sv/Grenar/Speedway/Nyheter/Elit-BDiv1Div1UochDiv2U/

A tarpaulin will definitely last more then 4 times. A standard 600-700g/m2 fabric* will last 5 years** at least and no they are not that heavy because you make them in smaller sections to make to easier to handle. Obviously they need to be made so that they overlap each other in order to prevent water from pouring down where the sections meet. * The kind of cheap "Japanese tarpaulin" pictured on the ebay link is not of sufficient quality to be used as track cover though. It need to be a more durable tarpaulin fabric. That also means that the covers will be much more expensive then the claimed ~£2000. **depends mainly on how much time they are lying around unfolded in direct sunlight. A coated tarpaulin fabric will last longer then a non coated tarpaulin fabric. I think the track covers debate is similar to the one regarding air fences. They are very expensive (they are) and they take allot of storage space (they do) but in the end they became a necessity. I think the same applies to track covers. The weather in GB, DK, SE, FI and PL is very unstable and unpredictable and if you look at the previous season, there was allot of postponed meetings. How many of these could have been saved by having the track covered?

The initial cost is of course the main concern but for the maintenance costs, surely this would be covered by the costs saved by not having to postpone a meeting in those cases when it rains prior to the meeting but where it have stopped in time for the meeting but still causes the meeting to be off due to a waterlogged track. I also think the use of track covers would increase attends due to two factors: 1. In the cases where the rain stops prior to the start of the meeting, fans would know that the track have been covered and that the meeting will go ahead despite that it have rained during the day. This would means that fans can travel to a meeting without risking it to be off when they arrive. 2. You would minimize the time needed for pre-meeting track grading. This means that fans doesn't have to wait for an hour for the meeting to begin. So in the end, I think even if the initial acquiring cost would be high, the track covers would create a positive return on investment in a long time term. The only track that I know of who both have and use track covers are Elit Vetlanda in the Swedish Elitserien. Of course, sometimes meetings would still be postponed due to rain since track covers won't make it stop raining.

Sorry for this 8 year bump but better to use an existing thread rather then start a new about the same thing. Anyway Dream Team USA have decided to do a larger European tour this spring as a 10 year anniversary celebration. So far the following fixtures have been confirmed: April 11th - Rye House Raiders April 13th - Kent Kings April 17th - International Tournament, Vetlanda, Sweden April 18th - International Tournament, Vetlanda, Sweden http://www.speedwaybikes.com/news/dreamteamnews2015.htm

Results Strömsund. 1. Frank Zorn 14+3+3, 2. Vitaly Khomitsevich 15+2+2, 3. Antonin Klatovsky 13+2+1, 4. Hans Weber 8+3+0 5. Daniel Henderson 11+1, 6. Mats Järf 10+1, 7. Niclas Kallin Svensson 9+0, 8. Rene Stellingwerf 8+0, 9. Jimmy Olsén 7, 10. Ove Ledström 5+3, 11. Max Niedermayer 5+2, 12. Charly Ebner 5+1, 13. Miroslav Daniszewski 4, 14. Jo Saetre 3, 15. Markus Birn 1, 16. Robert Henderson 1, 17. Mikael Flodin 0, 18. Janne Vilponen 0. http://www.racemagazine.se/isracing/tva-svenskar-vidare-i-vm-kvalet/ http://www.op.se/sport/motor/succe-for-isracingen-i-stromsund

Petition? Why? What do you expect to achieve with it? Why should FIM care or even take notice of this petition? The FIM CDI is not a democracy where you can get to vote on things by launching petitions. Neither is it Idol where you can phone in to vote on your favourite to win. Darcy will be in a hearing where he will be requested to explain how he came to be over the allowed limit of alcohol. Patryk Dudek had a plausible explanation to why he had the forbidden substance in his system, James Stewart Jr had a plausible explanation to why he had amphetamine in his system. Both riders was sentenced to 12 and 16 months ban respectively. What is Darcy's explanation? That he received some bad news (which turned out to be untruthful)? That he had few drinks? How many is a few if he still was intoxicated the day after? ---- Regarding the "other" riders who also enjoys to drink the night before a meeting well, it's just as wrong as Darcy doing it but you need some evidence since, to our knowledge, nobody except Darcy have been caught. It also doesn't make Darcy's case any less severe, "others are doing it too" is not an argument. If you know who they are, well why not send a tip to Wada or FIM? vhttps://www.wada-ama.org/en/contact-us You would do the sport a big favour if you did.

