Bavarian

sorry, forgot about that. Anyway, better twice than never

there were two Trevor Hardings from Aussie

Just for fun, here's my current Top Ten of German speedway riders: 1 - Martin Smolinski 2 - Kevin Wölbert 3 - Kai Huckenbeck 4 - Erik Riss 5 - Max Dilger 6 - Michael Härtel 7 - Tobias Busch 8 - Mark Riss 9 - Lukas Fienhage 10 - Valentin Grobauer

Oh no, don't panic, he's definitely not another Henning Loof, who was a no hoper, even here in Germany. Grobauer is a pretty good speedway rider, much better rider than Loof. He's a useful second string for my local Bundesliga Club Landshut. I would rate Grobauer in the top 10 here in Germany. He has made steady progress in recent years, riding in Poland's second division last year. It will be interestuing how he adopts to British speedway. That's always unpredictable, as it is a complete change of livestyle. It may be a gamble for Somerset, but he could turn out to be a good signing. After all, the SGB Championship is not full of world beaters theses days. Grobauer may surprise a few over there. He deserves a fair chance.

Grobauer is a team mate of Mark Riss at Landshut in the German Bundesliga. He is not yet riding at the same level as the Riss brothers, but is not far behind Mark Riss in the German league averages.

Norwegian speedway rider Edgar Stangeland in the colours of Newport Wasps

... and here's a team picture with the Gordeev brothers in the USSR Test Team on their 1974 UK tour http://www.internationalspeedway.co.uk/engvsu.htm Valeri Gordeev (no.1) and Vladimir Gordeev (no.2) in the front row (center left side)

... and here is a picture of the Gordeev Brothers ! Valeri is seen on the left side of this picture (wearing the USSR No.9 racejacket) and his elder brother Vladimir is on the right

1928 to 1931 1949 to 1955 1970 to 1983 1990 to 1995

my favorite Aussie rider was Bob Valentine and the rest of my personal top 10 includes Alan Rivett, Steve Regeling, Rod Hunter, John Titman, and Gary Guglielmi. ... and my favorite Aussie of the pre-war era, is the one-and-only Sig Schlam plus Frank Pearce, Ernie Evans, and Tiger Lewis. there are so many more, of course

Russian International Sergy Darkin is a native of Uzbekistan, formerly of course part of the USSR

Here are some magazine quotes of 1928/29 about Irish Speedway IRELAND From MOTORCYCLING: 19 September 1928 A COMPANY with the title The Belfast Speedway And Sports Club, Ltd., are to erect, at an estimated cost of 15,000 Pounds, a dirt track known as Looplands, and situated in Belfast between the Castlereagh and Cregagh roads. From THE MOTOR CYCLE: 20 September 1928 IRELAND’S FIRST TASTE OF THE DIRT ON a track which in the opinion of Buzz Hibbert and Taffy Williams, compares favourably with many in England, Ireland’s first cinder meeting was held by the Leinster Club in Dublin on Saturday. Apart from exhibitions given by Hibbert and Williams, the feature of the meeting was the riding of T. G. Byrne (Ariel), T. Jenkinson and P. Keville, local lads who were only introduced to the cinders a month or so ago. Best time for the mile (four laps) was 1 m. 43 s. by Hibbert. From THE AUTO –Motor Journal: 23 May 1929 Larry Coffey, the North of Ireland champion, has now signed on with the B.D.T.R.A. Ltd., for their Manchester White City track. Larry was a popular favourite with Salford crowds towards the end of last season. So far he has not managed to reproduce last season’s form, but there is still time for improvement. From THE AUTO –Motor Journal: 20 June 1929 “Dab” Boston, the half-mile champion of the United States, was the premier attraction at the Audenshaw meeting on June 15th, and he justified his inclusion by winning the third place in the final of the “Flying Nine” Scratch race, which was won by E. Jennings (Rochdale) with Larry Coffey, the Northern Irish champion second, in 2 min., 27 4/5 secs., for the two miles. From THE AUTO –Motor Journal: 20 June 1929 Larry Coffey, the Northern Irish champion, provided the thrills at the Audenshaw half mile track on June 18th. From THE AUTO –Motor Journal: 15 August 1929 An Irish correspondent reports that there is every sign that the old B.D.T.R.A. track at Windsor Park in Belfast is likely to be re-opened very soon. The Motor Cycle Union of Ireland have already been approached and have informed the Company that provided all the rules and regulations of the Union are complied with, a permit will be issued for their meetings. The new Company has amongst its directors two well-known figures in the Northern Speedway World, C. J. P. Dodson and “Ossie” Wade, and with these two live wires at the head of affairs it should not be long before there is something doing.

