Bavarian

Results from GDANSK after 12 Heats: 1. Maksim Bogdanovs (Latvia) - 9 (3,3,3) 2. Patrick Hougaard (Denmark) - 8 (3,3,2) 3. Jurica Pavlic (Croatia) - 6 (3,3,0) 4. Artem Laguta (Russi) - 6 (2,3,1) 5. Vadim Tarasenko (Russia) - 6 (3,2,1) 6. Maciej Janowski (Poland) - 6 (1,2,3) 7. Darcy Ward (Australia) - 5 (2,2,1) 8. Martin Vaculik (Slovakia) - 5 (1,2,2) 9. Rene Bach (Denmark) - 4 (0,1,3) 10. Patryk Dudek (Poland) - 4 (2,R,2) 11. Kevin Wolbert (Germany) - 3 (R,R,3) 12. Matej Kus (Czech Republic) - 3 (0,1,2) 13. Dennis Andersson (Sweden) - 2 (2,0,0) 14. Artur Mroczka (Poland) - 2 (1,1,0) 15. Frank Facher (Germany) - 2 (1,1,0) 16. Damian Sperz (Poland) - 1 (F,F,1)

The funny thing is, there are no Aussies either, Ward except. British promoters and fans seem to believe that any youngster from Oz is a potential future World Champion. But where are they? Stuck in the British Premier League! I am not saying there are no talented riders from Aussie, there are some like Holder or Ward, but Australia is certainly not dominating the junior world speedway scene. Amazingly this year, Poland struggles, too! And so do Sweden and Denmark! I would be pleased if Laguta wins it tonight, but watch out for Slovakia's Martin Vaculik. He used to be a Gdansk rider in the Eksta Liga, so he will know how to ride that track. He rode Landshut with a sholder injury, yet had no problems to finish on the rostrum. Latvia's Bogdanovs could be a spoiler, and of course Andersson the Swede, who rides rather unspectacular but is very efficient. And nobody seems to fancy Croatia's Jurica Pavlic? Or Ward, the defending world champion! Last but not least the Poles will have high hopes in tehir home country. Janowski should be a threat, just as the wild card rider Artur Mrozcka. All in all, this Junior Grand Prix series promises some spectacular racing and unpredictable results, just as the senior GPs this year. Good thing!

I believe they use the same points scoring system as in the senior GPs. This would make sense as the U21 meeting runs on the same system of 16 riders, 20 heast, two semis and a final. But it would certainly be nice to be told about before the meeting. Nobody seems to be sure on this. About Artur Mrozcka at Landshut. I was there. In his last race he was in no danger of losing second place in his last ride. It was a genuine mistake on him miscounting the laps and shut down. However, the fact that he did needed at least one point from his last ride shows that he was anything but a certain qualifyer for this meeting. There were others much more superior (Andersson, Vaculik and Janowski) Ward rode steady inhis first three rides, but struggled badly after the interval. He failed to score in his fourth ride and need at least one point from heat 20 (that was after Mroczka's last ride) to avoid a run-off with the Pole. And Ward was really struggling to get that point, as he was stone last from the gate and just managed to get passed the already qualified Kevin Wolbert on the second lap. Mroczka really deserves to be given this wild card entry. He would have qualifyied on merit, if it wasn't for his black-out moment in his last race. But I am still not sure if he has got a permanent wild card for all three finals, or just for the one meeting at Gdansk?

I know!

Don't think Tarasenko will be THAT good in his first season, but better watch out for the other Russian in the finals, 19y/o Artem Laguta. He is on a run!

Great pix, Doug. I particularly like the appearance of the young riders. They all wear their national flags on their race jackets. How refreshing to see this, just as it used to be in the good old days of the 70's and 80's. It is such a shame that this is no longer the case in the senior modern day world championship events. Wearing the national colours on Your breast plate gives the riders such a proud and noble appearance, much better than wearing any kind of a sponsors logo. I must say, that this national flag or emblem (such as England's Three Lions or Poland's White Eagle) worn by the speedway riders in international competition has always been one aspect of why speedway appealed so much more to me than moto cross or road racing. The same goes for the club team emblems worn in league racing. This is such a beautyful heritage that makes speedway something special in the world of motor sports. Sadly this is now much neglected in these modern times of putting a sponsors' logo on every available square inch of a riders' body or bike. At least in the SWC they are now back to give the national teams a national identy appearance. I like that. This 80cc FIM Youth Gold Trophy really is a great tournament fro teh youngsters. I particularly like the compact way of running it at one track with three Qualifying Rounds, then two Semi-finals and a true world final of the last sixteen, all this within the space of just four days. This makes it so much more easy for long distance travellers like the Aussies to participate. And the same goes for traveling fans who can spend a short week at this place and see all of the meetings. This is a beauty, indeed!

Yes, Povazhny is through as well. No wild card for a Dane neccessary, two have qualified.

AFAIK fourteen riders qualify directly via the semi finals (2x7), plus as number 15 one permanent wild card for the three meetings series t.b.d by the FIM, plus as number 16 one local rider given a wild card once in Poland, another in Latvia and another in CZ, just as is done in the senior SGP series. Don't know who will be the reserves, probably locals as well, as is in the SGP.

It is pretty far away from Innsbruck. You would better be based in Vienna instead. The Speedway at Natschbach-Loipersbach is in Lower Austria, about 80km southwest of Vienna,and the name of the town to which Natschbach-Loipersbach belongs is Neunkirchen. For its location You may take a look at the German wikipedia website here Natschbach-Loipersbach and here: Neunkirchen The town of Heidenreichstein is in the north of Austria, very close to the Czech Republic border. See here on the German wikipedia website: Heidenreichstein

But the list of winners in that Speedway Star Yearbook is incomplete. The 1970's and early 1980'S results are missing / unknown. I have heard about one of our German riders Stefan Deser having won the Argentinean championship in ca. 1981 or 1982? (but I am not exactly sure in what year)

It used to be 1-8 and 9-16 for a sixteen riders field or two teams of eight. Politely visitors come first and are introduced first to the public, so they get the lower numbers.

