arnieg

John Hyam (aka speedyguy) on canadian speedway Forum today posted: Mike Tams has just phoned me in London about my original query. Les Tams is a younger brother and they both rode at Eastbourne, England, in 1947. They later went to race in Northern Ireland at Belfast and in the Republic at Chapelizoid and Santry. The promoter decided he wanted only one Tams name on the programmes and this was Mike's. Les Tams then raced until early 1949 as Les Gordon. Mike's British career extended on into the late 1950s when he returned to Canada.

Just thought of another unusual one: 1997 Peterborough v Lathallan. Rained-off at Peterborough and staged the next day at Mildenhall (I think as part of a double header with Mild. v Lath.)

1971 Wembley v Belle Vue @ Newport because there were not enough dates at Wembley and it was unavailable until late May Rochdale staged a double header @ Belle Vue in 1971 and I remember watching the Isle of Wight ride at "home" to Long Eaton in 1997 at Peterboro. Also saw the Wolves v Peterboro KO cup final @ Long Eaton in 1996 (The Wolves track was unavailable because of track alterations Then there was Wembley's 1948 season most of which was ridden at Wimbledon because of the Olympics (although you might put this in a seperate category (along with Glasgow @ Workington in 1987)

Nothing alledged about it - that is what he was in prison for And he rode for Wolves after coming out in 1975

Thanks for the confirmation

Now advertised as Sat Oct 7th - will this be the final round of Under 15 champs this year?

Well how about judging Jagus on his Swedish form where he has the highest average of all the Poles riding in the Elitserien (including Gollob and Hampel). Ranked sixth overall he is ahead of: Jonsson Nicholls Loram Zagar Lindback B Pedersen

Interesting. I see Ulamek beat Andersen three times! And NK Iversen was at reserve

You have wilfully misquoted me here I said "for any given rider", not for an entire league of riders PS In Elitiseren play-offs yesterday Neils Kristian Iversen rode at reserve for Vastervik

So Lee Richardson averages more in Sweden than GB therefore Sweden is easier I THINK NOT DaC conveniently forgets the 32 riders that average more in Sweden than they do in GB (including his beloved Stead - an excreable 5.53 in Sweden) as against only 15 (including Lee Richardson and the oft mentioned Jonas Davidsson) who have better averages in Sweden. (Assuming a binomial model, then this is statistically significant at the 2% level) 8 out of the twelve GP riders who compete in GB and Sweden have lower averages in Sweden implying they find those leagues tougher. And 7 of those 8 are at least half a point lower in Sweden. Lindback's league average is over 2 points lower in Sweden! For any given rider there may be a number of reasons why they perform better in one country than another, but when the population as a whole is examined and produces such clear results there can be little argument. Au contraire I think with each post DaC just digs a deeper hole for himself. PS What does the fact that Bjorn Knutsson rode in the National League from 1959 to 1964 have to do with the relative strengths of the British and Swedish leagues in 2006?

Well it is hardly worth having a discussion with someone who has so little regard for facts. You seem to get really upset when evidence is presented that challenges your preconceived position I understood your statement perfectly well and how can you call me thick without knowing anything about me other than the fact that I have the temerity to suggest that there may be flaws in your arguement

Assuming a minimum of 6 appearances then 10 GP riders* have been riding in all three leagues 3 have been absent from UK (Jonsson, Gollob and Hampel) 2 have not been riding in Poland (Lindback & Zagar) and only Jason Crump has not been a Swedish regular. So by your own ctiteria the UK is the weakest of the three leagues Comparison of riders averages suggest that there is little difference in strength between the three leagues. I just find your attitude extemely blinkered - apparently if it doesn't happen on your dorstep it doesn't count! *the original 15 riders including Rickardsson plus Andersen

I've found the programme and he rode in: Ht 2 programmed ride Ht 3 RR (for Bengt Jansson) Ht 5 - reserve rep (for Bob Humphreys who fell in heat 1 and withdrew from meeting) Ht 6 - programmed ride Ht 8 - res ride for Humphreys again Ht 9 - programmed ride Ht 10 -RR Ht 12 RR He scored 12+3 Newport won 41-36 after a final heat 5-1. Crump (Phil) top scored for Newport and John davis for Reading Of course Bernie did have a ninth ride... ... in the second half (he finished third in heat 2 of the quaintly named "Racers Rumpus" Looking at other programmes from that year they also had: a Pirates Prance against Poole a Halifax Hurricane and a Wichypoo Whirlwind (I kid you not) against Ipswich!!!

