Humphrey Appleby

Of course this is a somewhat separate thing, and on this issue I'm sure most of us on here would agree. Selfish and unreasonable people exist everywhere, although fortunately it seems it's going to be harder for them to bring frivilous cases in the UK now. Certainly on-track, but easy to say when one isn't taking the financial hit...

The Cardiff GP (which is the IMG showcase event) is subsidised by the Welsh government to the tune of approximately GBP 170K per GP (assuming it meets certain targets). This is about GBP 4.25 (or NZD 8.30) per head, so to expect an even bigger subsidy from either the New Zealand government or Auckland council would seem optimistic.

Reading the article, Bill Buckley doesn't come over as being very positive about the whole thing, and with reported losses of nearly GBP 200K on one GP, it's going to be difficult to amortise that over the remaining two GPs even with sponsorship. Indeed, it seems he's already planning his exit strategy... Saying that the costs of staging a GP in NZ are high is hardly any revelatory news, but it's rather academic if no-one is ultimately able to make the GPs pay. Well it can be - NZD 375K according to the article. It doesn't matter how big a fan of speedway someone is, no sane businessman is going to sustain losses like that. As you say though, he's a successful businessman and presumably would have worked out his likely losses in advance, unless of course the attendance was significantly below expectations...

It's a matter of putting enough resources in the right place, and in the case of speedway, ensuring there are sufficient incentives to attract a broad base of riders in the first place. If you don't, prospective Nielsens and Rickardssons may likely be lost to other motor sports, or even other sports entirely. One problem is that the top of the speedway pyramid is quite small these days. I accept the nature of the sport means that you can realistically only have 16 riders in the SGP, but fewer riders are riding in top level competitions as well, and ultimately that reduces the possibility of exceptional riders coming through. There probably needs to be more lower-level competition to attract the riders in the first place, and more incentives for professional tracks to support and bring through promising riders.

1989 is not a good year to compare anything with because there were a lot of injuries that robbed the World Final of the best riders. From memory, Sam Ermolenko, Jan O. Pedersen and Per Jonsson (and maybe Jimmy Nilsen as well) got injured during the season, and Tommy Knudsen was injured prior to the start of it. They were all top riders capable of winning the World Championship. Wigg, Donkey and Tatum were probably also at the top of their form in 1989, and Shirra and Smith were no numpties at that time either. It's debatable whether the 1990 World Final line-up was stronger or weaker. There was maybe only two out-and-out world champions in the line-up, but much of the rest of the field was solid riders, most of whom were already or became No.1 riders in teams. Todd Wiltshire and Henka Gustafsson had also just hit the scene and I'd suggest both at the time were better than Ljung and Bjerre...

Except for the Semi-Finals and Final.

The placement is important, and they can't be placed right on the front of the wheel which is what determines the winner in speedway. Surely the opposite should be the case? AFAIK, speeds are currently calculated on the basis of a nominal race distance that's measured (I think), one metre from the inside white line. However, most riders will actually ride a greater distance during a race and will therefore actually be riding faster. Speedway is not a sport where timing is especially relevant or close finishes all that common, so it could live without transponders. However, just about every other motor sport uses them these days, and the cost would be relatively trivial for the SGP.

I completely agree. Stringing out 15 heats over a longer period doesn't make it better value for money and the indeterminable delays are I think one of the contributory reasons as to why fans have drifted away. My point though, was that the heat lineups are more predictable in a GP. Yes, 4 riders have two on the trot, but those races are known in advance and track grading is scheduled in-between. Whilst league meetings don't have riders programmed for two on the trot, it can and often does happen with reserve substitutions and R/R in operation. It should still be possible to run 10 heats per hour though, which would mean a 15-heat match could be concluded in 1.5 hours. And yes.. there should be extra support races as well.

Really a good issue this one.

They have to because of television considerations, although an individual meeting is much more straightforward to run as the line-ups for the first 20 heats are largely known in advance. League meetings have reserve substitutions, R/R and nominated heats to take into consideration. This said, it's still ridiculous how long it can take to run 15 heats these days, but then everyone would be going home after little more than an hour...

To be honest, I'd struggle to believe that. In the 1980s you had the likes of Hans Nielsen, Erik Gundersen, Per Jonsson, Jan O. Pedersen, Tommy Knudsen, Sam Ermolenko, Jan Andersson, and Jimmy Nilsen and Kelvin Tatum were no slouches either. Then along came Tony Rickardsson, Billy Hamill, Greg Hancock, Tomasz Gollob in the early 1990s amongst others. Going back to the 1970s and umpteen excellent riders featured in the World Finals, including Mauger, Olsen, Collins (Peter), Lee, Simmons, Louis (John), Michanek, Sanders, Crump (Phil) and I'm sure many others.

