Ghostwalker

The first ever Swedish 250cc league meeting was held two days ago. https://ta.svemo.se/Public/Pages/Competition/DrivingSchedule/CompetitionHeatSchema.aspx?Branch=Speedway&Season=2018&Serie=250cc Serien &Resultfilter=APPROVED&Columns=FromDateShort,Name,HeatSchema,HeatResult&pagesize=20&CompetitionId=9545 https://ta.svemo.se/Public/Pages/Competition/DrivingSchedule/CompetitionHeatResult.aspx?Branch=Speedway&Season=2018&Serie=250cc Serien &Resultfilter=APPROVED&Columns=FromDateShort,Name,HeatSchema,HeatResult&pagesize=20&CompetitionId=9545&ShowAll=true

The rulebook for 2018 was published a while ago http://www.svemo.se/sv/Grenar/Speedway/Regler/ Apparently, Allsvenskan will use the old heat schedule while Elitserien uses the new one. Another thing that I didn't know of is that there apparently will be a UK-style "toss" to decide which teams goes from which gates. To be honest I really dislike the new schedule. They should have kept the second reserve heat and made it mandatory for each reserve to ride in all of their 4 scheduled heats. So now it is: "5.8.5 Körschema för Elitserien (2.15.7-Elit). Heat Gate 1/2 2/1 3/4 4/3 1 B2 V1 R1 G2 2 G7 R6 V6 B7 3 R3 V3 B4 G4 4 V5 B5 G7 R6 --------Grading-------- 5 B7 G4 R2 V6 6 G2 R3 V1 B4 7 G4 R1 V3 B2 --------Grading------- 8 B4 G7 R3 V5 9 B5 G2 R6 V1 10 V6 B7 G5 R1 ---Grading & Interval--- 11 V3 B4 G2 R5 12 V1 B2 G4 R3 13 R1 G5 B5 V3 --------Grading-------- 14 V/R V/R G/B G/B 15 R/V R/V B/G B/G"

Jarek Hampel have apparently reached an agreement with Lejonen to ride for them. http://www.dagensvimmerby.se/sport/speedway/e/21216/efter-tolv-ar-i-vetlanda-hampel-klar-for-ny-elitserieklubb/

1 meeting/round will have 5 cameras. The other 3 meetings will only have 1 camera. http://eskilstunasmederna.se/speedwayplay-com-klubbarnas-egna-kanal/

I fon't have the link at the moment but from what I've read. There will be one of the meetings each round that will a 5 camera production while other three meetings while the others will have fewer cameras. I assume that the 5-camera meeting will be the one showed on Premier sports/Freesports(?).

I don't know for payment methods. I would assume bank/credit cards would be one of them. You can change language in you account settings, click the three horizontal bars in the lower left corner.

There will be no live speedway on tv, only on speedway play. It will be a subscription service for either 149 SEK (~12.6GBP) /month or 99 SEK (~8.4GBP)/ day. There is no information whether or not this is geo blocked outside Sweden. https://www.speedwayplay.com/elitspeedway/posts https://www.speedwayplay.com/elitspeedway http://www.dagensvimmerby.se/sport/speedway/e/20601/klart-sa-sands-elitserien-i-speedway-alla-matcher-visas/

You tell me? As far as I can see there is no need for umbrella girls in motorsport. They do not add anything other then embarrassment. In F1, from what I have read, the original use was for them to hold umbrellas to shield the drivers from sun or rain. F1 have come to the conclusion that such service is no longer required. The only "use" the umbrella girls have in speedway is eye candy for old men and teenage boys i.e. no real use at all. I have yet to see a valid argument regarding what the umbrella girls add to a speedway meeting. We don't have them in the Swedish leagues and we do just fine without them. Our spectators comes to the meeting to watch speedway racing not umbrella girls.

Another crazy idea would be to stop using grid girls. There is absolutely no need to still have them. Grid girls are a thing of the past and isn't something that should be present in 21st century motorsport events.

Andreas Jonsson (and Jacob Thorssell) have taken a stance against Grid Girls. https://www.svt.se/sport/motorsport/andreas-jonsson-vill-inte-se-lattkladda-kvinnor-tar-fokus-fran-sporten/ Kristian Hysén is executive president of IMG Sweden and he agrees with AJ's opionon and says that he will work for Grid girls to stopped being used. He also says that the phenomenon is considered old -fashioned in Sweden but that other countries disagrees. https://www.svt.se/sport/motorsport/efter-kritiken-grid-girls-kan-forsvinna/

Spring Media will make an announcement on April 2nd on whether or not there will be any televised coverage of Elitserien. There will still likely be an internet broadcasting portal of some sort.

https://www.svt.se/sport/vintersport/unga-isracinglandslaget-utmanar-varldseliten/

The new heat schedule http://www.svemo.se/ImageVaultFiles/id_14025/cf_44/K-rschema_2-15.PDF

Speedway news website Speedwaynyheter.se will re-open on Monday March 19th. http://www.speedwaynyheter.se/

Smederna writes in their website that Tommy Jansson's father and former speedway rider Joel Janssom have died at the age of 93. http://eskilstunasmederna.se/smederna-i-sorg/

I agree jeffster. If you say A then you have to say B and if you don't want to say B then don't say A.

I've updated the fixture list for Elitserien but round 9 and 10 are scheduled for Tuesday July 17th and Wednesday July 18th. I think it seems a bit strange to do that and I don't know if it is correct.

Full fixture list http://www.dagensvimmerby.se/sport/speedway/e/17657/sa-kors-elitserien-i-speedway-2018-en-riktig-derbysommar-vantar/

The fixtures for 2018 have been released today. I haven't seen the full list yet though. Smederna's home meetings 2018: http://eskilstunasmederna.se/grundseriematcher-2018/

Faster by Within Temptation.

A little more info about Smederna's interest in arranging SWC. http://www.aktuellspeedway.se/fim/world-cup/eskilstuna-kan-fa-vm-final/ Basically Smederna have sent in a notification of interest and are awaiting a more substantial reply. Once they know more Smederna will then evaluate FIM/BSI's answer and then decide if they still are interested or not depending on economical factors and etc.

The same could be said for Sweden/Denmark (Kalmarunionen)

I have only read the head line since the article is behind a pay wall but the headline says "Smederna might get the SWC final": "https://www.ekuriren.se/sport/smederna-kan-fa-finalen-i-lag-vm/" on the news paper's FB page it says that Smedernas club president Håkan Ringkvist says that they are waiting for a definite answer. https://www.facebook.com/eksporten/posts/1745688802169008

Filbyterna claims that they were asked pretty late in the process if they were interested. Filbyterna realized pretty early on that they wouldn't be able to get the track in order since there was allot of things that needed to be fixed. New airfence, new outer fence (spectator fence) as well as move all of the flood lights from the area between the inner and outer fence. Filbyterna says that these necessary changes are way too much for them to manage on such a short notice since they wouldn't be able to afford it. I don't know all the details but there was a conflict between Filbyterna and the rest of Linköpings MS last year I think. Filbyterna had managed to get enough money to be able to buy a new airfence but somehow Linköpings MS took the money for themselves claiming that it wasn't Filbyterna's money or something like that so a new airfence didn't happen. There are several other more or less dormant tracks like Örebro and Karlstad but I don't know the status of them more then that Kalvholmen in Karlstad were pretty ruined by a man named Roland and the club Solkatterna which he hijacked in the name of speedway för alla (or something like that). Anyway here is Filbyterna's statement regarding their decline to ride in Allsvenskan. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1518980358184296&id=496486130433729 Full statement in the spoiler below: