Conkers

I remember that meeting too! It had the lights strung across on wires over the whole area where the track was. I do remember chatting with F-S-P about that a few years ago when he was in Manchester. Do they play Bandy or something like it on that pitch? Also: Apart from Saalfelden and Sanok, does anyone know where the third qualifying round will be? Can't seem to find anything about it

Jesper, commiserations on your meeting, but I notice there was a rider called Maurin Vochteloo. Any relation to former Ice Racer Weibe? Hope to see you in March at least. EDIT: One thing: My son informs me that Lee Geary used to be the guitarist in Method In Madness, and used to spanner for Billy Janirro, but apparently does ride

Meetings upate: The Swiss are having the Alpenarena Cup/Swiss Championship on 15th/16th January - a bit earlier than normal. Details Here. Poland has the Sanok Cup on 15/16th January too according to their site, Details Here. No details if they are staging a World Championship qualifier that weekend yet.

They held the Semi Final the day before and there were seven Russian in it + 2 Russians at Reserve. All seven went into the final together with one of the reserves who rode after another rider was injured. plus two none Russians (Goldi of Switzerland and Mallinen of Finland). Two Russians were already seeded to the final, and the top 9 were all Russians. In fact the winner was was Bulankin - World Champion in 2004. It still struck me as odd that the UEM held it the same time as the Team Final, as it meant 2008 champion Franz Zorn couldn't defend his title (he told me in Berlin he was a bit annoyed about that as he felt he could have won it - even in Russia). I do wonder if the UEM are trying outdo the FIM for incompetence?

Interesting to see Danil Ivanov doing well on shale, riding on his home track. Getting in shape for the Ice no doubt! TMW: The UEM is all of the European nations National federations, although they don't appear to have universal support in the Speedway Nations. The ACU will enter Ice racers in the Ice competitions, but not on Shale. Odd Arnieg The European u-19 Ice championship was a bit of a cock up as apart from Russia very few nations have U-19 ice racers of the same standard. BUT the UEM persisted with it and it was a financial disaster for them. Only 200 die hards attended the final in Saransk - an Ice Racing hotbed. Acording to a poster on the Russian forums at the time, "who wants to watch the Russian Junior Championship again?".

Interesting piece on the Swedish site Isracing.net that former World Championship competitor Ola Westlund (son of the legendary Kurt) will be the Swedish National Team Coach, and he and National team boss Peter Jansson will be trying to recruit new riders from Motocross, Trials and Enduro. Meanwhile over in Russia it would appear that most of the racers are honing their Motocross skills. There is a great pic of Krasnikov sporting a new haircut Here (At least I got him to smile in the last photo I took of him) Well worth a look.

Well I booked my flights to Assen and Berlin whilst they were cheapish and I'm looking at Winters this year (booking via Inspeed) as I am leaving straight after the Sunday racing as my flight is at 9.20pm. From all accounts, Inzell isn't staging any racing because of the work on the Stadium, but are hoping for a Final in 2011 to celebrate the roof going on. Either way I'm going to try and get there. So it's time to pester my Neighbour again when I need urgent translations and catch up on glasses, commands and seagulls!

British U-15 Championship, 25.7.2009 Apologies for doubling up the post from General Discussions

Sorry to inteupt all this banter but I've had some infomation on the condition of Nicki Pedersen. Don't know if it's already been posted. Had a text late last night from a friend who does some work for the DMU - Nicki is still at the hospital and will see a specialist today to see if he needs a skin graft. He will not ride on Thursday. If I receive any further information, I'll post it.

Is this what you are after?

I watched some of the repeat and three things stuck out: 1) The intrusive Graphics - far too big 2) The poor quality of the footage - which you appear to have addressed in your comment Steve 3) The point my wife and I both agreed - it looks bigger on the TV. Having been to Costa Mesa (albeit 20 years ago) it is a much more intimate track than the coverage suggests. I'll give it a couple of shows but if the footage doesn't improve I'm afraid I'll be giving it a miss. Footnote: It did look a bit better on a smaller screen!

