f-s-p

The fact is I'm seriously thinking about asking for it! At the moment I cant see myself getting in to a situation where I could get pics of ice racing until February...

Really cant remember for sure but I thought it was given to Vaasa IF the danes dont want it (it's their turn). Plenty of the local riders have even bought new equipment to make a good impression in front of their home fans. The rumour is out that only two teams wanted to take part in the Extraliiga with 5 man teams. I'm expecting an official statement tomorrow on the subject.

cheat!

Under control or not..?

Why not keep up with the multiple threads on this subject?

It dropped below zero saturday evening and is around -1 here in Tampere. I've been following the forecasts a little for Oulu and they've been saying no more than -8 in the nighttime for the whole of December. Usually only a few minus grades. I heard yesterday that a ski resort called Tahko, near Kuopio (half way up the country) has no snow. We have this christmas tradition to go and play some ice hockey before sauna in the afternoon. The were a few years with no ice so we made other stuff, but last christmas was the first when we went and played football on sand...

Ice racers for the World's qualifiers will be announced early this week by the federation. A training camp similar to the Swedish one was cancelled last weekend because of the weather. Our very own Bernie Ecclestone of track racing, Yrjö Laukkanen is now left with a difficult task to determine which riders will get the nod for the five places we have. Decisions will be pretty much based on past experience... from 2005/-06 since we only had one meeting last year! The 2007 Finnish final taking place at Oulu on the 29th of December will be a do or die this wednesday. Locals have managed to create some ice to the Raatti Stadion, but there's no snow at all. Ice racing at Seinäjoki is supposed to happen on a frozen lake on January 5th, but as I visited Seinäjoki last saturday there was no snow in sight with steady drizzle of rain. Nummen kenttä at Forssa, the place for the league meeting on the 6th of January is without ice or snow yestarday as I'm informed last night. Test match between Finland and Sweden taking place at Tampere on the 9th of February looks bad too. No snow, no ice.

You got it right... Only team missing is Kopparberg Speedway ( Vaasan Moottorikerho) from last years line up and like you said Leijonat (Helsingin Moottorikerho) didn't take part last season. As for next season, nobody knows yet, even if there is a league or not!?

www.popula.tv is showing a rerun of the Finnish 2007 Longtrack Final next saturday at 9 pm Finnish time. Unlike I said before you could only see it live in Finland when it was broadcasted live. Now it's free for worldwide viewing. Deadline for taking part in the the Finnish Extraliiga 2008 with new rules and five man teams runs out next sunday. Havent heard anything new... A training camp is supposed to take place next weekend at Kuortane with training on saturday and a meeting on sunday to determine the participants for the WC qualifiers. I'm not 100 % sure but the weather hasn't been all that great lately... cancelled Jari Mäkinen has signed to ride for Outrup in the Danish Superliiga next season and Rene Lehtinen has a contract to ride in the Swedish Allsvenskan for Solkatterna. I've subscribed myself the Speedway Star because it's such an excellent magazine! Also a picture I've taken was in the last issue of Bahnsport so thats a pretty good magazine too...

The 2007 Finnish final at Oulu has been confirmed and is staged on the 29th of December starting at 6 pm. 2008 final will be held sometime in the spring at Seinäjoki. The individual meeting at Kokkola has been cancelled. Not really sure why but it's cancelled.

Its 650 km from Tampere to Oulu. A few more to Ruka where they were jumping around... It has now been raining for 36 hours straight and currently it's +6,5... Pitch black outside...

To quote the famous KC: "It's pi$$ing down in Finland..." + 5 c

Eleven! Wow!! All the riders on a swedish license too...

I do believe Bysarna and Eldarna are both without a track and their season is finished already.

Hopefully all of them but dont know. I'm told they have 2 C riders and the better one (each week?) will get to ride... No quarantees... I really hope it turns out to be a good move, it's not like there weren't options to choose from.

Danish speedway rules

You need to?

Only 1 A-rider per meeting, max 3 B-riders, max 3 C riders, max 3 D-riders with at least 3 of all of them must be on a Danish license. A-riders are 8 poinst and so on, and in total the upper limit for the team is 25 points. Correct? Nearly even...

Outrup will rule!

I'm told he has bought a new frame, yes. I guess he had to if the welding joints from his last years bike's (seven seasons with one frame!) were tearing apart because they could't take it anymore...