Fairly sure it was 8 (4 programmed, one TS and 3 rider replacement), but otherwise correct

Yes - Crump dropped out of the GPs after his first season, and it hardly put an end to his GP career I think he may miss out because there are already three Danes

Teams were not announced and PA gave only intermittent results/details of riders with a number of increasingly tetchy comments about the (lack of) info he was getting from the pits. So this should be treated with caution Bulls 9 (Bates 2, Greenwood 3+1, Meakins 0, Butler 4) Cobras 14 (Taylor 6, Blair 1, Reade 1, Sarjeant 6, Bint 0) (match abandonned @ 10.10pm) H1 Taylor, Greenwood, Blair, Bates(F/X) awarded H2 Sarjent Butler Reade, Meakins (fell) 78.46 H3 Taylor, Bates, Greenwood, Reade 72.64 H4 Sarjeant, Butler, Bint (ret) - 3 riders only 77.86

But Harris' average is more than two points a match better than Stead... in Sweden Harris 7.82 (above Loram, Nicholls, Wiltshire, Zagar, Iversen, Lindback) vs Stead 5.42 (below Leigh Lanham and Andre Compton) Incidentally top Brit in Swedish averages is... Lee Richardson While the points you make in Stead's favour are valid they don't make an overwhelming case. I'd say it is quite finely balanced between the two

The much missed Denny Pyeatt Tommy Morley

Jiri Hnidak Stanislav Urban Petr Ondrasik Pavel Ondrasik Ales Dryml (again) Toni Svab Jnr Zdenek Kudrna Petr Vandirek Vladimr Kalina Pavel Karnas Emil Sova Ladislav Hradecky Tomas Topinka Richard wolff Thomas Suchanek Can't think of any Yugoslavians. First rider from a balkan state I can recall is Martin Peterca

But if Nicholls misses Prague he will probably drop out of the top 8, leaving the real possibility that he may not finish in the top 8. If that happens then Nicholls will undoubtedly get a nominated place. But this may reduce Harris' chance of getting a place as BSI may not be keen on giving two of their nominations to one country

Looking at his results this year and last he looks every bit as worthy of the hype that Pavlic gets. 2005 summary ( all while only 15!): Qualified for European under 19 championship final, but not allowed to ride because too young Won Russian under21 title 6th in Russian senior championship (equal with Gafurov) Averaged 9.17 in russian league (11th in rankings)

But Cricket, Rugby etc only exist as team sports. In speedway the big international events are the Gp, world under-21, world cup Test matches would be held if: a) people would pay to see them - and recent experience has shown that they don't it was possible to get a credible national team in one place at the same time This is not just a British phenomenon if you look at: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/intspeedway/ which contains the complete history of speedway internationals you will see they have virtually died out everywhere (with the exception of junior internationals in Scandanavia) What we really need though is to see more GB under 21 fixtures

Long overdue win - I'm pleased for AJ. He can always pull out a couple of sensational rides using the dirt on the outside, but these often seem to be mid-meeting. He's a great rider to watch and he could easily end up in the top 3 now (he's only 11 points behind Hancock for second) Just a shame we don't see much of him in Britain these days

Loram is 27th in the Polish League averages and 24th in the Swedish averages - I fail to see how that equates with being in the best 16 in the world And Gollob has quite simply remained in the top 8 of the GP - which rather suggests that he is in the top 8 in the world (although I don't think he's going to stay there for more than another year at the most) I'd agree Loram is the second best Brit at the moment (not withstanding the fact that Lee Richardson has a higher average than him - in both Sweden and Poland!), but unless we accept the GP should not consist of the best 16 riders in the world it remains hard to argue that there should be a second Brit at all. That said if it was simply down to me to choose the 16 top riders I most enjoy watching he'd certainly be in there

Not perfect - but nothing ever is - My one reservation is the wild card. Would a Slovenian GP really still take place without Zagar as a wild card? The GP needs to make commercial sense and adding Stread or Loram to the Cardiff GP would make financial sense. Incidentally using this formula and current GP/league averages, the following would qualify: Poland: Ulamek and Hampel Sweden: Jensen and Jagus Britain: Andersen and P Karlsson Reserves would all be "Poles" too: Kolodziej (Pol), Protasiewicz (GB) and Holta (Swe) nb I 'm using sportoweFakty averages because they are all in one place and easy to find. Pepe gets the GB reserve spot ahead of Loram by 0.006. Speedway Star averages show Loram ahead of PP (because they include one more match (8 Aug @BV)