Bavarian

There is rumour that DISCOVERY wants a German rider in the GP next year! Huckenbeck or Smolinski?

riders presentation ceremony is cancelled start delayed until 3:30 local time (2.30 UK time)

There might also be a couple of meetings in Poland agin this winter, but there are as yet no confirmed dates. But I wonder how much longer will the FIM continue to run it as an official world championship?

I would not give too much thought about this Polish newspaper report. It is more rumors than facts. Rostock seems rather unlikely, because there is already a SGP at Teterow which is pretty close to Rostock. This just would not make sense to stage two in the same northeastern corner of our land. Germany is a much bigger country. Frankfurt is indeed in a region where speedway is not unknown, as they do have a track not far away at Diedenbergen, and some grass track racing as well, but is fair to say that it is not a very common or popular sport in that region. But I guess that Frankfurt could nevertheless be a decent location for a Grand Prix, since it sits pretty much in the center of Germany and within a 300/400km distance from the speedway hotbeds in the north, east, and the south. Frankfurt is a big town, it has a big modern stadium with a roof. This would make it a good option. Berlin was not mentioned, but this is what I actually believe is the most likely option. It would certainly be worth another try. They already did it once, in 2001, but the occasion was absolutely spoilt by bad weather, cold windy and wet. They still had a rather decent attendance, but not enough to make a profit, and the promoter threw the towel in. Berlin should get a second chance, though. A big city destination, and Poland is pretty close. Another possibly good location, never mentioned so far, could be Hamburg. There are a number of modern stadia, although all withiut a roof. But the sport is well known in the region. Germany's very first speedway track was in Hamburg, and it was a huge success story, though a long time ago in 1929. Hamburg was and is Germany's gateway to the world, a very cosmopolitan town and not far from Denmark. Maybe worth a thought. Or go to the deep south of the country to Munich, which is Smolinski's home town. Bavaria has a rich speedway and long-track racing tradition. Remember, they staged the 1989 world final on an artificial track in Munich's Olympic Stadium and had close to fifty thousand people in attendance. The track was crap then, due to the fact that Bayern Munich was then playing there, and the sacred football pitch was not to be touched by the speedway track. So they had to build the track around the corners, which gave it a difficult shape and made the bends too narrow for good racing. Bayern Munich has long since left the stadium and now there wouldn't be any restrictions on the shape of a temporary speedway track at that place. There are some options, all better than what was taken up by BSI with the GP at Gelsenkirchen, which really was in a speedway no man's land, for in teh western region of Germany, speedway was and still is a sport more or less unknown. The Schalke Stadium had a roof, that was the only thing going for it. The initial excitement and razzmatazz of having a Speedway meeting at Schalke, tempted about 25,000 from all the other regions of Germany to go there - once ! That was a long way to travel and after tehy had seen it once, most of them did not come again in the second year. And we all know how this ended, with the second SGP there being called off and relocated to Bydgoszcz.

full stadium, great atmosphere

o.k. then that's not too bad

They give bronze medals for the winner of the 3rd/4th place finals. It is not true that Polish fans don't care, it is just the Torun fans who never really get behind their team. Empty seats are nothing unusual here. It was the same in the semi-final.

embarrasing performance by Opole 31-11 down after seven heats

Mathieu Tresarrieu is already confirmed as the new world champion of 2022

or Torun, if Emil wasn't banned. Just like Czestochowa, Torun have no injury worries, so they too could win the league this year.

The man is still alive, so somebody could simply ask him or anyone close enough who has contact with Arthur Payne or his family. I guess that Peter White is a reliabe enough source of speedway info Down Under and he gives August 28, 1923, as the date of birth for Arthur Payne. See here https://speedwaypast.com/stories/arthur-payne

so what ? They all know that a win is better than a draw and a draw is better than a loss. Each team has a fair chance to progress to the semi-finals. Just go for the win !

not quite, as Denmark won, Czech came second, and GB only sixth, ahead of Norway.

What is the date of birth for Arthur Payne, I have it as 28/8/23, but here it is 30/8/24 ???

Oh yes he has when the race is stopped, unless the incidend had occured on the first corner after the start. Isn't it annoying in so-called 50/50 situations that the ref has to exclude one rider, even though it would be much fairer to put them both back 15m behind and let them take part in the re-run?

16 riders, 20 heats, and possibly a run-off at the end to decide who becomes world champion - this was just like a good old WORLD FINAL !

Number 17 in this meeting, Mario Häusl, is quite an interesting character. His father is German but his mother comes from the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, and Mario is quite proud of that fact, and usually he wears the national flag of the Seychelles on his kevlars. In the SGP3 though he represents the DMSB and Germany.

Indeed there is not much overtaking tonight, and Chugunov is off-form - and he got the wildcard for the next Grand Prix !

Anything else coming up this season for the Great Britain speedway team? Challenging the Speeway of Nations champions Australia in a one-off test match would be so tempting !

Sure, and I would watch it, too, but the general tv/stream viewing numbers will be very low for a 250cc youth speedway meeting, even if they now call it the SGP3.

But who would really go to see the kids on their 250cc bikes anyway - no many, that's for sure. How many watched it last year? So does this, just because it is now called SGP3, really need worldwide live TV coverage ?

Amsterdam wasn't a temporary track, it was still in regular use since the late 1940's until 1987, and the 2-day World Final was the last ever speedway meeting held at the Olympisch Stadion.

wrong topic what's that to do with speedway?

Incredibly bad luck for Landshut as now Kai Huckenbeck was injured in a crash riding for Brokstedt in a Bundesliga meeting at Stralsund last night. Huckenbeck has reportedly suffered a cracked pelvis and will be out for quite some time. He will definitely miss next week's second leg of the play-offs, and the the GP Challenge in Glasgow, too.

Don't know exactly, but he has picked up an injury in the rain-affected European U19 qualifyer at Zarnovica, even though he finished that meeting in third place with thirteen points and qualified for the Euro final. He has not ridden since and already missed the first leg of the play-offs at home against Krosno.