Bavarian

Who is Martin Haaralitunen? Sounds Finnish, never heard of him???

How big is Sunday Football in Sweden and Denmark?

NZ Solo and Sidecar Speedway Championships calendar 2015-16: 05.12.2015 : New Zealand U21 Solo Championship (Oreti Park, Invercargill) 04.01.2016 : South Island Sidecar Championship (Moore Park, Christchurch) 16.01.2016 : SNZ Sidecar Grand Prix (Palmerston North) 24.01.2016 : New Zealand Solo Championship (Rosebank, Auckland) 30.01.2016 : South Island Solo Championship (Moore Park, Christchurch) 06.02.2016 : New Zealand Sidecar Championship (Oreti Park, Invercargill) 27.02.2016 : SNZ Solo Grand Prix (Moore Park, Christchurch) 06.03.2016 : North Island Sidecar Championship (Rosebank, Auckland) 17.04.2016 : North Island Solo Championship (Rosebank, Auckland)

I think it is marvelous that a small speedway nation like New Zealand runs a league competiton at all. Very good thing for the sport in NZ and for the riders there. The Aussies should try to set up simliar leagues, all maybe at amateur level and regional for some of their states. Why is there no NSW Solo Speedway League, a Queensland League, or a Victoria State League, each with say three teams à la New Zealand ? The Kiwis are to be congratulated to have their New Zealand Solo Speedway League. Long may it contine, prosper and grow!

It was the same situation here in Germany some ten or twenty years ago. You could hardly find any youngsters attending the meetings, it was mostly elderly people watching the speedway and long-track racing, often sitting in their camping chairs filling in their programme. At long-track and grass track meetings this is still the case and the number of people attending these meetings have steadily decrease with the years. Long-track and grass track has a real problem, because of that. There is no younger fan base, and along with this decline, we don't have the number of riders for the long-track / grass-track solos and sidecars either anymore. Speedway in Germany somehow turned the corner. One of the major coupes was to led kids under 12 or under 14 in for just 1 Euro, if acompanied by an adult. This allows families to attend at a very low cost. It swells the crowd, betters the sales of food, drinks and merchandise at the meetings, and fosters a new generation of young fans for our sport. It took some years, but now one can see that speedway has a much younger fan base in Germany compared with the slowly dying long-track and grass track events.

Quote: "Although Buddy Fuller was quoted at the end of this 1951 tour as expressing disappointment that the tourists only won 10 of their scheduled 17 matches, losing the Test series against the Dutch, the team performed creditably, especially as they were without four of South Africa's top riders: Henry Long, Bob Serrurier (both riding for Belle Vue), Fred Wills and Doug Serrurier (unavailable). In fact, only Fuller and Toby Boshoff had any overseas experience, and then only in British Division 3." ... more and all the stats of the Springboks' 1951 tour of Northern Europe can be found here http://www.internationalspeedway.co.uk/extra4.htm

Last year it was Gdansk and Czestochowa. Losing a couple of clubs to bancrupcy each year is a bit much for the Ekstraliga. How much longer can this continue?

He began with speedway (Dirt track) and stunt shows à la Putt Mossman in the early/mid 1930s

apparently Torun want to sign Vaculik AND Hancock for a reported 3 Million zloty

any News from China?

Ermolenko sufferd his leg injury in a long-track accident in Germany in the late 1980s. Nicki Pedersen has never ever ridden on a long-track and was still on a 80cc youth bike back then. Don't blame Nicki for all and everything.

Some enterprising promoter could stage an ultimate match race challenge between the world champ tai and the euro champ Emil. Would be a cracker of a contest (best-of.-three) with the right build up in the media.

Fascinating history. That stadium in Wroclaw (Breslau) was really never used as an Olympic venue. Built as the "Schlesierkampfbahn" (Silesian Arena) in the then German (Silesian) town of Breslau, between 1926 and 1928 by a then famous Silesian architect Richard Konwiarz, It was re-named "Olympiastadion" (Olympic Stadium) after 1932, when this building had won the architect Herr Konwiarz an Olympic bronze medal for Architecture in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Yes, they had medals for non-sporting (cultural) events at the Olympic Games in those days! The Stadium was further up-graded to host a national "Deutsches Turn- und Sportfest" in 1938, and was then re-named as the "Herman-Göring-Stadium". Between 1930 and 1941, the German national foootball team played a few international home games at this Stadium in Breslau, including a 1-0 win over Poland in 1935, and a famous 8-0 win over Denmark in 1937. The Stadium was never used as a home ground for a Club Football team, though, neither in the German pre-war years, nor in Poland afterwards. Under Polish occupation in 1945 the name of the town was changed from Breslau to Wroclaw, and the now again re-named "Stadion Olympijskij we Wroclawiu" became the home ground of the WTS Wroclaw speedway Club. The stadium is currently getting up-graded again to host the 2017 World Games. This is the reason why WTS Sparta Wroclaw must race their Estraliga play-off semi-final against Unia Tarnow next week away from home on neutral ground at Czestochowa.