Fay Taylour certainly was/is the most famous of all the Irish spedway products. However, I rate another late 1920's pioneer rider from Belfast way above her. The largely forgotten Larry Coffey was a great rider but unfortunately his career didn't last long enough, as he was killed ca.1930 in a race accident, not sure at which track, though Of the 1950s the top two Irish speedway riders were Dom Perry and Eric French, some others from Dublin were Alan Marr, Ginger O'Bierne, Mick Savage, Des Monson, Derek Edwardes, and Cherlei O'Hara.

... and this Gene Tella (the French referred to him as Mohammed Tella in their World Championship programme) was certainly the one and only Abyssinian / Ethiopian speedway rider I have ever heard of. He may have been the son of an Abyssinian diplomat in Vienna, where he started his motorcycle race career in the early 1930s, with a little help from Leopold Killmeyer and the Austrian Motor Riders Club.

Sabrina Bogh certainly was the most successful of all the young speedway girls I remember. Michaela Krupickova from the Czeh Republic was also quite good a few years ago.

My top four Norwegian speedway riders of the 1950's period would be: 1 Leif "Basse" Hveem 2 Henry "Stompa" Andersen 3 Reidar Kristoffersen 4 Aage Hansen Four of the of the 1960s/70s era: 5 Sverre Harrfeldt 6 Reidar Eide 7 Dag Lovaas 8 Edgar Stangeland and two of the 80s/90s/2000s: 9 Lars Gunnestad 10 Rune Holta

We had and have a few girls racing on our speedways and longtracks here in Germany. Our current number one is 17-year old Celina Liebmann. Nadine Frenk was quite a usefull long-track and grass-track rider until a few years ago. In the 1970s there was Petra Lange, to the best of my knowledge the very first German female solo rider in long-track racing, and in the late 80's-early 90's Tanja Jöckel rode speedway at senior level. She even rode Overseas in the Argentinean Championships. Currently there's plenty of girls competing in the youth classes here iin Germany.

Tella lived in Vienna and rode in Austrian Long-track meetings in the 1930. He sometimes did accompany Austrian number one Leopold "Poldi" Killmeyer for race meetings in some other countries on the Continent. Tella once competed in the unofficial Dirt Track World Championship in Paris, France.

Do they really expect Speedway to become popular with the younger Generation just because supporters can vote for the line-ups in the nominated riders race? Forget it. All it does is alienate the old fans even more.

Total rubbish this. The team manager alone should decide. Imagine this in any other sport, supporters voting for player's substitutions in Football. Come on, man!!! This is another unneeded gimmick. The BSPA is making a mockery of this once great sport of speedway racing. Just as bad as the Golden Joker for double points. I for one can't take this Supporters Cup serious. Too bad the traditional Knock-Out Cup has been sacrificed for that.

Can't believe the problems You have with the visas for Your British Commonwealth Australian brothers. Yet, here doesn't seem to be such problems if an Aussie comes over to base himself and ride in Poland or Sweden or anywhere else in the EU! Why??? How is this Problem solved in other professional sports in the UK, like in football, rugby or cricket? Do they have the same visa problems as speedway has?

at Stralsund in Germany

Nothing compares to the magnificent Hamburg dirt-track, no other track received such good publicity and newspaper coverage, and no other had so many and such great international riders, as You will find out. The Hamburg promoters payed out fortunes to these international stars, which eventually led them to bankrupcy. I am sure that there were some other tracks in Germany in the early 1930s boom years, such as Saarbrücken, that are still unknown to me. By the way, another pre-war German dirt-track venue I just remember and forgot to name yesterday was this one here at Gladbeck https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadion_Gladbeck