The Individual Swedish championship final in Uppsala have been cancelled. The organizer, Funbo MS, says that economic reasons are behind it and it is now known if another organizer is able to take it on. http://www.racemagazine.se/isracing/sm-finalen-i-uppsala-ar-installd/

It seems that the GP-challenge might be shown on tv since a Spanish company have bought the rights to the GP-challenge (as well as the SGP and SWC). http://www.speedweek.com/eisspeedwaygp/news/69130/MotoGP-Gigant-Dorna-kauft-TV-Rechte-im-Bahnsport.html Hopefully Iris123 can give us a translation (i know of google translate but a manual translation is usually better),

Spanish tv-sports agent Dona sports have bought the rights to the ice racing GP-series: http://www.speedweek.com/eisspeedwaygp/news/69130/MotoGP-Gigant-Dorna-kauft-TV-Rechte-im-Bahnsport.html

Miedzinski have signed with Fjelsted. https://twitter.com/Morten_Svendsen/status/556051833572315136

Sommelier, I think you are spot on with that Matt ford is a business man however unlike you I think this is part of the problem. Matt ford as business man wants to make money as possible and for him having Darcy in his team is good business. It makes the team successful which attracts crowd and sponsors. This means that Ford (and Neil M possibly) don't really want to "deal" with Darcy since that would be bad for business. As for the hearing dates, do we know if the claims from Darcy and his "camp" are correct and that FIM actually have postponed the dates several times? That it isn't something used by Darcy to get sympathy and FIM actually having set the date in late January from the beginning? As for the actual test result perhaps FIM doesn't want to reveal it until the hearing to avoid Darcy/his lawyers somehow trying to find an excuse to Darcy being over the limit? Personally I think that if there had been something wrong with the testing, it would have been discovered by the FIM's medical committee and then they would not have delegated it to the Disciplinary committee (CDI). I am not 100% sure but I think the process after a positive test is like this : Breathalyser test->report to local jury-> fines and ban from race issued-> report to FIM Medical committee->investigation of the case-> delegated to CDI if investigation finds test results accurate->CDI arranges a hearing->CDI decides on penalty after the hearing is complete.

I posted a link to the case regarding a suspended MX rider a while ago and in that case it took about half a year as well from time of offense to the actual hearing but I don't know if he had his hearing postponed several times like Darcy.

Well Sweden is the 7th best Country in the world in the combined Summer and Winter Olympic all time medals table. I think Fundin should have been on the list but in Sweden motorsport aren't really "acknowledged" by the wide general public and particular not by most sports journalists. Not that much domination, about 8 of the top 40 are some form of skier (cross country or alpine). I think the list is quite accurate but Zlatan is a bit too high up in the list.

An article about Posa: http://www.expressen.se/sport/motor/svenska-ikonen-petad-fran-vm-ar-ett-han/

I can feel sorry for Darcy in the way that his camp seems to be filled with "yaysayers" but nobody that can tell him when enough is enough and that is time to stop with the nonsense. Instead we see comments like "he's just a kid" or, "everyone made mistakes when they were young" or "it's the FIM's fault" and etc...

No doubt just Darcy trying to find a loophole. Really I doubt that so please provide some evidence.

Sure you are correct but fraud in that sense does not exist in the rules regarding illegal substances.It also says allot about the modern society were money crimes such as fraud or illegal downloading are seen as worse offences then physical crimes as assault, rape, dunk driving and etc Compare Patryk Dudek and Darcy Ward. It's no doubt that Ward is the one who made the most severe offence.