I would back this. The first round should be regionalised. The Nordic countries have their own qualifying round, so should Britain/Overseas, Eastern Europe and Western Europe. Then mix it in the semi-finals round to make sure the best go forward to the wrold finals series.

What's the problem with Miskolc? They have Scotty in their squad this year, so what went wrong there? Hungary as a speedway power seems to be sinking incredibly fast!

Very informative,Maddas, and probably exactly how it is. Team Norway in Monday's World Team Cup Qualifyier in Abensberg will be totally outclassed. To send a team including a 55 year Stein Roar Pedersen and three raw youngsters into international battle is bound to be sunk to the bottom of the sea. Today, there were only two of the Norwegians practising at Abensberg, and they had technical problems ... and technical problems ... and ... well, You guessed it right, technical problems no end. I had hoped to see Lars Daniel Gunnestad, the Bjerk brothers plus Sola and Raugstad -the last two are obviously unavailable - but of the five that are named for Abensberg only Rokeberg is worth a few points. Solberg maybe the one other to score a point or two.

But where are Sola and Raugstad so far this year? Are they injured since last season? What happened?

Darcy Ward on his German Bundesliga "home track"

Baypark Stadium in Tauranga is an established speedway track, a large one as it is in use for the cars racing. The stadium is a beauty an about the right size, not too small and not too big. Take a look here at some recent car racing action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCnVw4VlDGU&feature=related

Pavlic beat Ward in the first round of heats. After four rides each, Pavlic is still unbeaten and Ward second on 11 points. Kyle Newman is still in with a fighting chance for a top six position. He's on seven points tied for sixth place with two other riders. Of the US boys Gino Manzares is riding in this meeting, but Brad Pappalaro is missing? Why?

Great crowd, great atmosphere, and a home win is still possible! Zielona Gora leads 31-29 after ten heats.

Is this meeting on now?

I miss the variety and the big events of the 1970's speedway. Most of all the Test matches, the winter tours of Australia by the British Lions and other.

THE match race championship, which was rewarded with the golden helmet, used to be one of the highest prizes to be won in British speedway. That's why it was such a draw with the crowd in the old days. I think it all began in 1930, and was initially designed as the world match race championship, but since the ACU would not sanction such an ambitious title, it reverted to become the British match race championship. This used to be a contest similar to how boxing world championships are decided, the champ defends his title against a nominated challenger. Speedway and Boxing have some similarities, not least that both sports/businesses are run by promoters. The old system of monthly challenges for the Golden Helmet Match Race Championship was far better than the inflated version they had in the sixties or seventies, when the holder had to defend the helmet and weekly challenges, somtimes within 24 hours after he had won it. This was simply too much and people, as well as the media, got an overdose and did no longer give it as much attention as it used to get when there were only monthly challenges. In the old days, the media had time to preview and build up such events and people used to know who would be challenging for the helmet, as it was raced for monthly on a home-and-away basis at the holder and challenger's track, with a neutral track decider if neccessary. And to make it lucrative for the riders, there was money for the holder as long as he kept it, even through the winter. For example, in 1949 at Birmingham, some 44,000 people turned up to see the match between Graham Warren and Jack Parker. It was promoted just like a big boxing bout. Those were the days.

I hope the lad is not seriously injured, the crash looked bad enough. When was this race/crash?

I agree with You 100%, this is when it all went the wrong way for speedway, which used to be the only affordable from of motorsport for the ordinary people. Until the early 1970's it used to be so easy to start out and try YOur luck in speedway. You had to purchase a half decent bike, went to a training school and got going. Nowadays it is moto cross has this advantage, while speedway has become an obscure minority phenomen, that is hardly known by anyone outside the sport.

Not sure about India, but China has seen speedway at a very early stage, in 1930, when an Australian touring troupe spent several weeks of riding the dirt-track speedways of Shanghai and Hong Kong. They were racing in Singapore and Manila, too. Only a few years ago, the Chinese toyed with the idea of introducing ice racing and a test meeting (with no ordinary spectators allowed) was held on a 400m ice oval at Harbin, involving several Russian riders as well as Swedish riders Svensson and Serenius. It does not seem to have made the wished for impression, though, since nothing was heard about it after that. While speedway, afaik, has yet to make its entry into India, they do have a lively dirt-track championship going since about 3 years. It is flat track racing on mx bikes. http://www.merinews.com/article/dirt-racin...ia/125562.shtml There are even videos of these meetings on Youtube. The potential for 'real' Speedway is undoubtedly there, but the moto cross bikes are much easier to get for the riders in a country like India. Speedway can't compepte with that. It is the same phenomen with other third world countries in Africa or South America. There is dirt-track motorcycle racing in many of them, but they do their racing on ordinary mx bikes. Speedway would have to bring out a very, very, basic and very, very cheap bike, which would have to be reliably and easy to maintain for the riders in these parts of the world to take it up. I have read somewhere on the forum that there is a Chinese bike engine that is used in youth speedway, even in England. Maybe that would be a first step in the right directon. The people in Malaysia, who tried to introduce speedway there some three years ago, also used their own make of would-be speedway bikes with smaller capacity engines (115cc). It worked and it was fun, and in a few years it could become a real boom sport spreading all over the world. This would be a ground roots level introduction of the sport, with the top riders eventually going on to the senior 500cc racing division in the professional leagues and world championships. This would be the desperately needed boost that speedway needs to reach global acceptance. The FIM should do something about it, but sadly there is nobody with a vision.