There's an "open" training camp next weekend in Funasdälen or something, 30+ riders present. There's a VERY interesting debate going on in swedish whether or not it's legal to publish the names of the riders that are there (without permission?) in internet so that people would know if they wanted to go and watch or not. Swedes...

No... Maybe you should put isracing.net as the source though....

Teams for the Swedish ice racing league this season: ÖMK Rundbana (Stefan Svensson, Hans Tjärnberg, Ulf Ledström, Patrik Solberg, Marian Kreklau Tyskland, Rene Stellingwerf Holland, Niklas Svensson, Benny Johansson) Jämtlands MK (Per-Anders Lindström, Johan Lundkvist, Hans-Olof Olsén, Lars Ringbert, Robert Gjersvold, Seppo Sirra, Johan Bruckner Österrike, Jo Saetre Norge, Espen Berglund Norge) SMK Gävle (Dmitri Tschatchien Tyskland, P-O Serenius, Peter Lundkvist, Per Bruhn, Peter Koj, Peter Jansson, Joakim Plyhm, Totte Nilsson) Bollnäs MK (Tomas Andersson, Stefan Hedström, Jonas Lindholm, Jonas Norell, Tobias Åström, Sven Holstein Holland, Stefan Pletschacher Tyskland, Markus Skabraut Österrike, Réné Verhoef Holland) Funbo MS (Antti Aakko Finland, Joakim Söderström, Tommy Flyktman Finland, Torleif Burman, Paul Johansson, Börje Ivarsson, Frode Burman, Rickard Edlund, Franz Zorn Österrike, Anders Sjöden) Njurunda MK (Magnus Lundgren, Gösta Sundelin, Ulf Byström, Tomas Ekström, Tomas Höglund, Lars Eriksson, Danne Isaksson, Mark Uzzel England, Grzegorz Knapp Polen, Zdzislaw Zerdinzinski Polen) Team Finland (Kai Lehtinen, Joni Kontoniemi, Timo Kankkunen, Raimo Henriksson, Aki Ala-Riihimäki, Jukka Mantere, Kai Ilkka, Christer Biskop, Jussi Hytönen, Jouni Seppänen, Ari Tuomisto) Racing calendar for Finland/Sweden 2007/08 January 5th International Seinäjoki, SeMK 6th Finland - Gävle - Jämtland - Funbo, league Forssa, FMS 8th Bollnäs - Gävle - Finland - Njurunda, league Bollnäs, Sweden 19th ÖMK - Gävle - Jämtland - Njurunda, league Örnsköldsvik, Sweden 20th Jämtland - Funbo - Bollnäs – ÖMK. league Östersund, Sweden 26th Individual meeting Kokkola, Finland 30th Gävle - Bollnäs - ÖMK – Funbo, league Gävle, Sweden February 2nd Funbo - ÖMK - Njurunda – Finland, leagueMorgongåva, Sweden 9th Finland vs Sweden Tampere, Finland 10th Nordic final Forssa, FMS 17th Njurunda - Bollnäs - Jämtland – Finland, league Njurunda, Sweden 22th Swedish Championship, qualifier Gävle, Sweden March 1st League final, organised by the winner of the league Sweden 18th International meeting Örebro, Sweden 21st Swedish Champioship, final Uppsala, Sweden The Finnish Championship final will be added sometime... It will be held at Seinäjoki. The funny thing once again regarding Finnish news is that I received an email last sunday from Germany asking about dates that were known by the german ice racing riders but there was no official info about any of them in Finland/in Finnish... The situation regarding our speedway league for next season is looking really bad. I've spoken with all the teams (eleven in total) I could see taking part in it and only two were gonna. Thats not the four it takes to make a league. There's still two weeks for the deadline, but cant see the situation changing.

The story I heard from the FIM congress was that the UEM asked the people at Inzell to move their ice racing qualifier because they've apparently already given the date for Sanok. The reply I'm told was legendary and so the dates now clash. Dont know if this is one of the reasons why, but it really looks like the UEM are taking a step back by introducing thursday as a racenight for their qualifiers. And of course there's the possibility that even though they are during the week, they are national holidays in the countries in question. But even in that case, I think it devalues the product , like I've seen written so many times in the Elite thread.

I just went through the calendar and and was quite surprised to see it filled with meetings on thursdays for example. The U19 team EC starts in MARCH! and is finished in May... Now that'll be a top quality meeting in Rawicz on the 22nd of May when they decide which is the top team.