I think the difference is that NZ produced a phenomenal number of World Champions for the size of the country, and even more amazing was that they all came from around Christchurch which is itself a very small city.

I have been to Maitland, but it was before the plaque was put up. Not that going there or reading a plaque proves anything historically anyway. To be honest, I've never been completely in the 'speedway was invented at Maitland' camp because years ago I remember finding some old speedway books in the library that mentioned oval motorcycle racing in the early years of the 20th century, plus of course it seems fairly improbable that nobody had the idea to ride bikes around trotting ovals in the 40 years before Maitland. I did assume the Maitland meeting had some characteristic elements that could be assumed to be the precursor of modern speedway, but the contemporary newspaper accounts dug out by Ross and others appear to suggest even that wasn't the case. That's not to denigrate Maitland's place in speedway history because right or wrongly, most speedway fans believe it was the birthplace of the sport, the racing is reasonably well documented, and it's the first place that the sport's most legendary promoter started promoting. That's arguably what sets it aside from other early venues, but I think it's important to try to establish the historical facts rather than believe legend. It's not because people wish to denigate Maitland or the undeniable contribution of Johnnie Hoskins in developing the modern day sport, but because it's part of the process of historical research.

Hancock is one of the few long-serving riders that I've been able to watch throughout his entire career, or at least since when he came over to ride for Cradley at a young age, and he's also ridden for my own team. However, it's a bit difficult to answer the question as I only see him ride in the SGP these days. Nevertheless, I do think he's a rider who has improved greatly with age as I seem to remember him crashing a lot in the early years. From that he seemed to develop a style that tended to minimise risk, and whilst he looked comfortable if gating and getting in front early, I never felt was someone who'd go out and win a race to save your life. I think the fact that his world championships have come 14 years apart reflect that he's a very consistent rather than spectacular rider, but then again he's still riding after many others have fallen by the wayside. His first world championship was arguably won in better company than his second (finishing ahead of both Nielsen and Rickardsson), but I think he probably is a better rider now than in 1997. I'm not sure if he's a better rider than say 10 years ago - I just think he's maintained a consistently high standard, which becomes more impressive the older he gets.

Which leads to the question what BSI knows about speedway history having been involved in the sport for all of 12 years?

With all due respect to Bill Buckley, how much research has he actually done on the subject...?

Why? It doesn't mean I can't watch the occasional GP to see what all the fuss is about, and in the case of the NZ GP it was something different from the norm. Still don't really care who wins though...

It'll be a long wait as I think the contract runs until something like 2021. I've not seen viewing figures for anywhere except the UK, Poland and I think Sweden. I also suspect the list of countries where speedway is shown are actually those that can receive coverage via satellite broadcast which quite a different thing from who actually watches it. I was in Portugal last weekend though, and staying in a hotel with a reasonable number of satellite channels. I was interested to see whether the NZ GP was on, but I was disappointed once again in a foreign country. This is now about the 80th country where I've looked in vain for SGP coverage, so I really wonder when and where it's actually shown and who can be actually watching it... As I've stated several times before though, it's not that I have anything against either IMG or BSI per se, but I simply dislike the exaggerated claims made about the competition. I also think the financial setup between the FIM, BSI and the domestic speedway authorities is ridiculous, but I acknowledge that's not really the fault of BSI and if I were a shareholder I'd do exactly the same as long as I could get away with it. At the moment the sums of money made by the SGP aren't really worth quibbling about from the perspective of individual Polish clubs, but if they become substantially greater it might become interesting.

I think all of these things are undoubtedly true, but I'm not sure that many people are less physically fit when they're 40 as compared to 30 if they make an effort to stay in shape. What tends to degrade are physical reactions and recovery time, and there frankly isn't a lot you can do about that except perhaps manage your workload. I think the likes of Hancock and Gollob are apparently still competitive because the standard of younger riders coming through is not so high. I think a lot of older sportsmen choose to retire when either they can no longer recover sufficiently from injury, or because they realise they're simply no longer sufficiently competitive in comparison to the general level of competition. That obviously hasn't yet happened with either of those two, but whilst both are very good riders, I certainly wouldn't classify Hancock as being an exceptional talent. They've still got a long way to go before they surpass Stanley Matthews who was still playing top flight football at the age of 50, and likes of Pat Jennings and Peter Shilton played well into their forties years ago. If it's outfield players we're considering, Gordon Strachan and Teddy Sheringham played into their forties. However, the oldest top-flight competitor in any sport must surely be W.G Grace who finally retired from first class cricket at the age of 60 after a 44-year career, although in terms of top-flight success, surely Per Olov-Serenius must be one of the oldest world champions ever. It's actually not surprising as there's significant evidence that endurance improves with age, which is why ultra-marathon runners tend to be older. In addition, a number of female long distance runners have claimed they improved after pregnancy.

