Bavarian

The real cause of this unholy "war" between IMG/BSI and OneSport is in the recent restructuring of the FIM and its respective continental sub-organisations such as the FIM Europe (formerly the UEM). Competencies wre not clearly defined before and the FIM could not accept that FIM Europe, at a lower level, could sell a quite similar product, the SEC, at a ridiculously low price to OneSport, while BSI/IMG had to pay the FIM a seven-figure sum each year for the exclusive rights on the SGP and SWC. FIM had to act to protect their paying customer and make sure of the exclusiveness of the product SGP/SWC. FIM are rather furious with what certain people at UEM / FIM Europe have done and have now made it clear what their competencies actually are. FIM Europe can not operate at the same level (world level) as the FIM. With a European centred sport like speedway this is a problem. This had not been made clear enough in the past and has unfortunately led to the current situation with BSI/IMG and OneSport both having bought the rights for what would in effect be a rather similar competiton, the FIM's World Championship SGP and the FIM Europe's European Championship SEC. This is of course a ridiculous situation and the FIm have now found a very sensible solution to this.

Or maybe they invite some guest riders to represent Poole Pirates - who cares - this is how it is done in British speedway anyway

Do You know which teams participate? Last year were the Helzold Stars from Belgium, the Veenoord Rams, Blijham Eagles and Groningen Lions. Any changes, or is it the same four ?

The Speedway World's gone mad this winter. It has all become a joke. Is this the beginning of the end?

The GPs are not really the problem for speedway in the UK. The problem is that British speedway clubs have become much too dependent on foreign riders. And that's not just top stars, but very average riders all through the teams 1 to 7. Too many foreigners, who need to ride in way too many of their own national and international competitions all over the Continent. The inflation of all those new competitons in recent years is of course a problem, and U can understadn that the BSPA is not keen to see teh FIM Europe events expanding ever more. If the British speedway clubs would employ in the main UK based riders, that's British and non-European Overseas riders, they would be able to do their own thing, without having to worry much about any Poles, Danes or Czechs missing for having to ride somewhere else.

EUROSPORT is absolutely free to view everywhere here in Continental Europe. And that is the one big advantage that One Sport and their SEC series hold over the SGPs, that are only available to view on a limited number of PayTV channels and just in very few countries. SGP/SWC will no longer be broadcast live in Germany, and I think in Sweden, too, this year.

A bit late, but these are the full results for this meeting. F.I.M. OCEANIA SIDECAR CHAMPIONSHIP Olympic Park, Mildura, Victoria, Australia. 23rd of November 2013 A-Final: 1st Mark Plaisted (& Brian Anthony) - South Australia 2nd Darrin Treloar (& Blake Cox) - New South Wales 3rd Mick Headland (& Paul Waters) - South Australia 4th Warren Monson (& Matt Morgan) - Victoria B-Final (Winner to A-final, others to decide positions 5 to 7): qual. Darrin Treloar (& Blake Cox) - New South Wales 5th Grant Bond (& Glenn Cox) - New South Wales 6th Brodie Cohen (& Josh Sinnott) - Queensland 7th Dylan Blain (& Rob Gottardi) - Queensland Qualifying heat scorers: Mick Headland (& Paul Waters) - SA - 14 (3 3 3 3 2) Mark Plaisted (& Brian Anthony) - SA - 13 (3 3 1 3 3) Warren Monson (& Matt Morgan) - VIC - 12 (2 2 3 3 2) - - - - - Grant Bond (& Glenn Cox) - NSW - 10 (3 1 0 3 3) Brodie Cohen (& Josh Sinnott) - QLD - 9 (3 0 3 2 1) Darrin Treloar (& Blake Cox) - NSW - 9 (2 2 T 2 3) Dylan Blain (& Rob Gottardi) - QLD - 9 (2 3 2 2 R) - - - - - Mark Mitchell (& Tom Golding) - SA - 8 (2 1 2 0 3) Trend Headland (& Jesse Headland) - SA - 8 (1 2 2 1 2) Jason Hardy (& Geoff Langdon) - SA - 6 (1 2 1 2 T) Andrew Buchanan (& Philippa Burns) - NZ - 5 (R 1 3 1 X) Mark Cossar (& Darryl Whetstone) - GB - 5 (1 3 X 1 X) Joe Jones (& John Glover) - USA - 3 (1 0 1 0 1) Hayden Bond (& Brady Cox) - NSW - 3 (0 1 1 0 1) Mick Cave (& Garreth Williams) - GB - 1 (0 0 0 1 0) Byren Gates (Mick O'Loughlin) - VIC - 0 (0 X N N N) reserves: Rick Stephens (& Darcy Ristromm) - NSW - 2 (2 - - - -) Neale Hancock (& George Hancock) - VIC - 0 (0 - - - -)

Oh yes, I have seen a fair bit of ice racing, and not just on tv. I attended some meetings in Germany in the 1980s and it was a very exciting sport in those days. It was much more competitive then, as even some well know speedway riders took to the ice in those days. Compared to that, I can tell You, that the ice racing scene now is quite boring.

