moomin man 76

Swooping one Dane on the way down for another on the way down isn't likely to make much difference.

Apologies if it has been mentioned elsewhere, but both Tero Aarnio and Timo Lahti are due to ride for Rospiggarna once the Swedish season gets started.

The standard across Europe is better than most might expect; especially when comparing to a rider who is currently a Championship reserve. Without being disrespectful to Leon Flint, I can think of half a dozen riders in the Finnish SM-liiga match I saw at Kuusankoski on Thursday who have not ridden in England (admittedly not all Under 21), who are of a comparable or better standard.

That may well be the case too... It would be interesting to hear why exactly the Qualifiers in Daugavpils were cancelled, given that those likely to ride were going to find it far easier to get there than to Manchester...

Unless it is behind closed doors, or with a heavily restricted crowd, I simply cannot see this going ahead. There is no way under any form of social distancing laws that current tickets sold, as opposed to capacity will allow all current ticket holders to attend; for instance all grandstand seats are sold out. Then comes the small matter of the teams and how you get riders, equipment, mechanics, team managers etc to Manchester for the event. Personally, I think BSI are trying to create the impression that they have done all that they can to get the event on, in order to meet the criteria of their insurer's to get a pay off, and then in turn pay off what they owe for not holding an event they are contractually liable to hold.

So Opole took a hammering; no surprise really when they sign Tero Aarnio and don't bother to pick him, as well as signing and I believe sacking Sam Masters before he had the chance to ride in anything more than a practice!

Not ideal I know, but I have checked the Speedway Yearbook for 1991, which contains details of all the WCQR held in Australia and New Zealand until the end of 1990 and there is nothing on this meeting. It does list the South Island Final earlier in the month, but not the North Island final...

I can't comment on other European Leagues, but for Finnish coverage the website to go to is http://www.speedway.fi/etusivu.php There is also plenty of good content on Facebook too of the Finnish League 'Speedwayn SM-Liiga' and for the Baltic League (Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Russia), there is good coverage on 'Baltic Speedway League,' which includes links to live streams of their meetings. Over in Estonia, I have always found 'Speedway Estonia' on Facebook helpful. All of the Finnish clubs are on Facebook - the most regularly updated at present is 'Varkaus Racing Team Ry.'

I don't know if you are referring to Timo Lahti, but if you are, it might be related to the fact that here he is racing in the European Championship two days after his partner gave birth to hs first child.

Link to the You Tube Stream for the 1st Round of the Baltic League in Daugavpils, plus Under 15 125cc races, with riders from Finland (Varkaus), Estonia and Latvia.

This is not exclusive to British riders. There are plenty of other examples of clubs in the lower divisions in Poland, who appear to be run by real 'cowboys,' who promise riders different sums of money to then renege on the deals offered. A good example would be Krakow last last season, who paid no more than a quarter of the wages that they promised to their foreign riders.

Rybnik are out of their depth at Ekstraliga level.

Good to see Timo Lahti as 1st reserve, although after his appearance as a wild card last year, he should have been in the series as of right. But then I guess One Sport know they aren't going to sell many tv packages in Finland on the back of him being in the series. Like the GP Series, the European Championship is another series, where you are selected if your face fits and/or if we can make money of the back of you being in the series.

Looking forward to seeing some 'live' action later in the summer when we get over to Finland - hopefully Forssa will also be on too!

Many thanks for taking the time to investigate and if anything comes from Franz Boßlet, I would be most grateful to hear what he had to say.

I guess it all depends on the definition of 'under-rated.' Under-rated but still international standard riders, or under-rated clubmen? If I was to stick to under-rated international standard riders who I have seen ride, I would choose Simon Cross (very good career, but could have gone further with fewer injuries); Alan Grahame; Peter Karlsson (top league rider, World Cup Winner and GP competitor, but over shadowed by Tony Rickardsson); Kai Niemi (regularly mixed it with the best at club and world championship level) and Tommy Knudsen (over-shadowed by Olsen, Gundersen and Nielsen, plus injuries). At club level, there have been a whole host of riders over the years, so sticking to five is hard. Nonetheless, in no particular order, I would go for James Grieves; Garry Stead; Kauko Niemenen; Jonathan Forsgren and Leigh Lanham. Hopefully no-one has hijacked the thread earlier (I haven't checked) trumpeting the virtues of Buzz Burrows...

