SCB

He may have only come 2nd but at least he didn't need the referee to bail him out 3 times!! Well Done also to TRick for showing he does still have it and to Holta for finally showing what he's capable of. Well done to Gollob too, not his fault the referee's a plonker.

How is TRick int he final? Either he fell off and get excluded for not being under power OR he get excluded for falling off. Simple! What a joke. Ditto Gollob, he rode into the side of Holta, Holta didn't move of his line, Gollob is turning in on him. Not the first mistake by the idiot of a referee!

So you agree that in the Scandinavian GP that the wrong riders were sued as they onyl used Swedes and didn't consider other nations. In much the same way the European GP used to be Poles not Europeans.

Fair enough richtea78 but then do you think Louis was a decent Wildcard and do you think there was someone better? Do you agree witht he Norweigan wildcards? What about the Slovenian one? Again, I'm just trying to find out what people think a wild cards should be, is it s local, a rider in with a chance of potentially winning(a heat at least) or some sort of compramise? It's just that BSI tend to go with locals in all but the British GP, why?

Let just ignore the likes of James Wright and Joshua Auty. In 10 years time there is no reaosn why they won't be in GP. As well as the odd shock rider, lets be honest, who said Lee Richardson would ever get into a GP in his life in his first year or two of the sport?

Hallelujah! Thanks Salty Surely the Eastbourne fans would be there to see Nicki Pedersen too, where as the Reading fans would go along to support Phil too. For the record, I beleive the wild card should ALWAYS be the best rider available, where ever he is from (Oz, US, GB, Sweden etc etc.....) but BSI seem to think it's a commercial thing, UNTIL it comes to Cardiff and they ove rlook Phil. If they were consistent and always went for the best riders I'd say ok. I'm sure more Welsh companies as wella s fans would be intrested in comming along and supporting the event if there was a Welshman in it. Does anyone honestly believe that David Norris (I doubt anyone shouted more for the guy that me this year BTW. Ask Jill, she had the ear ache to prove it!) and Chris Louis brought in any EXTRA Brits or English(wo)men? Do you think however if they had the posters up in Cardiff advertising Phil Morris as being in the meeting and that he is Wales number 1, people would be intrested? I'm actually being serious here, not just trying to wind people up as I am on the Mark Loram/GP 2005 thread.

1952 I believe here Some things never change, mind you, some thigns do, look at the team top of the tabel at the bottom and this was in a National news paper. Should mention I have loads of thse cuttings, maining about speedway in London and Freddie Williams, my Grandparents were Wembley/Freddie supporters who travelled from Newport to support them every week. So if anyone intrested I'll try and scan as many as possible and get them online. some of them are great to read. Change a name or two and you've got exactly what we get in the speeday star. Team X is not riding within the spirit of the sport, team Y has too many foreignors, we need to cut costs, home track advantage sucks. It's great. Makes you realise that despite the World final being a 90,000 sell out a week before the event (so the news paper says) the sport was not in such a great stae after all, either that or promoters have always claimed poverty without any need

Opps, so it is :s ok, take 1 off each of the odds.

Surely these poor riders having wild cards is unfair on Phil Morris who doesn't get a wildcard just because of the name they have given the GP. Do they get scandinavians in the scandinavian GP or do they have Swedes? What about Europeans in the European GP? It was always Poles! So why can we have Welsh rider in the British GP in Wales! I still think BSI are failing to see this from a commercial point of view, give Phil the wild card (as well as someone like Mark Loram) and actually market it in Cardiff as Wales number one rider, the local rider (hey he lives about 15 miles away) versus the World. The Welsh WILL support the Welsh. Surely if they can have these poor riders in Norway, they can have the poor riders in Wales too? BTW, it's all well and good scoring maximums in the Norweigan league but who did he beat? Does anyone have any results for either? So far everything I have found suggests they've never met anyone other than Norweigans who I've never heard of, even if they are the best Noweigans, how do they compare to the rest of the World?

At the moment nobody is offering odds on AJ on betfair.com. You can get 3/1 for him to finish in the top 3, which is still good odds IMO.

Rune Sola & Arnt Forland. AKA, who and who? Is someone somewhere taking the piss?

AJ, I got £10 on him to win it 25/1 and and £5 at 4/1 on him making the podium on betfair.com. You can still get 16/1 for the win at the moment.

Andreas Jonsson. Jason Crump. Tomasz Gollob. Greg Hancock.

From what I have seen of Kenneth, he is good but he's not as exciting as Puk. All a matter of opinion I guess.

So Jason Crump was started on by Matejs mechanic, when people say no wonder Crump retaliated it turns to Jason starts on Matejs mechanic. Hmmmm!

TBF, I think KM has pointed out some good points. We mnay not all agree with them (some I didn't but do now, some I do and some I don't). If you're of the opinion that BSI and there runing of the GPs is the greatest thing since sliced bread, that up to you. But IMO, it's not, it good, don't get me wrong but I'm sure that some how there could be a better way, sadly I don't know how exactly or I would post on here. Kevin can only speak/type as he see's so future plans are o an extent no relevant, we can onyl judge BSI on there past, which has not bene so great at time, though to there credit, has been absolutly spot on at others.

Miskowiak wins ahead of Bjerre and Zagar.

3 hours to run a speedway meeting. Even Tim Stone can't do that!