Well okay then, the ICC made something like USD 105 million from the World Twenty20 Cup, paid out USD 30 million in organisational costs (which presumably includes player wages), and then distributed USD 70 million of that directly to its member boards (e.g. the ECB) as well as funded a number of lower level international competitions. The Stanley Cup is effectively a domestic competition, but as far as I understand the NHL pays several million dollars per year to the IIHF to compensate teams who lose players to it. In addition, the NHL in common with most other major league sports in North America supports lower level competitions in various ways (which BTW is why they're never short of players). Does BSI or even the FIM do any of this? They quite possibly do, even if it's at the level of facilities being funded or administrative costs of competitions being met.

Incidental spinoffs (probably only amounting to few hundred euros) through geographical promixity is not really a strong argument that the SGP is beneficial to domestic speedway. Yes, improvements to the GP stadiums could be construed as beneficial, but the question is who's paying for these and how do they benefit all the other tracks? Conversely, Test and ODI cricket revenues benefit all 18 first counties, as well as the 20 minor counties (and Scotland, Ireland, Holland and Denmark for that matter), not just those grounds staging the matches. Similarly, Budweiser's sponsorship of the FA Cup benefits all 763 teams, not just those who make it to Wembley. How many SGP sponsors (many of which are tourist boards or GP suppliers in some way) also sponsor domestic teams or competitions?

Well then they can be the masters of their own downfall, because in nearly every sport these days, the premier competition financially benefits the lower levels of competition in some way. Not speedway however. It's not only the qualifying rounds, but that so many of the previous season's incumbents get back in the following season. I think no-one would suggest things are done properly at a national level, and who rides where and when is certainly an issue that needs sorting out. It's not a question of who actually runs the world championship though, but who benefits from it.

It would surely be a bit bizarre though, to determine all the qualifiers for a GP series on the basis of a knockout competition. And what would happen if the GP champion (or high finisher) got knocked out in the first round of the qualifiers...? Surely better to use league averages or something similar as the qualification criteria, although personally I'd like to see some sort of second-half competition in league meetings and use those as the basis of SGP qualification (and bring back World of Sport whilst we're at it)...

I don't recall ever saying I wanted a return to a one-off World Final, JAPs and Dickie Davies. I'm simply interested in providing an alternative viewpoint to the GP sycophancy that suggests history as we know it started with the SGP and that it's been the salvation of the sport. It didn't, it isn't, and the reality is that the future of the SGP is probably not as secure as people popularly imagine. At some point though, the speedway authorities (mostly likely in Poland) will cotton on to the fact that the SGP organisers are making money out of the sport without them seeing any of it. There will probably be some catalyst like a rained-off GP wiping out a whole round of important league matches, or an injuries to key riders at a critical stage of the season, but eventually the current arrangements will come into question, especially if the SGP expands. The other point is that the quality of riders coming through is quite dire by the standards of the past. The SGP isn't entirely to blame for this of course, but the lack of a real competitive qualification process or feeder system has arguably caused stagnation, and picking competitors because their nationality or face fits is really not a long-term solution (and BTW, F1 is not the same thing at all). The bottom line, are fans and sponsors ultimately going to be interested in a competition featuring 50-something Greg Hancocks and Tomasz Gollobs? Well the attendances argument is quite easy to disprove, although of course it depends when you start counting from. With respect to television audiences, well there's significant evidence they're down in the UK, and I've seen no figures provided for the vast majority of the countries where SGP coverage is supposedly shown. Until it can be proved otherwise then I'm afraid the claim that speedway is watched more widely than ever can't be considered anything but hype and myth. Fantastic stadiums though, are you serious? Yes, the Millennium and Parken are good stadia, and there are two or three more that are decent by the standards of speedway stadia, but the rest are pretty much the same venues where speedway was always held. I don't actually have a problem with the SGP expanding outside of Europe, provided it doesn't mess with the European season, and the NZ GP appears to have good from a promotional point of view. However, don't believe BSI have the sport's interests at heart or are interested in taking the SGP anywhere they can't wring a fat licence fee out of. Finally, it's not my world championship. It ceased to be that when the FIM sold it for a few beans (relatively speaking) and it might as well take place on Mars for all the relevance it has to me.

If the GP expands any more in Europe, it'll start taking weekends used by the Polish League. From some GPs it might be possible to get to Polish clubs the following day, but it'll decimate an entire round if you have to re-stage a GP, plus I don't imagine the Polish clubs will be happy if riders get injured the day before an important league match. The SGP and Poland are headed for confrontation sooner or later because one wants more cake, but the other pays for most of it...