Bavarian

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.

Hampel ??? surely not !

Thank you gustix, here is another most interesting link for South African speedway history http://www.speedway-sa.com/history-border.php and a link to the "Henry Long Story" with plenty of old pictures of South Africa's greatest speedway rider http://www.speedway-sa.com/the-henry-long.php

I left the Stadium after heat 21, neither disappointed, nor excited, by what I had seen. It was a bank Holiday here in Bavaria, so it felt like a Sunday afternoon. Nice weather, good crowd and a very well organised meeting by the OneSport Crew. Monster Energy is already deeply involved with this Best Pairs series. Funny how quick the SGP/SWC main sponsors havee taken to the OneSport event. Anyway, I can't be bothered about if Monster of Nice or Fogo or who ever wins this meeting. I was not keeping score and not filling in the programme, and it felt a bit strange. Something was missing. It is clearly not enough to just watch four riders race over four laps. This alone does not get me excited. There was not a lot of overtaking, and it was quite windy and dusty at times, so the crowd did not really get excited by the track action. But to be fair, there were some good heats, such as Huckenbeck defeating Hancock, and a particular good battle between Laguta and Iversen. Yes, the crowd was behind local hero Smolinski, who, on his Bundesliga home track, rode as good as we expected him to be. Had seen enough after the regular 21 heats and left early, thus avoiding the traffic jam which ususally occures after the end of meetings at the Landshut track.