Just to close this thread for the season, there is some footage from Assen on the Dutch TV Channel site NOS. The Assen club have got some great publicity out of this: NOS Ice Racing It is all in Dutch, but there is some vintage footage of Roelof Thijs which is brilliant

Cracking piece of footage Pete!

It's the last meeting of the season in Norway on Saturday 21.3 and this is the line up: 1 Stefan Pletschacher GER 2 Johan Lundkvist SWE 3 Per-Anders Lindstrøm SWE 4 Rene Stellingwerf NED 5 Miroslaw Daniszewski POL 6 Ketil Skarpnord NOR 7 Heinz Göldi SUI 8 Jouni Seppanen FIN 9 Peter Koij SWE 10 Peter Jansson SWE 11 Espen Berglund NOR 12 Christoph Kirchner GER 13 Jan Klatovsky CZE 14 Jo Sætre NOR 15 Mark Uzzel GBR 16 Antonin Klatovsky CZE RES. 17 TBA NO 18 TBA NO Should be a good meeting. ALSO I bumped into a chap from Ipswich on Friday at Assen who was looking for the Assen Motorclub secretary. He was telling me that they plan to build a big snowpark in Ipswich on the site of a former concrete works, which will include a ski slope (like Manchesters Chill Factor E) and a 400 meter Speed Skating track. I asked Russell Large from Travel Plus about it Saturday, and he confirmed they are building it and it's potential title is "Snoasis" Anyway it appears that this chap intends to approach the developers with a view to staging Ice Racing there, and was seeking the help of Motorclub Assen in preparing the case, who I understand are keen to help. So it looks like there is the chance we may finally have an Ice Racing Track in the UK. (And I have checked - April 1st is a few weeks away)

Assen, Saturday 14.3.2009 Assen, Sunday 15.3.2009

Whilst I agree with you Rob, I looked at the final chart from Berlin, which didn't mention Simon having ridden. But he appears to have had the points added since Sunday (as f-s-p pointed out). Just had a look at my pics and in Heat 26 Lehtinen rode in blue (Orange bike with black checks on front guard), and white in Ht 36. Lindstrom rode in Yellow Heat 32 (blue leathers) and again in Heat 40 in white. Simon's bike was sky blue with an orange stripe along the top of the guards, and he took his first ride but withdrew. I didn't have a chance to speak to him but he was looking a little under the weather on Sunday around the end of the heats and he was out of his leathers. Mind you he did bounce up the embankment at Berlin with some force last week!

Thanks for that Rob, a problem with my Spreadsheet, on Khomitsevich, but with only three riders in the Round 6 Berlin D Final, I can't see how they could award 3 points to Simon, but they did.

Final Table: 1 Nikolai Krasnikov Rus 200 2 Danil Ivanov Rus 144 3 Franz Zorn A 129 4 Junir Baseev Rus 127 5 Dmitri Khomitsevich Rus 108 6 Vitali Khomitsevich Rus 103 7 Pavel Tschajka Rus 88 8 Gunther Bauer D 87 9 Antti Aakko SF 77 10 Antonin Klatovsky CzR 63 11 Harald Simon A 45 12 Stefan Svensson S 45 13 Johnny Tuinstra NL 43 14 Tommy Flyktman SF 41 15 Ivan Ivanov Rus 39 16 Markus Skabraut A 37 17 Kai Lehtinen SF 21 18 Per-Olof Serenius S 20 19 Per-Anders Lindstrom S 17 20 Sven Holstein NL 11 21 Hans-Olov Olsen S 3 EDIT for scores correction