Sweden Denamrk and Poland? There will always be 24 (or 16) riders who are better than the rest. If every speedway rider riding now retired tommorow and there were no speedway riders, if I and 15 other on this forum were to take up speedway we could be the GP riders. So as long as there 16 people with speedway bikes there will be speedway GP's.

They might not pay for there bikes but THEY have gt them bieks through sponsorship, why should they then use them for BSI's sake? I don't expect BSI to stand still for league racing (read this thread). I just know that the GP's WONT have full time riders. Lets look at it another way, the top riders earn 40k in Sweden, 40k in Poland and 40k in the UK (I don't know what) and win every GP and get another 30k. So for the GP's to be full time they have to pay the rider that extra 120k they earn in the 3 leagues, can you reallu see BSI paying the riders that extra 120k? Thats a pay rise for THE top rider (assuming he wins every GP) of over 500% and the rider lower down will need a bigger pay rise to cover there league wages loss. The riders get there sponsored free bikes whether they're in the GP or not so they will be saying, "we'll stick to league racing and earn 120k and no ride in the GP's" ahead of, "we'll ride int he GP's for 40k and somebikes". What would you chose? World Champion and 30k OR best non-GP rider and 120k? That assuming BSI are willing to give the rider a pay increae of between 500 and 600%!!!!!

Why should rider have to get sponsorship to be able to ride in the GP's, shoudln't BSI pay the rider enough? After all, BSI get the prime advertising spot (front forks) so they shoudl give that money to the riders.

You're joking right? Not ONE rider would have made money form the GP's this year, either you buy naff bikes and come last and do a Kaj Laukannen but the cost of getting to the gP ois more than he gets for commign last. Alternatively you could win the GP but the cost of getting the bikes is outweighed by th winnings, so the riders lose there as well. No rider makes money from the GP's and by dropping 8 riders, it might help 1 or 2 rider possibly break even (though I doubt it). You're living in a fantasy world there. Here's the prize money in dollars. 1st in Heat 25 = 10,250 (£5746 WOW) 2nd in Heat 25 = 7,450 3rd in Heat 25 = 6,250 4th in Heat 25 = 5,750 3rd in Heats 23 & 24 = 5,000 4th in Heats 23 & 24 = 4,400 3rd in Heats 21 & 22 = 3,250 4th in Heats 21 & 22 = 2,850 3rd in Heats 17 & 18 = 2,650 4th in Heats 17 & 18 = 2,600 3rd in Heats 11 & 12 = 1,750 4th in Heats 11 & 12 = 1,700 3rd in Heats 5 & 6 = 1, 600 4th in Heats 5 & 6 = 1,600 (£897, a flight, somewhere to say, tyre, fuel oil and suddenly you're in debt) Thats £32,000, per GP, now assumingthe guy in 8th get average amount of money (£2000 per GP) and there 6 GP's, then he get 12,000 for a season of GP racing. Now lets assume the winner gets £8000 and a rider wins every GP, in a series of 6 GP's then he gets £48,000. Now that looks good BUT no rider will win every GP and the rider who is challenging for the World title has a pit crew, so he pays them all a wage, assuming he pays his top guy £15,000 then his earnings are alwready down to £33,000 and then he buys a bike or 3 (£8,000 so Lee Richardson said on SKy a few weeks back) thats £24,000 on bikes, so the rider now has an amazing Wage of £9,000. Take away oil fuel and tyres, someone to stay and airfares and the rider is probably getting a bit desperate and living on bread and water.

One thing I do want to add that I forgot earlier. This rule is great for the CL where riders can (in theory) have more rides and the top guys don't start taking away the lower order riders rides.

Even when a team wants a PROPER 2nd half, they can't. I remember a few years ago Sheffield were going to have a Sean Wilson vs Carl Stonehewer (plus others maybe) but due to BSPA red tape, it wa snot allowed to go ahead. WHY? A rider who has rode in the main meeting cannot ride in the 2nd half! Whats the point of that rule?

Yes, because they run on Tuesdays and Sundays respectively, when no BEL has its regular race night. In fact, Sweden chose Tuesdays many years ago precisely because it wouldn't clash with the then British League. By contrast, the SGP is run on prime days for staging league racing, and clashes (or did) with at least four BEL teams. BSI can also re-organise GPs when they wish, without any regard to existing fixtures. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> To be fair, BSI took over the runing of the GP's after the Saturday race not was fixed so to blame BSI for the Saturday night is unfair. Can you imagine how un happy people would be if BSI started having GP's on a Monday night? (least used EL day, AFAIK). People would moan GP's were nto run on the weekend like all other major sports. Or we could go with the I'm alright jack attitude and suggets GP's are run on Tuesdays and/or Sundays and so upset EVERY Polish or Swedish team rather than just a few EL teams. The EL should not be so greedy and expect 5 days for it's self, 4 days is more than enough (3 too many!). The reason the Swedish and Polish leagues don't take our rider is because they have there own race day (Tuesday and Sunday) and no EL teams ride that day, so if the EL promoters didn't want the GP's to take riders away do what certain clubs have done and not race on a Sunday. AFAIK, GP's are only run on Saturdays yet the Poles and Swedes do occasionally have meetings on alternative days, so surely they're moe of a hindrance than the GP's? At least if no team made the choice to run on a Saturday the GP's would never interfere, yet by not riding on a Tuesday and Sunday, on occasions the Swedes and Poles have called riders back.