Dexter

Rumours say Holta is pratically a Torun rider already. At this stage these are only rumours though...

I have a feeling most of us would agree with you Rob. Richardson said in an interview for a Polish local TV station he would not be interested in a nod for 2011. Therefore, he will not get it for sure. I just hope BSI will not try to force Tai or any other Brit through. Let those boys get ready and I am sure they will prove to be worthy. Andersen should rest. He didn't do well last year and he did even worse this year.

October weather in Poland can be erratic but somehow Bydgoszcz has been very lucky for the past 12 years. Let's hope 13 will not turn out unlucky in that matter. As for the meeting... I will keep my fingers crossed for Crumpie and Holder. Jason still can won battle for silver although Bydgoszcz track has never been very good for him. Hampel has usually performed well in Bydgoszcz but without grand final. For Holder Nicki Pedersen is going to be the most difficult opponent. The Dane has usually performed very well in Bydgoszcz (including last year's victory). Jonsson can also join the race for top 8 as he knows the track very well. As for Gollob... this is most likely his last GP in Bydgoszcz and I am sure he would like to finish it with something spectacular.

Gollob is awesome at both Bydgoszcz and Gorzow, I don't think removing Bydgoszcz from the list will seriously affect his performance.

I don't think Darcy should go into GP yet. Also, I don't think Andersen, Pedersen and Jonsson should be pushed in there all the time. At least one of them should be out. Kolodziej had a great season and deserved one of the permanent wild cards for sure. The question is though, aren't we going to have too many Poles in GP? Definitely no Richardson, Woffinden or Nicholls please.

Nepean is just a few kms from Penrith - Western Suburb of Sydney. I was there in 2004 with a group of retired local speedway riders (Bruce Croxon for example). Gosford is a bit further but I have been there number of times. Besides, I live in Sutherland Shire so each of these locations is quite far for me. Somersby is ok (this is where all the junior speedway takes place) and even Newcastle/Broadmeadow is ok (although it would probably be wise to spend one night there). Besides, with these Central Coast locations there is a good access through King Georges Road and F3 Motorway. There used to be more info on Aussie speedway when Australian Solo Bikes discussion list was available. However, it was closed down some time ago and I lost contact with all Gosford folks (e.g. Jan Grainger, club secretary).

If BSI want GP in NZ or AU, they need to think where to get money from first. Neither Aussies nor Kiwis are in rush to get themselves financially busted just to cheer BSI bosses up. If somehow one day we will have another GP in Sydney I will be happy to attend it. For now I don't think there's going to be one for many years though... despite the fact that Parramatta seems to be back in business in terms of running speedway meetings.

If nobody knows what this is all about, it must be about money. Apparently Pepe did not assume he would be riding in GP on regular basis at all this season. Therefore, he was completely unprepared, especially on financial site. There was no reason then to waste money and ride at the back. The reason why he is to turn up in Bydgoszcz is that he found a sponsor who is going to support him for that last meeting in Bydgoszcz. Obviously, I wouldn't expect anything spectacular of him but he could score a few points. Bydgoszcz is the track that he knows very well.

Thanks Dave, what a pity there is only one meeting at Parramatta. Hope there's going to be some racing in Gosford this year.

Congratulations Tomasz Gollob. I am also one of those who don't like the guy too much but it is nice to see that someone achieved after 22 years of trying...

Thanks for that Dave. Is it really confirmed that the first round will be held in Parramatta? If so, I would be delighted to go even though it is in the middle of the week and would have to leave work a bit earlier. Are there any more speedway meetings coming to Parramatta or Homebush? Or maybe another track around Sydney area? BTW - where did you get this info? I checked MA and ausm.info websites - none of them mentions anything about the dates.

I think it is just off and it will not be re-run.

Don't they just try it every year? There may be some changes forced by weather. Several clubs were unable to remove snow from their tracks (Rzeszow for example).

Could have been something with the translation. See here: Should be ZUZEL apparently. ZUZLOW makes no sense.

You could always organize 20 heats with 2 semi finals and 1 final where top 2 from regular series goes straight ahead into the final and the other 8 battle in semi finals for the 2 remaining places. Or alternatively, you just get one semi final with riders from 3 - 6 and the top 2 qualify. I suppose there are more possible solutions. The current system is not bad although sometimes top scorers may be a bit unlucky due to just one error.

Re-introducing GP Challenge could be a solution to it. Top 8 stays in GP, the other 7 has to battle in that meeting against 9 other riders who successfully went through qualifiers. Of course, that could always lead to Andy Smith syndrome who fell off GP every year and then got through GP Challenge. Let's say the top 6 would advance and 1 permanent wild card would be given out.

Actually, from what I know, both Amsterdam and Budapest have large stadium and there is speedway in both of these countries. Temporary track could possibly be set there... Why wouldn't they be able to support GP-s then?

