moomin man 76

I'm sorry, but I disagree with your assessment of who should get a wildcard. The event is meant to be a 'World' Championship and for speedway as a sport to diversify it is too 'comfortable' to give wild cards to another Brit, another Pole and another Australian when all three countries have multiple representations in the actual event already. I know that I am biased, as my wife and her side of the family are Finnish, but Nike Lunna should be at least considered. He beat both Lambert and Kurtz last night, finished with the same total as Lambert and one more than Kurtz with arguably his easiest ride to come. It would also give the sport in Finland a much bigger shot in the arm than any further representation from Australia, Britain or Poland would give in those countries.

If they pick on reputation, Robert Lambert may well get a pick. However, with two Brits already in the final line-up and Lambert's SGP Qualifier Wild-Card, they may choose to look elsewhere. If they go merely on scores from the Belle Vue round, I think it would only be fair to give Nike Lunna a chance over the likes of Brady Kurtz. After all, Lunna outscored Kurtz and there is already Australian representation in the final line-up. On the other hand, Lunna was the only Finn in the qualifiers and did finish equal fifth tonight; plus it would add a little more diversity to the final line-up. As regards Swedish representation, none of the Swedish riders covered themselves in glory in the qualifiers. In fact, it is debatable whether Sweden have ever had a worse selection of U21 riders.

A good decision for both club and rider. If his heart is not in it, he is doing neither himself or Cradley any favours by continuing. In the short term, with Max Clegg, James Purchase and Ben Basford being able to take rider replacement rides it may actually strengthen the Heathens line-up.

Well done Adam Ellis. Here's hoping he is not the only British rider making it through to the finals!

Yes - as confirmed on the FIM's website. The riders at Lonigo line up as follows; 1) Max Fricke 2) Freddie Lindgren 3) Michael Jepsen Jensen 4) Martin Smolinski 5) Joonas Kylmakorpi 6) Nicolas Covatti 7) Bartosz Zmarzlik 8) Daniel Gappmeier 9) Patryk Dudek 10) Thomas H. Jonasson 11) Paco Castagna (WC) 12) Tomas Jedrzejak 13) Mikkel Bech 14) Brady Kurtz 15) Robert Lambert (WC) 16) Sergei Logachev 17 Craig Cook (Res) 18) Stanislav Melnychuk (Res)

The favourites are clearly those riders already mentioned. However, the track itself will in my opinion prove to be a great leveller, as not a single rider in the meeting will have any real experience of riding it apart from what they are able to gather from the practice session. I think there may well be quite a number of riders all stealing points from one another, and I would be surprised if the meeting winner went through the card with a 15 point maximum.

Nice to see the official BSPA press release, as well as the introductory page on their website, exclude Nike Lunna from all of the pre-meeting publicity for the Belle Vue qualifier; in spite of mentioning every other rider currently riding for a British club!

I don't disagree with you whatsoever. The point that I was making is that some riders, rightly or wrongly, are prepared to use their regular league earnings to subsidise their GP campaigns due to the poor prize money on offer at GP level. However, I haven't seen any evidence that would indicate that either of the Laguta brothers would be prepared to do so.

Unfortunately, I don't think that either of the Laguta brothers are motivated by anything other than money and arguably perceive SGP as a series that will cost them money to ride in.

Absolutely correct. The speedway world is becoming smaller and increasingly eurocentric. Here's hoping that any of the US based youngsters make it big in the next five-ten years and that Bradley Wilson-Dean continues to progress in the sport.

In my opinion, you could add Kai Niemi to the list. A rider with enough talent to get to the top echelons of the sport, but was arguably more motivated by financial gain than World Championship success.

It all depends upon marketing. If you are marketing the series on pure ability alone, Harris and Jonsson are well past their sell by date, but there are a paucity of options amongst the qualifiers who it could be said would categorically make the GP series stronger. Realistically, in my opinion, you could make a case for Martin Vaculik and Emil Sayfutdinov, but the latter has excluded himself by not even entering the qualifiers. On the other hand, if you were to try and market the series as a 'World' Championship involving riders from as many countries as possible, I would remove Harris and Jonsson and at least one of the four Poles (assuming Hampel is going to be fit). This would dilute standards in the short-term, but if marketed correctly it could open up other revenue streams from countries not currently represented in SGP. I would personally be comfortable with riders from any of the countries not represented in SGP - whether it was Finland, Germany, Latvia, Russia, Slovakia etc etc.

A pretty shocking day for the Brits - 4 riders in qualifying and 1 reserve place obtained. When qualifying places are allocated for next year's qualifiers, I wonder if this years and last years non-performance will result in a reduced allocation of qualifying places?

Far stronger fields at both Kings Lynn and Slangerup than Terenzano and Abensberg. I'd still be surprised though if Timo Lahti didn't make the cut at Slangerup. At Kings Lynn, aside from the French and Norwegian riders, there are plenty of spoliers, but at a push I'd go for Lindgren, Cook, Kasprzak, Andersen, Lambert, Kylmakorpi and one other.

I'm admitedly late in hearing of this story. Maybe I am missing something, but does not BSPA stand for British Speedway Promoters Association? If so, I fail to see how providing racing opportunies for two British riders (Cook and Stokes) and removing two mediocre Danish riders (Palm Toft and Porsing) is not in the best interests of the sport in Britain. Ironically, at the same time as announcing the blocking of Cook's signing on their webpage, they are trumping Cook beginning his quest to gain a place in the GPs at Kings Lynn. Their whole standing in this issue is riddled with contradiction.

Very weak lineups at both Terenzano and Abensberg. I can't see many qualifiers from either round surviving the semi-final stage.

I'll keep you informed. The only ones I have in my collection at present are all from World Championship Meetings and the World Team Cup in 1985, where the authenticity can be verified.

Looking at the line-up distribution for each of the qualifiers, it seems noticeable how much weaker the qualifiers in Abensburg and Terenzano are compared to Kings Lynn.

I would imagine that Fred Brand would be very much near the top of the list.

I realise that this is a bit of a long shot, but I was wondering if anyone had any Finnish Race Jackets they no longer wanted. All items considered - Individual, World Championship Qualifiers, Test, World Team Cup or Club. If you have anything to sell, please feel free to send me a message.

Speedway Star is reporting in this weeks issue that only four riders will qualify for the GPs from each qualifier, to be supplemented by three permanent wildcards and one local wildcard.

Many thanks - you've supplied far more information that I could have hoped for! I followed the hyperlinks and although my Russian is non-existant, it did seem as if they were in the preliminary stages of marking out a track in some photographs. Talk of 'tracks' is intriguing though. Hopefully it will lead to some resumed speedway activity, as all the current videos on their webpage seemed to consist largely of motocross.

I was just watching an old film on You Tube of speedway in Leningrad c.1977 and was curious when the track ceased to be operational. I know that they left the old Soviet/Russian League at some point in the late 1990s (presumably due to travel costs) and began to ride in the Finnish League even winning it on one occasion. Any information about the history/closure of the track after that point would be of interest (for instance does the track exist, but is no longer used, or even if the site was built over).

Apologies for any confusion caused. Does that mean that Finland have picked up an extra place in the qualifiers, or have the allocations been changed around?

Finland will be represented by Timo Lahti at Kings Lynn.