Serenius is 66 years old in March ! I think it is embarrasing of all the other competitors in this "sport" that a rider his age can still be competitive, in fact even better than most others, except the Russians. This sport of motorcycle ice racing has become a boring joke.

This numbers game is so boring. Who cares about the riders numbers? This is about as exciting as the invention of the green helmet colours a few years ago. Who cares?

I agree that last year the Torun pairs meeting was not really exciting to watch on TV, and I struggle to get excited about having three of that kind this year. Surely the Polish Ekstraliga will NOT change their fixtures just to please the organisers of a pairs event in an other country. Substitute riders will have to be used for the pairs event in case of fixtures clashes. After all, this pairs events are no officiall FIM or FIM EUrope event. They are just a series of lucrative and well promoted open meetings.

Such a "World League" with F.I.M. blessing should not be for club teams, but for national teams. A speedway competition similar to the Rugby Union's Six Nations tournament, featuring Great Britain, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Poland and a Rest of the World team. Aussies could ride their home matches in the UK, or elsewhere if they want to. Rest of the World could have their home matches in any other country, such as Germany, Czech Republic, or Italy. No problems with the allocation of riders, their nationality tells them for what team they have to ride.

This Speedway Best Pairs series, that that the Polish company OneSport is promting this year, is nothing more than an open invitational competiton without any official status. F.I.M. Europe runs an official European Pairs Championship (Germany are the defending champions of 2013). F.I.M. may give the green light to a revival of the official World Pairs Championship from 2015, promoted by rights holders IMG/BSI, and alternating bi-annually with the SWC. The British League will not be affected that much by this Speedway Best Pairs (SBP) series. How many top riders of the six seeded nations are still riding in the UK anyway? And how many of those few would be required on the set date of a SBP round also to ride in an UK fixture? Not many, if any at all, I guess. But even if it is the case that dates/fixtures clash, any rider could always be replaced in the SBP by another man of that respective nation, since this series is not an individual, but a pairs/team competiton for nations. I wonder if the BSPA will once more try to block the British riders from taking part. It would be a shame, for the series will be broadcast live on EUROSPORT, and British Speedway would miss a great opportunity to present themselves. The six seeded nations are: Poland, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, Great Britain, plus one alternating wild card nation for each round (Latvia in round 1, Germany in round 2 and the USA in round 3).

What is the situation with Hammarby?

Ice racing was an exciting sport in the 1980s, but has become terribly boring now. Nothing exciting happening for several years, it is always the same old, same old, ...

#84 Martin Smolinski born in 1984

I wonder why Marcus is left all alone with all the work to organise such a tour for the young British Lions. Is there nobody who could help? This surely should be done in co-operation with someone in the UK, and that person is the Team GB team manager. The organisation and management of such a tour should be dealt with by officals from the speedway federations of both nations. I wonder how such tours were organised in the past with accomodation, transport and all that for the official British Lions tours to Australia in the 1960's and 1970's ? Sure those were other times and the big city speedway promotions in Aussie had much more money to spent. Nowadays money fro solo speedway promotios is tight, but then again only about ten years ago we had an official Young British Lions team doing a highly successful Australian tour. How did they organise and manage this?

Here is a link to the report of the Canterbury v Southland meeting of November 24 http://nzmotorracing.co.nz/more-action-at-moore-park.html

That is one of the most important steps that the UK tracks must take to survive long-term. This scheme has worked wonders here in Germany. About 20 years ago the situation was quite similar as it is now in the UK, with no young people coming along to attend speedway meetings. It was more an dmore the 40+ age group at the speedway meetings. Then some of our tracks allowed kids up to ten or even twelfe years old in for free (some tracks charge them only 1 Euro), and slowly but steadily the situation changed. My local speedway track is Landshut. There is now a perfect mixture of all age groups among the spectators, and the speedway meetings there regularly attract crowds that are the envy of many tracks in other regions, that did not introduce the youngsters-in-for free scheme years ago. Abensberg is another positive example, and they too are very well attended. It worked very well for families and or single parents or grand parents can easily take the kids with them to the speedway without much additional costs. They stadiums are fuller, there is more of an atmosphere; kids want to buy merchandise and other stuff, something to eat and drink and they will go there not alone but with family or friends of the same age and have something to talk about the next day in school. Even if they don't pay too much attention to the racing, and do more play and fooling around in the stadium with their friends, they get to enjoy the occasion, get a positive feel about speedway and know the sport from a very young age, which makes them potential speedway supporters later on in their life. If they never went as kids, it is much harder to convert them to become speedway fans. I can highly recommend this kids-for-free scheme - it certainly worked here in Germany.

sorry, kiwi, but there is no access to this particular facebook site if one isn't a facebook member. And I don't want to sign up just to view this page. Some other facebook sites are open for everyone to view, so why isn't this one?