It sure was a nasty one - let us all pray he recovers from it. [media=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tIkcCN8E7s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tIkcCN8E7s[/media]

i find this strange and hard to believe, really. Gollob has a back injury today, but no back injury tomorrow? Come on, what's the true reason for his non start tonight in Kumla?

... which means Nicki has to pay a fine of 30,000 zl, but Mr. Gajewski has to pay nothing at all, with his 8,000 zl being suspended. Come on, this is a totally unfair verdict against Nicki - he does not seem to have any friends in Poland, they are on a whitch hunt for him. I am very disappointed and don't agree at all with this verdict. Even the Red Card for Nicki after the collision with Doyle and Przedpelski seemed like a bad joke against him. Now this disgraceful verdict against him - is there no justice in Poland, I ask?

The rules should be changed then, to give the ref the option to re-run a race after a crash without having to exclude one rider, if he can't decide who was to blame for the crash. 50/50 situations happen very often, and according to current rules one rider has to go, the other can re-start, which is often unfair. Therefore, F.I.M., please change the rules, so that a referee does not have to break the rules (which really is a no go) as Jim Larence has done by allowing all riders back for the re-run.

No, definitely no money there. Teterow has the money from their traditional 2-days grass track event, so they are able to finance a SGP at their track in the woods. BSI(IMG seems to be happy to accept, and perhaps it will be quite good, who knows? Perhaps they can create something like a Woodstock Happening feeling about this SGP at Teterow? This would appeal to some, not me, though.

But in those days (1960s) Mauger (and all of his fellow Antipodeans) had to ride with a British ACU license, representing Great Britain, wearing the Union Jack race jacket. He was therefore eligible to ride in the European final, which then was not a stand alone competition, but only one of several stages of the world championship qualifying rounds (which nearly all took place in Europe) on the road leading up to the world final.

Not in any case, f-s-p. A rider has to have the nationally / passport of the country that he wants to ride for in team events. Only a rider with dual nationality can chose to ride for one or other. But there are not many riders, who have dual nationality - Kylmäkorpi is one, he can chose to represent either Finland or Sweden. Then there is Holta (Norway/Poland), and Loktaev (Russia/Ukraine). It certainly does not apply in Lambert's case. He is British, so he has to ride for Britain or not at all. Even if he wanted to, he can not ride for the German national team, unless he becomes a German.

I really enjoyed watching the Horsens SGP last night. Very exciting meeting, highly unpredictable (except for gate 1 heat wins) and what an amosphere with a sell out crowd really enjoying the occasion. Horsens seems a nice town, and the Stadium is not out of town, has a perfect capacity, size and shape for speedway. The track has a perfect length and shape, short straights and sweeping bends, admittedly thoug a little bit narrow, and definitely not so very easy to ride, which made it all very interesting. This was the most exciting SGP so far this season.

Yes, You are right. Norden now has installed some modern seating, which they got from Werder Bremen when the Football Club renovated the Weser Stadium a few years ago. Anyway, I posted these two pictures just to indicate that we do have quite impressive speedway stadia here in Germany (yet even Norden was criticised by many for being a poor venue for a world final), and now BSI/IMG chose a place like Teterow to host a SGP.

No, unless the national championship is run as an "open" championship, as in some minor speedway nations such as Latvia, Slovakia, Argentina, etc The British Championship has never been run as an international open event, it has always been exclusively for ACU license holders only. Remember Simon Wigg, in the early 1990s, when riding with a Dutch KNMV license, or Marvyn Cox when holdign a German DMSB license, they could not compete in the British Championship in those years. They would have to (and did) ride in the Dutch or respectively the German Championships. I also remember the American John Cook riding in, an once even winning the Swedish Championship, when he held a SVEMO license. As Robert Lambert currently has a German DMSB license, he would have to ride in the German Champiosnhip, instead of the British Championship. The only exception is in regard of representing You national team, where the license does not have an influence. This is decided by Your nationality (passport), regardless of the racing license. That's why Lambert can only ride for Team GB, and can not ride for Team Germany, even with a German DMSB license. The Lambert case is certainly worth a further Investigation.

Teterow is worse than Norden, or Pocking, since those were decent stadia, while Teterow is just a race track with some grass banking around. See for Yourself and compare these two Pictures of Norden and Teterow The first is a picture of the quite impressive Halbemond Stadium, NORDEN, venue of the 1983 World Final Now compare this with Teterow's Arena Am Kellerholz, see here (the picture shows the track and the club's chairman Adolf Schlaak) In my opinion Teterow is a very poor choice as a SGP venue, since this track is not known for producing very good racing either.

Did Lambert ride in the British final with a foreign (German DMSB) license? How is this possible?