TwoMinuteWarning

I assume that the bookies regard the winner of the GP as the rider who wins the Final, rather than the highest GP points scorer in the meeting?

The Karlsson brothers are both riding in Division 1 this year for Ostrow, along with Joe Screen. Today, Mikael got a 15 pt maximum, Peter 13 from 5 rides Yesterday's Div.1 details are at http://207.218.233.253/pierwszaliga.htm

2ndBender, no I wasn't there - but I will be at the Bydgoszcz GP this year! I got the result at that time from one of the Polish sites - sportowefakty, przeglad zuzlowy, etc

These are the results, 2ndBender: Gdansk : PAIRS Att: 1,500 (Points-Bonus-Rides) BYDGOSZCZ 22 (Emil Sajfutdinov 12-1-5, Krystian Klecha 10-2-5) GDANSK I 21 (Krzysztof Jablonski 9-2-4, Artur Pietrzyk 9-0-4, Rafal Kowalski 3-1-2) BYDGOSZCZ II 15 (Krzysztof Buczkowski 9-2-5, Marcin Jedrzejewski 6-0-5) GDANSK 14 (Sebastian Truminski 8-0-5, Mariusz Frankow 6-1-5) GDANSK II / GNIEZNO 9 (Miroslaw Jablonski 8-0-4, Lenar Nigmatzanov 1-4, Damian Sperz 0-0-1) GDANSK III / LODZ 9 (Pawel Baran 6-1-5, Wojciech Zurawski 3-1-5)

So, a famous World Final and GP venue could be gone? Very sad

I'm told that the Easter Landerkampf at Pocking is cancelled due to noise problems - is this true? Surely this must be one of the oldest meetings in Germany?

Err ... I'm not going to answer that ... but look under the signature on speedwayondisc's postings! Or, go to http://speedwayondisc.blogspot.com/ Have to agree, this is a superb collection of clips, thanks to Carl for sharing them with us. The collection of clips at rapidshare is especially good, but there is a lot of them, so ideally you will need a rapidshare account. (6.99 Euros for a month - about £5) I like Carl's comment on the site that "New converts to the speedway cause may be totally unaware that Andy Smith used to be a very good speedway rider ..."

Nothing on the live updates?

Last year in Poland there was a superb close match which finished Australia 49 GB 48 Poland 48 - one of THE great matches. Poland might win this year - but I don't think they will find it at all easy.

Qualifier 1 - Abensberg, Germany - 28 May Germany v Finland v Latvia v Slovenia Qualifier 2 - Lonigo, Italy - 10 June Italy v Czech Rep v Hungary v Russia Event 1 - Vojens, Denmark - 14 July Denmark v Australia v Poland v Winner of Qualifier 1 Event 2 - Coventry, GB - 16 July Great Britain v Sweden v USA v Winner of Qualifier 2 Race-Off - Leszno, Poland - 19 July 2nd & 3rd place teams from Events 1 & 2 Final - Leszno, Poland - 21 July Winners of Events 1 & 2, plus Winner and 2nd of Race-Off Strange comment in today's Speedway Star, that Middlo was pleased to have avoided holders Denmark in Events 1 & 2. Since one was scheduled to take place in GB, and the other in Denmark, that was never a possibility! Have to say that the Vojens match looks much the tougher of the two.

I have sent you his phone number by e-mail

Graham Fraser wrote an excellent article on the 12 meetings staged at Whitley Bay in the Speedway Researcher (March 2002 edition). In it, he says that local newspaper photos of the first meeting "show 6 riders at the start line and the crowd lined up behind an open wooden fence" May be worth digging them out at the local library.

Hmmm, yes, entertaining is one word to describe him! Sorry, but I think he "crossed the line" from entertainer to being a sometimes dangerous rider. He certainly did a very good impression of being out of control! Good to watch - but always the fear that someone was going to get badly injured. Just my opinion!

Vic Lonsdale used to frighten the life out of me

Ivan was only 17 when he arrived here in 1957, and already married to Raye. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last month on the Gold Coast.