Thanks for keeping us up-dated on the new Zealand Provincial league events, gustix. I read Your posts and others above with interest, but just wanted to do a summary of the above and fill the gaps that were still there. This league project is a very worthwhile thing in NZ, probably coming as a side effect caused by the great SGP shows that they got to see at Western Springs. I hope for a record crowd in this year's NZ SGP, to keep them committed to teh SGP Series for future years. If not, the contract with the Springs might just be let expire after this year's event. This would be sad. One Question I still have about the Provincial league. How do they award the match points in this league? I am not sure, is it 3 points for an away win or what? Does anybody know? I must critizise that their PR work is rather poor, even the club websites are rarely up-dated with meeting results. Not everyone is on facebook. There is room for improvement in the public awareness to create a lot more interest for the solo speedway events in NZ.

There is a great 1-hour tv preview (David Tapp production) on the sidecar grand slam website http://www.sidecargrandslam.com.au/

NZ Provincial Solo League: ROUND 1 November 3, 2013 - Moore Park, Christchurch: CANTERBURY Comets 39: Andrew Aldridge 15, Dale Finch 11, Kody Tocher 8, Ryan Moss 3, Craig Blackett 2. AUCKLAND Rhinos 35: Bradley Dean-Wilson 15, Sean Mason 11, Dylan Hancock 6, Jason McKay 3. ROUND 2 November 9, 2013 - Oreti Park, Invercargill: SOUTHLAND Outlaws 23: Grant Tregoning 8, Jack McRae 7, Hayden Sims 3, JohnHayes 3, Jeremy Godfrey 1, Alex Cunningham 1. AUCKLAND Rhinos 48: Bradley Wilson-Dean 13, Dylan Hancock 11, Sean Mason 10, Brady Mudgway 10, Jason McKay 4. ROUND 3 November 17, 2013 - Rosebank Domain, Auckland: AUCKLAND Rhinos 43: Sean Mason 10, Bradley Wilson-Dean 9, Dylan Hancock 8, Ryan Terry-Daley 8, Brady Mudgeway 8. SOUTHLAND Outlaws 32: Grant Tregoning 15, Paul Hayes 9, Hayden Sims 5, Jack McRae 2, Billy Graham 1. ROUND 4 November 24, 2013 - Moore Park, Christchurch: CANTERBURY Comets 40: Andrew Aldridge 13, Dale Finch 10, Kody Tocher 10, Brandon Coppard 4, Ryan Moss 3. SOUTHLAND Outlaws 31: Grant Tregoning 11, Paul Hayes 7, Hayden Sims 5, Jack McRae 4, Jeremy Godfrey 4. coming-up: January 12, 2014 Rosebank Domain, Auckland AUCKLAND Rhinos v CANTERBURY Comets January 18, 2014 Oreti Park, Invercargill SOUTHLAND Outlaws v CANTERBURY Comets INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONSHIPS December 15, 2013 Canterbury Province Solo Championship (Moore Park, Christchurch) January 4, 2014 New Zealand U-21 Solo Championship (Moore Park, Christchurch) January 25, 2014 Southland Province Solo Championship (Oreti Park, Invercargill) February 2, 2014 North Island Solo Championship (Rosebank, Auckland) February 2, 2014 South Island Solo Championship (Moore Park, Christchurch) February 8, 2014 New Zealand Solo Championship (Oreti Park, Invercargill) February 23, 2014 Auckland Province Solo Championship (Rosebank, Auckland) April 5, 2014 F.I.M. World Championship New Zealand Speedway Grand Prix (Western Springs, Auckland) April 19, 2014 S.N.Z. Solo Grand Prix (Moore Park, Christchurch)

It happens regularly at this time of the year, prior to Christmas, that there is a delay in delivery of the Star. But this is not the Star's fault.

Gollob is neither a top 8 rider of the 2013 SGP nor is he a top 3 Qualifier from the Challenge. He would have been a wild card entry, but obviously has turned down the SGP's invitation for 2014. This means that according to the rules, FIM/IMG/BSI or whoever makes this decision, can give a wildcard to whomever they want. Harris certainly has no claim to be an automatic replacement for Gollob. But of course he could be picked as a permanent wild card to replace Gollob. Fair enough if it is Harris then, but I don't think it will go down well with the Polish media, public and clubs. They only have Kasprzak and Hampel in the SGP now, and the Poles will surely want another Pole come in to replace Tomek.