Bavarian

Saturday night at the Welland Speedway was filled with great anticipation, as the Canada v USA Speedway event was poised for some great racing. 16 riders from both countries prepared for battle on a hot sticky summers night. The night saw some old familar faces from the Canadian Speedway past emerge to compete in this historical event, Lee Charland, Nick Fafard (Bellport), Gaetan Carignan and John Bennett joined Kyle Legault, Terry Rideout, Tyler Brown and Paul Brauweller for Canada. The USA team was a strong contingent of Mike Buman, Casey Donolt, ... http://www.canadianspeedway.com/

According to the Canadian Speedway Website http://www.canadianspeedway.com/index.htm a test match between Canada and the United States was held last night at Welland, Ontario. Anyone knows the results?

What capacity does the stadium have for the SWC?

Following the trend and success of similar leagues being set up in Holland, Sweden and Poland at the time, in the early 1950s Austria tried to set up a "true" league competition (team v team meeting on a home-and-away basis. There were two teams in Vienna that I know of, and one in Graz. The famous Leopold Killmeyer played a major part in setting up this Austria Speedway League. It faded away, though, after a few seasons. In the 1970s, and later on, the Austrians experimented with a revial in form of a four-team-tournament league competition similar to how Germany and Czechoslovakia ran their respective national speedway leagues.

Can somebody tell us please how bad is Kylmäkorpi's injury? Would he even be fit to take a wild card place for the SGP Challenge?

How do we distinct between a "league" championship and a "team" championship? I ask because what most of the above countries ever have had, would rather have been classed as a team championships in the 4-T-T style, but not a "true" league, with team v team meetings, though in most cases they may still have called it a league competition.

Germany will beat the Yanks in the SWC ! and we won't need a penalty shoot-out to do it at Vetlanda !

see here http://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/613168/zamieszki-po-meczu-w-grudziadzu-dwaj-kibice-zatrzymani-przez-policje

@Pieman72 here is a link http://hboxleitner.de/CMS/?p=727 scroll down to see two pages of photos of the Long Track GP at Mühldorf

How can You rule out Covatti on an Italian track - he could even win this meeting! I wonder how much of a crowd will turn up tomorrow night at Lonigo, because it clashes with the football - Italy meets Germany in the EURO quarter-finals at the same time !

Indeed. He was looking round to see were Ljung is from the second lap on. He was really waitign for Ljung, and it was so obvious that everyone said, if he lets him pass before teh finishing line, it is deliberate. Guess what happend, he drifted wide on the very last bend, to let Ljugn slip through on the inside. It was just too obvious.

When Commercial corporations are more impotant than riders or clubs in winning a speedway competition, then something is not right. Not vor me, anyway.

Very controversial meeting today. Smolinski was ahead of Thomsen for third place in heat 1. Referee Grodzki saw it different. This one point would have made all the difference in the end. Ljung would have ended up with seven instead of eight points, if Andersen had not let him by on the last corner of the last lap in heat 17. It was so obvious what they were up to, Andersen looking round and waiting for Ljung on the last couple of laps, and finally slowing down on the run in to the finish line, so that only Ljung got past him, but he himself kept second place ahead of the other two riders in this race. It was so obvious, the spectators were whistling and booing, and the Polish referee Mr. Godzki rightly excluded Andersen for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Well, but Ljung still got to keep the three points for the gifted race win, and thus had secured a qualifying place ahead of those who ended with only seven points (Smolinski and Covatti). Very unfair.

Here is an interview (in Polish language) with the then 16-y/o Krystian Rempala, and his father - former rider Jacek Rempala, when he rode for Rzeszow two years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E8k2RhR4dU

Lunna deserves a wild card, I agree.

Great News about the Russians in this year's World Cup tournament. And watch out for Germany, who could be on theri way to Manchester this year. If they win their qualifying round, the German team might upset the Americans in the other SWC event in Sweden. Mark my words !

here is a short local tv report of the Abensberg meeting, shows how bad the conditions were http://www.tvaktuell.com/mediathek/video/abensberg-speedway-im-dauerregen/

Somerset or Belle Vue?

The loss of Wembley and the White City for the big meetings in London was also in the early 1980's. That's the time when the downward trend started.

Gollob deserves a better fare-well than what he got at last year's Warsaw SGP fiasco. This Poland vs RoW on the Sunday in the National Stadium would have been the perfect opportunity to honor him for his great achievements for Polish speedway. Compared with Tomek Gollob, Pawel Przedpelski is an extremely poor choice as a replacement for Hampel.

The Poles should have brought in Tomek Gollob - he would have been the perfect replacement for Hampel in this match

The sun is shining and the track will soon be dry again. Racing to resume pretty soon.

Today is Mothers Day here in Bavaria, and Germany, too.

I had just read that Hampel is not ready to race in the Warsaw SGP and will be replaed by Freddie Lindgren. So I assumed he would not be fit enough to ride one day later in the Warsaw test match versus the Rest of the World. But if he regards this match as an oppportunity to test his race fitness, he might possibly turn up and take his place. We'll see.

not DEN (=Denmark), it is DE(=Deutschland, Germany) 1st and 2nd in this meeting. Tim Wunderer is a protegée of Martin Smolinski.