Humphrey Appleby

Mutual consent possibly? Both parties agree the track is crap, not conducive to a good GP, and crowds have not met expectations. Both sides cut their losses and walk away. Could also be certain get-out clauses in the contract.

Why on earth is it necessary to provide passport numbers to buy GP tickets? Ridiculous Soviet era bureaucrazy. If it's not made easy, I simply wouldn't bother.

The policy of taking the SGP to world cities... ;-)

Came over as a bit of a whinge, and frankly seems to be a bit a recurring theme (see Argentina). Maybe just saying stuff out of frustration, but the sport can't pay money it doesn't have, so not really sure what he's suggesting should be the solution.

They're not.

AFAIK, BSI pay each of the regular riders a one-off participation fee at the start of the season, but the actual GP prize money is paid by the FIM (out of the money paid by BSI for the rights).

The FIM does charge BSI a fee, and pays the GP prize money out of it. The rest goes into its coffers. The relationship of OneSport is with FIM Europe, which is the former UEM. Presumably they pay some sort of fee was well. Been watching it since the eighties

BSI is owned by IMG's UK subsidiary (actually via another holding company) which made substantial losses on other activities in recent years, so one suspects that's where the profits ended up. The AFL is guaranteeing 2 or 3 matches a week in the Etihad over a long term period, and the AFL teams feel they should be getting a better deal. They've also been grumbling about the state of the pitch, cost of catering, and problems with the roof. Having said that, the AFL will assume ownership of the stadium for a token $1 at the end of 2025, and how quickly the reasons from moving from VFL Park have been forgotten. All of these issues though, may be less of a concern with a one-off event, although I'm surprised that BSI think they can make it pay. I don't think anyone would disagree with that, and if there's only one realistic timeslot, then that's the way it's got to be.

Surely journeyman can be stars, solid dependable middle order riders, or mediocrities? I can think of riders in all those classes who went from track-to-track during their career, as indeed most speedway riders do. There were even the so-called professional juniors in the past, who were essentially journeymen as well.

It seemed to go largely unnoticed, but we recently lost James Best. Him and Boss Hogg were the real stars of that show.

From memory, the NL in the period 1986 to 1990 had some good riders. Up-and-coming riders like Mark Loram, Chris Louis, Todd Wiltshire, Paul Thorp, Andrew Silver, Martin Dugard and Troy Butler who did pretty well when they moved in the BL, and some older riders who'd dropped down from the BL but who were probably still heat leader status (Preben Eriksen, Les Collins and Andy Grahame come to mind). NL 'regulars' such as Steve Schofield, Mick Poole, Kenny McKinna and to a lesser extent Andy Galvin were also a fairly decent standard when they rode in BL, and of course you also had the likes of Steve Lawson and Peter Carr who could probably have held down a BL place. The BL contracted quite substantially in 1986 and again 1989, so there were a fair few decent riders squeezed downwards to the NL. They might be considered 'average journeymen' in the sense they weren't first choice picks for BL teams and were the sort of riders that often moved around because of the points limit, but the nature of speedway is that very few riders spend most or all of their careers with one team.

Nice try, but the FIM are not the promoters of the series. I might lease my property for building, but if the developer doesn't deliver on the construction, then that's nothing to with me. IMG/BSI are the promoters of the series, and either organise themselves, or contract with host organisations to run the individual GPs. I think they're morally and possibly even legally responsible for the problems, regardless of who they might have sub-contracted.

I'd imagine there's far fewer circuses than speedway tracks, and they travel from place-to-place so any given audience would only get to see them very occasionally.

There were many in Wehrmacht and undoubtedly even in the SS as well who fought honourably and bravely during WW2, but few would suggest that's a reason to retain the symbols of the Nazi regime. The Confederacy was also a separatist and some might even say treasonous entity that resulted in families (especially in the border areas) being forced to fight on different sides, and it was not for some noble gesture of political freedom or emancipation, but to preserve the system of slavery. We argue about the rights and wrongs of using Confederate flag, and frankly it doesn't bother me one way or the other, but if society ultimately deems it to be offensive, I don't think the fact that people fought under it should come into it. It's the problem when people attach far to much symbolism to a piece of cloth. Flags were devised to identify warring parties and ships on the high seas, and should remain their primary purpose.

How hard is it for a referee to press a button whilst watching the starting grid at the same time?

AFL starts in March, and the Ethiad is the home stadium for about four teams so is used every weekend during the season.

Astonishing how people think going back to tape touching would be improving things. It was got rid off because riders kept going backwards and forwards trying to get a flyer, and there was endless complaining about delays and unfair starts. The tape touching rule was one of the few rules of recent times that's been any good.

Well I would actually expect the members of the speedway fourth estate to investigate and report on these sorts of things, otherwise the journal-of-record will just end-up being a bunch of recycled press releases. Equally though, checking one's sources is a basic journalistic principle.

It was that high to start with?

Vojens is reasonably well appointed as speedway stadiums go, but it's still situated in an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere. Horsens appears to be a bit more luxurious and is at least in a town with some facilities. Maybe the clue though, is that Horsens and Vojens are in different regions. Perhaps the Horsens municipality or the local region was willing to offer some sort of financial support that Vojens wasn't.

That's sort of like saying how long is a piece of string?

One suspects Philippe's fact checking amounts to a round of golf with Briggo at times, but I think people are making a bit of mountain out of a molehill here. I don't think he was trashing anyone's name, regardless of the accuracy of the reported so-called facts.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Reduce the number of opportunities for riders, and eventually less riders will be competing for those opportunities. Doubling-up was originally intended to address the lack of riders wanting to move-up into the BEL, which itself was a result of lack of cooperation and vision between the BPL and BEL. However, it's simply become an extension of the guest system and failed in its purpose.

So what is you want to say about black people, muslims and assorted others not conforming to your sociopolitical beliefs?

You might have the freedom to think what you like, although there are laws against inciting racist hatred which used to be commonplace 'in your day'. More generally though, freedom of expression comes with responsibility of expression, and a lot of those protesting about so-called political correctness, simply just want to be offensive.