I think the idea was to call Leszno GP - Polish GP, Torun GP - European GP and Bydgoszcz GP - GP Finale. If 4 GP are in Poland I suppose that one of them would be 'GP Opening' or something like that. Let's hope that speedway will not get itself into such poor condition where 4 out of 10 GP-s would be in Poland. Of course the fact that Polish have 3 GP-s is not sufficient for many of them. If you look at Polish forums many participants think that Ole Olsen should not be GP director but it should be Polish who should make decisions. In their opinion Olsen is helping Pedersen and other Danish riders with his decisions (which sounds funny to me). Polish would not do it. They find themselves top professionals. In my opinion there could be two GP-s in Britain but not two in Cardiff. You could have one in Cardiff and another one in London for example (instead of third Polish GP). The series would not loose too much from profit point of view. London is full of Poles, many of them are speedway fans and they would certainly come to see this. I would rather see GP-s in places like Amsterdam, Budapest, maybe somewhere in Russia.

I don't know how fit he is now but one thing for certain - he bruises himself a few times a year and 2 - 3 times is usually quite badly. That's why he misses top 3 in seasons like 2009. If he calms down a bit more and stay out of these crashes, he will be able to take on top 3. Sometimes I think AJ is a bit too nervous and makes some rapid decisions which often result in no good. Previously I thought it could have been due to his age but now he is turning 30 and it is that time when things like that should no longer happen. As for the other candidates... I don't see Gollob as a champ but I see him battling for top 3 for sure. Not even because of 3 GP-s in Poland (last year he didn't win any of 2 GP-s in Poland and was out of final on his home track in Bydgoszczy) but because he seems to have stabilized. He had sort of a crisis in 2002 - 2005 when many (including myself) tipped him to fall out of GP series. It looks like he is over it now. Hancock will certainly have a few things to say. He does every year. He may win one of the medals as well. I don't think he would take on No 1 though. From my point of view it will be Nicki, Jason or Emil who will battle for No 1 in 2010.

It may be not right but "they all got eventually paid". Looks like Polish have no problem with this, at least the ones on this forum... Instead of admitting it is not ok they do their usual "look what others do". So there is no problem because others do something else. On the other hand... riders should sign agreements that protect their interests. Such as "payments should be transferred into selected account within let's say 10 working days" or something like that. Swedes seem to have problems these days too as Mama mentioned. Looks like disease which originally had its roots in Poland in 90-ties, is now spreading throughout speedway world. Theoretically... if it was used in practise, Wroclaw and Czestochowa would now not be in Extraleague.

How about Homebush Park again? Not sure if ANZ Stadium would be the best choice but there is a 460m speedway track on the new Sydney Showground. The only issue with it is that fences are concrete and even putting air fences on it does not make it safe enough. The showground's infrastructure isn't good enough from my point of view. Although if GP could have been run in Vojens, Linkoping, Mallila or Krsko, then the showground doesn't look that bad (despite poor vision at the second bend). Parramatta could be another pick. It is used for sprintcars only though.

Mama... you didn't really get my point. It wasn't to show that Poland is the only country where problems like that happen. But is the only speedway country where these delays are considered to be something natural. If you read Mat's post you will see that it looks like 'oh, they were all eventually paid, so in fact nothing happened'. This isn't right attitude. At least this is the way I understood it...

Looks like since Terry Poole resigned Gosford no longer has that much speedway. There is less speedway in NSW overall. The most chance of getting some good racing is in Tamworth but that's 400 km from Sydney.

I wouldn't bet on it... Nicholls proved himself to be one of the least efficient foreign riders in Polish speedway history. I don't really know if it is his attitude, tracks shapes, financials or something else but he turns out to be a big disappointment wherever he goes. 1-st league is apparently easier than extraleague but I still don't see him as one of the top riders there. Unless of course, his preparations become much more successful than they have been so far.

Yeah, totally agree. Polish have advanced in that matter and that is the right direction they are heading. Apparently, exceptions happen (there were some issues around Gdansk which read about on Polish websites). What ticks me off is that fact that you and Polish seem to be treating delays as something natural. No, it is not natural although not rare. What does it mean 'paid him eventually'? The guy had to wait for his money - sometimes for months - and it is absolutely not right. I don't think these practises happen in Poland only but Poland is one country where they happen on regular basis and are something absolutely natural. I am aware that they happen in business between companies all over the world but riders are more like contractors who usually should be paid their wages within certain period of time. For example, when Bohumil Brhel rode in Rzeszow in 2003, his agreement stated that he should receive payment for participating in a meeting within 10 working days. If he wasn't paid in that time frame, the contract could have been cancelled. As for Ostrow - whether they are in ekstraliga or not - doesn't matter. What matters is that the club in debts has been demised and now there is a new club instead. Same thing was done to Lublin one year ago and to Gdansk around 3 years ago. So practises like that keep happening in Poland. Not in ekstraliga though, I agree. My point was that his previous clubs went through financial turmoil while he was on board. Bydgoszcz - because of poor management who wanted to keep him there at any cost. Tarnow - because of sponsorship issues. Gorzow looks stronger at least from my point of view. I am assuming that Gorzow promoter speaks truth and they are really surrounded by sponsors. If so - dropping one of the major sponsors should not cause turmoil similar to the ones Bydgoszcz and Tarnow went through.