TwoMinuteWarning

That's what I thought. But now I see that Holta is representing Norway in the GP qualification round at Tarnow on July 8! Be interesting to see whether he rides for Poland in the SWC again, 8 days later at Rybnik.

'cos the FIM and BSI want to get all their hotel rooms booked first, before the peasants start taking 'em all

Suggestions of an "early" GP at Cardiff in 2008 tie in with suggestions on the Australian speedway discussion list in the last few days that BSI are looking to hold the first 2008 GP indoors at the Telstra Dome, Melbourne, 24 Feb 2008; the second in the USA on 1 March; and the 3rd at Cardiff on 8 or 15 March 2008. We shall see.

GER: Abensberg : DENMARK 46 GERMANY I 40 GREAT BRITAIN 28 GERMANY II 5 (Junior World Cup - Qualifying Round) Denmark: Morten Risager 14, Leon Madsen 12, Nicolai Klindt 11, Patrick Hougaard 5, Henrik Moller 4 Germany I: Christian Hefenbrock 16, Kevin Wolbert 11, Tobias Kroner 10, Thomas Stange 3, Max Dilger 0 Gt Britain: James Wright 9, Daniel King 8, Ben Wilson 5, Ben Barker 4, Jason King 2 Germany II: Frank Facher 3, Stefan Kurz 1, Christoph Demmel 1, Mathias Betz 0

http://www.speedway.org/ has the missing number 12 as Ronni Pedersen

Teams for Abensberg on Monady 5 June: LATVIA: Viatcheslav Gerutskij, Kjastas Puodzhuks, Evgeny Kozlowski, Maksim Bogdanov GERMANY: Christian Hefenbrock, Thomas Stange, Tobias Kroner, Kevin Wolbert, Max Dilger GREAT BRITAIN: Daniel King, Jason King, Ben Wilson, James Wright, Ben Barker DENMARK: Morten Risager, Henrik Moller, Nicolai Klindt, Leon Madsen, Patrick Hougaard

There's a report of the first two rounds of the Romanian Championship in the current Speedway Star - only 8 riders, though. From what I can gather, the sport is basically amateur there now. Can only imagine how difficult it must be for them. Got to admire their dedication!

Whoever arranged this meeting for the same day as the SWC qualifier in Latvia? Russia decided to send their best riders to the SWC, Latvia never turned up at Rovno, and neither did the Dutch! Hence, 3 Ukraine teams. The previous weekend, half the riders due to appear at the European U-19 Championship at Togliatti did not arrive, and were replaced by Russians. And the UEM wants to be taken seriously????

Anth, try http://www.fim.ch/en/default.asp?item=30# Appendix 072

Result from Daugavpils: FINLAND 42 (Joonas Kylmakorpi 12, Kaj Laukkanen 11, Kauko Nieminen 8, Tomi Reima 6, Juha Hautamaki 5) GERMANY 39+3 (Christian Hefenbrock 12+3, Thomas Stange 11, Martin Smolinski 9,Tobias Kroner 4, Stephan Katt 3) RUSSIA 39+2 (Denis Gizatullin 13+2, Semen Vlasov 10, Sergei Darkin 9, Ilya Bondarenko 4, Renat Gafurov 3) LATVIA 30 (Kjastas Puodzhuks 11, Andrei Korolev 10, Maksim Bogdanov 5, Nikolai Kokin 3, Viatcheslav Gerukij1) FINLAND will ride against Great Britain, Poland, and Czech Republic at Rybnik on July 16

Should be a close match in Latvia today. Germany to win? Anyone know if there is there a Latvian website that will have the results?

Many thanks for all the links, f-s-p, it is good to get so much information about speedway in your country now. And - good luck in Daugavpils today!

The way Jon Cook is carrying on, Lewis is only ever going to be allowed to ride the 11 Elite League tracks.

Not a single Norwegian rider - and the meeting was held in ... Norway! The sport must be in a really bad way there now. Such a shame ... Reidar Eide, Oyvind Berg, Dag Lovaas ... and the greatest of them all, Sverre Harrfeldt ... we won't see their like again.

Subedei, really appreciate you posting the results each time, but why do you say "Bonus points calculated per British Elite League" - are they normally calculated differently in Poland? Thanks

If the GP's were run democratically, I'd agree with you. But there is no way that a GP series will be run with no Brits. I thought the whole idea of "selecting" the riders was to ensure that the top 16 riders were competing, but that was never the case this year. I'm certainly no Hans Andersen fan, but it's criminal that he isn't competing.

This new book (248 pages, A4 size) is a review of the 2005 season - but covers the whole world, so if you want all the stats from outside the UK it is quite excellent. Haven't seen anything this comprehensive since the Maurice Jones Speedway Surveys and the Loaders Annuals of the early 1990's. Well done to Peter Oakes and contributors.

Many thanks

Certainly did, Conkers, many thanks for sharing that with us. Is this a recent publication?

As far as I've seen, he has only ridden in one of Rawicz's 3 Polish Div.2 matches so far (7 from 5 rides). He's on the books of Brovst, whose Danish Superleague season starts next week.

RR, this was covered pretty well in a previous topic at the time of the Living In The Sun TV programme about the track. See: http://www.speedway-forum.co.uk/forums/ind...=23831&hl=spain But it would be nice to hear any latest news from Russell

I was under the impression that Mats Gregoric wasn't actually taken to hospital, but that he was dealt with by the doctor at the track (concussion?) But yes, any news on Philip Grunwald would be appreciated. Chris Durno announced "a broken leg and severe back injuries" at the track, which does NOT sound good.

W/TZ, suggest you also look at a previous Forum topic at http://www.speedway-forum.co.uk/forums/ind...22608&hl=latvia which has some excellent information from spiegal on travelling and staying in Latvia.

Ray, I fully agree with everything you say, I was referring to speedway as we understand it on this Forum. Apologies if I sounded a little abrupt. "Speedway" was a term used as long ago as the early 1900's to refer to an enclosed race track for motorcycles/cars. When "dirt-track racing" arrived in the UK in 1928 (or 1927 if you come from Manchester), some of the stadiums where it was staged soon became known as speedways. Nobody liked the name "dirt-track racing" and a newspaper competition was even held to find a new name for the sport. Names like "Dracing" instead of dirt-track (and "Gracing" instead of greyhound racing) never really caught on, and strangely it took until mid-1929 before the term "speedway racing" was used. Unfortunately, there has never been a definition of "speedway racing" as we understand it, but I think that the "loose surface" is fundamental to the sport, whether it be cinder, shale, sand, etc., as it enables what used to be called "broadsiding". That dosen't feature in Japanese Autoracing, which is more like mini-road racing. I would agree that it looks exciting, though it probably wouldn't exist without betting! I believe all the riders use "standard" bikes too, from a central compound, not their own machines. See, there IS something we could learn from Japan! Sorry for the long-ish post!

Autoracing is nothing to do with speedway. Speedway takes place on a loose surface.