Roelof Thijs Bokaal, 13.3.2009 Friday's meeting

seeing as two of you who went couldn't be bothered World Ice Racing Championship R7 Assen 14.3.2009 A Final: Nikolai Krasnikov, Franz Zorn, Danil Ivanov, Dmitri Khomitsevich B Final: Yunir Baseev, Antti Aakko, Pavel Tschajka, Gunther Bauer C Final: Johnny Tuinstra, Markus Skabraut, Antonin Klatovsky, Tommy Flyktman D Final: Sven Holstein, Per-Anders Lindstrom, Kai Lehtinen, Harald Simon Overall: 1 Nikolai Krasnikov Rus 175 ***WORLD CHAMPION*** 2 Danil Ivanov Rus 126 3 Franz Zorn A 119 4 Junir Baseev Rus 107 5 Dmitri Khomitsevich Rus 92 6 Vitali Khomitsevich Rus 92 7 Gunther Bauer D 75 8 Pavel Tschajka Rus 75 9 Antti Aakko SF 63 10 Antonin Klatovsky CzR 55 11 Stefan Svensson S 45 12 Harald Simon A 42 13 Ivan Ivanov Rus 39 14 Johnny Tuinstra NL 36 15 Tommy Flyktman SF 35 16 Markus Skabraut A 28 17 Kai Lehtinen SF 21 18 Per-Olof Serenius S 20 19 Per-Anders Lindstrom S 13 20 Sven Holstein NL 6 21 Hans-Olov Olsen S 0 Vitali K had a fall in his first ride and it is suspected he has broken his collar bone or his shoulder. Franky was unbeaten and is the third rider to beat NK this season, scored a full max but lost power in the A Final when his exhaust came off. Yes I got Nikolai top hold up the five fingers and was smiling! Pics on my site tomorrow! Off to bed 'cos I'm rat-arsed!

Results from the Roelof Thijs Bokaal, Friday 13th March 1. Stanislav Archipov (Russia) 2. Rene Stellingwerf (NL) 3. Eduard Krysov (Russia) 4. Jan Klatovsky (Czech Rep) 5. Sven Holstein (NL) 6. Henri Malinen (Finland) 7. Stefan Pletschacher (Germany) 8. Grzegorz Knapp (Poland) 9. Martin Leitner (Austria) 10. Hans-Olov Olsen (Sweden) 11. Max Neidermaier (Germany) 12. Gosta Sundelin (Sweden) 13. Tobias Anstrom (Sweden) 14. Mario Schwaiger (Austria) 15. Florian Fürst (Germany) 16. Martin Posch (Austria) 17. Christoph Kirchner (Germany) 18. Heinz Goldi (Switzerland) 19. Thomas Cavigelli (Switzerland) 20. Jo Saetre (Norway) 21. Mroslav Daniswesk (Poland) 22. Jussi Nyronen (Finland) 23. Janne Vilponen (Finland) 24. Andrej Divis (Czech Rep) Stefan Pletschacher should have been excluded in Heat 23 when he obviously left the track nearly hitting one of the inside stantions, and despite Knapp's protest the result was allowed. I'll put my Pics up as soon as I can probably tomorrow morning.

If you like, I'll ask him tomorrow (provided I can persuade Joni to translate for me.......)

Draw for the final rounds at Assen: 1 Franz Zorn 2 Harald Simon 3 Antonin Klatovsky 4 Nikolai Krasnikov 5 Vitali Khomitsevich 6 Antti Aakko 7 Junir Baseev 8 Kai Lehtinen 9 Tommy Flyktman 10 Dmitri Khomitsevich 11 Stefan Svensson 12 Ivan Ivanov 13 Pavel Tschajka 14 Johnny Tuinstra 15 Gunther Bauer 16 Danil Ivanov R17 Markus Skabraut R18 Per-Anders Lindstrom Skabraut will make his last ever appearances on Sunday, as he retires from racing at the end of the season. Krasnikov only needs to qualify for the B Final on Saturday to be World Champion. He only needs 9 championship points as Danil can only score a maximum of 158, and Franky can only get 149. Also saw that Andrei Gavrilkin isn't riding on the the Friday, and Martin Posch is. Pity really as I hear Gavrilkin is pretty good to watch.

More photos from Berlin (No need to look Doug, you saw most of them ) Berlin Ice Racing - Saturday 7.3.2009 Berlin Ice Racing - Sunday 8.3.2009

Svensson only suffered bruising and will be riding this weekend. Simon was walking around the pits on Sunday, and I beleive he withdrew on Medical advice after his arm injury was aggravated. I expect him to ride weekend too. My photos should be up later today.