AndyM

It might settle a few arguments, if nothing else!

Which illustrates that it hasn't been weighted effectively to account for the relative strength of the different leagues and tournaments. Golf and tennis rank tournaments, so it shouldn't be rocket science to do well.

How about GP seedings? That would give riders an incentive to do well in all competitions.

Makes you wonder why there's no "official" world ranking published. If it's good enough for golf, tennis and countless other sports, why not speedway? Apart from anything else, it might help to reduce the vast gulf between the GP circus and bread-and-butter league speedway, the importance of which is frequently underestimated.

From that line-up, I'd say German speedway isn't exactly booming if Hefenbrock and Smolinski are the best around and Toby Kroner can score 14 points and finish runner-up!

Whatever the transport difficulties of Cardiff and no matter how good the stadium, it's still out in the sticks. Getting speedway back into the hub of London is a matter of importance - without it, we'll always be marginalised.

Walthamstow won't see speedway again, either. Ever been there? Surrounded by residential housing.

Didn't know you drove in major league motorsport, Schumi?

In a word, it's impossible without cutting up a significant portion of the pitch. The pitch goes right to the edge of the seating areas, obviously to keep fans as close to the action as possible. Sorry to say this, but I think the new Wembley is going to be out of the question for speedway, whatever is done for other sports.

That's what I mean - a tactical solution requiring cutting off the corners of the pitch. Will look at the stadium design and see what space is available.

You say that, but the simple answer is that it can be adapted for athletics but isn't built to accommodate motorsports. Any change of policy would be met by a tactical solution, I expect. This taken from the Wembley stadium website:

Don't know the derivation, but it reminds me that there's going to be a huge retail complex built on the site of London's White City in the next few years, to rival Bluewater in size so they say. Sure Oxford Street will love that.

So while they have always tried to create a dedicated football stadium, they might have no choice but to embrace sports like speedway to make the stadium pay and to fund the ongoing legal action? Interesting theory! Let's see what happens.

Great locations, but can speedway afford them and fill them?

This is what I was saying - he's had a poor season, but he's a classy rider. Given the form of which he's fully capable, I'd expect him to be up there with an excellent chance of making the cut in future years. Whether he or any other British rider would prosper in the current GP format is another matter, but we should certainly be preparing them for a leap in level as and when they reach those dizzy heights.

If he were to qualify through a fair and open qualification process, good luck to him - he will have proved on the track that he's worthy of a place.

If you'd troubled yourself to read the context, the point would have been clear : The rider in best current form is not necessarily the best rider in the longer term. Is Harris automatically a better GP performer than Stead because his current form is better? No!

Nice to see we don't have the monopoly on unnecessary rules. Can you imagine the fuss if Man Utd were forced to sell players because they had too many represented in the World Cup?

But for the second half of the season, during which he actually became World Champ, he was not riding for Arena, therefore he cannot be considered Arena's first world champ. QED!

But he wasn't riding for Arena when he won the Championship, which was the key question.

TR wasn't riding in the UK when he won his last title.

More money? Greater ambition and opportunity? Less travel? More convenient to fit in with their remaining schedule? ...Or the snotty attitude of British promoters?

Lots of shadows of doubt, I'm afraid. Harris is having a better run than Stead at the moment. Last year it was the other way around. You wouldn't have argued for Harris's inclusion a year ago, would you? Next year, who knows?

All arbitrary selection processes result in stupid omissions. Free and open qualification on the track without national quotas is the ONLY fair was to do it.

76 was great - PC proved conclusively that you don't have to gate in every race to become world champ! His race against Louis and Simmo was breathtaking.