Oddly, I have now been on the international speedway website, which clearly shows a front cover from a programme in 1958 that a four way tournament was held between West Germany, England, Austria and Holland with England represented by Danny Dunton, Tommy Sweetman, George Bason and Jim Tebby. The cover has 'Internationales Speedway-Rennen' whereas others are marked as 'Sandbahnrennen.' Aside from that the covers appear identical - were the same promoters staging both sand racing (longtrack) and speedway??? I would gratefully appreciate if anyone could clear this one up....

Many thanks for such a detailed response - far more than I or my friend could have hoped for. From the information supplied, it appears that Homburg (Saar) was an established sand track for longer than I or my friend were aware. It also perhaps puts to bed the myth the feeling that I had, which was that if speedway had been held, it could only have been at 'Waldstadion,' which is the home ground of FC08 Homburg and has an athletics track around the pitch.

I was wondering if anyone had any copies of the programmes issued for speedway in Homburg (Saar)? I believe racing was held there in 1957-58 and 1960. Friends of my family live in Homburg and therefore I am interested if anyone could post a scanned copy of the front cover of a programme and/or would be interested in selling a copy of a programme... Failing that, any details of the venue would be appreciated...

Tamworth v Cradley 4th August - 2nd half results according to my copy of the programme; Heat 17: Reserve Scratch Race - Jack Baxter (R), Jack Ladd (B), Phil Malpass (W), Alan Hunt (Y/B) - result Baxter, Ladd, Hunt, Malpass - 80.6s Heat 18: Junior Match Race - Bill Dalton (R), T. Gibson (B) - replacing Fred Yates - result Dalton, Gibson - 80.6s Heat 19: Highest Point Scorers - Arthur Payne (R), Bill Harris (B), Jim Wright (W), Les Beaumont (Y/B) - result Harris, Beaumont, Payne, Wright - 78s Heat 20: Runners Up: - Jack Baxter (R), G. Dates (B), Geoff Bennett (W), Alan Hunt (Y/B) - result Bennett, Dates, Hunt, Baxter - no time indicated. I don't have a copy of the meeting from 8th October. Cradley v Tamworth 4th August 2nd Half Details: Heat 1 - Alan Hunt (R), Phil Malpass (B), Jack Baxter (W), Jack Ladd (Y/B) - result Hunt, Baxter, Ladd - 84.6s Heat 2 - Les Beaumont (R), Jimmy Wright (B), Steve Langton (W), Cyril Page (Y/B) - result Beaumont, Wright, Page - 81.8s Heat 3 - Geoff Bennett (R), Frank Evans (B), Bill Harris (W), Charlie Oates (Y/B) - result Harris, Evans, Oates, Bennett - 80.2s Heat 4 - Eric Irons (R), Ray Beaumont (B), Arthur Payne (W), Fred Yates (Y/B) - result Beaumont, Irons, Yates (Payne excluded) - 81.6s Final - Alan Hunt (R), Les Beaumont (B), Bill Harris (W), Ray Beaumont (Y/B) - result Ray Beaumont, Hunt (seemingly only two finishers) - 81.8

I will dig out my Cradley programmes from 1947 to see what I can find for you.

Always 'mysterious' how the landowners (in this case Brandon Estates) have no security on the site when such fires 'mysteriously' break out.

I can well imagine that this will be first of other leagues deciding that there will be no racing this year...hopefully there will still be some open meetings later in the year for German fans to enjoy...

In my humble opinion, I would place Jason Crump (1st), Jack Young (2nd), Leigh Adams (3rd), Vic Duggan (4th) and probably one of the pre-WW2 Aussies e.g. Grosskreutz or Wilkinson 5th. Darcy Ward could have achieved a lot more, but for his career being finished by injury. Unfortunately, he doesn't make the top five on achievement for that reason; not aided by some poor decisions/lifestyle choices earlier in his career. Chris Holder won a GP Series to be crowned World Champion, but having reached the summit, his career seems to have headed downhill. Others mentioned, such as Billy Sanders were never amongst the elite at the top of the sport in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I don't think he can be compared to the likes of Olsen, Mauger, Penhall, Gundersen, Nielsen and Lee, who were around in the same period.

Having looked at the photographs of the proposed venue in Patagonia, I have to applaud those organised in developing their facility from scratch. However, the track itself may be good, but there appears to be almost no spectator facilities. The only track I have personally visited, which has such basic facilities is at Haapajarvi in Finland - in fact, the facilities at Haapajarvi were superior. Grand prix standard it is not - another Castagna fantasy sadly...