Just needed a half-decent mechanic I reckon! Kelvin Mullarkey rules, OK?

Sun 04.03 Lonigo, Italy : ITALY 50 LANDSHUT (Germany) 46 (Training Challenge) Italy: Mattia Carpanese 15, Christian Miotello 12, Daniele Tessari 11, Andrea Maida 9, A Baroni 2, S Mazzali 1, M Tadiello 0, M Cavicchioli 0. Landshut: Richard Speiser 13, Herbert Rudolph 12, Sirg Schutzbach 8, Stefan Kurz 6, Michael Kammermaier 3, T Linder 3, Sebastian Mach 1. Sat 10.03 Gorican, Croatia : GORICAN 28 CZECH REPUBLIC 62 (Training Challenge) Gorican: Jurica Pavlic 11, Renato Cvetko 5, Ivan Vargek 4, Roland Kovacs (Hun) 3, Davor Volk (Slvn) 3 Czech: Filip Sitera 13, Lubos Tomicek 13, Michael Hadek 10, Matej Kus 9, Martin Gavenda 7, Martin Vaculik (Slvk) 8, Dominik Jech 2 Sun 11.03 Lonigo, Italy : LONIGO 37 TORUN (Poland) 55 (Training Challenge) Lonigo: Andreas Jonsson 16, Mattia Carpanese 7, Daniele Tessari 5, Alessandro Milanese 4, Andrea Maida 3, Christian Miotello 2, Marco Gregnanin 0. Torun: Robert Kosciecha 11, Wieslaw Jagus 9, Ryan Sullivan 8, Adrian Miedzinski 8, Robin Tornqvist 7, Alan Marcinkowski 6, Simon Gustafsson 4, Damian Stachowiak 2

There are reports of South African meetings in Speedway Star from Christian Weber every few weeks. The latest meeting at the end of January featured Byron Bekker and ex-Don favourite Deon Prinsloo - neither of whom won the meeting.

I was just reading a 1961 Speedway Star* (yeah, I know ... just catching up on some back issues) and I came across an item about Graham Warren, then riding for Provincial League Wolverhampton, talking about his 9-year old son Leigh, who wanted to become a ballet dancer. Then I found this and this Can anyone confirm that this is indeed Graham's son? *editor - a certain Mr. John Hyam

No, it hasn't, but I agree with you - it would be invaluable. I'd be first in line to buy one!

Yes, I remember seeing him as a Provincial league rider and didn't like him at all, based on the fact that he always looked so miserable! (apparently, he was just shy). But when I saw him win the Internationale I quickly changed my mind (oh, how fickle we were ...) for he beat all the home riders plus Fundin, Booey, Knutsson, etc. Only bad part of that meeting was the bad back injury suffered by Ivor Brown.

There were a couple of recent pics of Charlie in February's Australian paper, Peter White's Speedway World. Great to see, as I well remeber Charlie causing one of speedway's biggest surprises back in 1965 when he won the Internationale at Wimbledon. The pics were taken at one of several reunions organised by Reg Fearman. The Adelaide one, which Charlie attended, also featured Geoff Mudge, Malcolm Mackay, Dennis Gavros, Robin Amundsen, John Boulger, Bryan Elliott, Dene Davies, and Kym Amundson. I do hope Peter White dosen't mind, but I scanned one of the pics, which you can see at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/speedway3/monk.htm

I see that this is basically a Wednesday night league. But Holstebro are riding some matches on other days to avoid fixture clashes with Bjarne Pedersen's regular Wednesday nights at Poole. This is quite unusual - it's usually Britain that has to change it's fixtures to fit in with everyone else! Still disappointed about no June 10 match at Slangerup though ...

Wroclaw Eskilstuna Copenhagen Bydgoszcz Krsko Gelsenkirchen

Yep, think you are right, iris123. It says Junior W.C - which I took to be World Cup, must be World Championship instead!