Bavarian

He enjoyed it! No doubt about it!

Yes it was great entertainment. Let me tell You it wasn't their team manager whom the riders threw into the mud. This was even better, because it was the multi-millionaire president of the club, Mr. Dowhan! I am pretty sure he hasn't had such treatment since his kindergarden days! Great celebrations in the mud and the rain! What a finale!

I guess Holder isn't like that, because I never saw him throw a Zielona Gora scarf into the mud of the track, but that's exactly what that brat Darcy Ward did, and in front of the fans and the tv cameras. Some say he is just a kid, but I say that's bad behaviour, and if he doesn't change and fast he will make himself very unpopular with many people.

Good decision by the Polish authorizies. Fair play should alsways win against the rule benders. Ostrow lost fair and square on the track. Tha result shoud always stand. Schlein's early removal of the bike should be fined but to change the outcome of this crucial meeting result would have been a shame.

Disappointing meeting in my oppinion. Varagana lacked any fighting spirit, except Miedznski and Woffie. Man, this was a final for the Championship, You got to give it Your all, especially when You hold a 12 point lead after the first day. This was a poor show by Vargarna, but of course I know it is a big achievment by them to get into the final at all. Nobody would have expeceted this from them at the start of the season. Congrats to Lejonen, they deserved the win. But the meeting, which dragged on with very long and boring gaps between the heat, was not exciting to watch. Racing wasn't really exciting, mostly decided after the first bend.

then the brand new FIM Under 21 Grand Prix series is the right thing for You guys. Starting next year with plenty of new blood in it!

Pepe will most likely not be back on a bike again this season. Nothing too serious with his injury, but it takes time to heal, and there is not much left of this season.

This is correct. The 1968 event was always intended as a trial run for this newly invented competition to see how it goes. It was followed by an "official" championship in the following year of 1969. It is a mystery as to why and when the FIM decided this 1969 event not to be regarded as official any more. The riders still have their gold, silver and bronze medals from this event to show. There was a similar FIM test meeting the year before the first official world team cup, which was inaugurated in 1960. The 1959 "European" Team Cup Final, intended as a trial before the world team cup was given official blessing, was run in West Germany at Oberhausen, and if memory serves me correct, the four teams competing in this final were Germany, Great Britain, Poland and Norway (not sure)!

Poland would have won this anywhere in the world. I am disappointed about the poor showing of the Danes, and even more so about the Swedes, and mostly about the Swedish team wearing those uggly Wülfsport shirts. Can't they afford proper team kevlars???

Well it is of course Your decision and if You see it that way, so be it, no problem.

Each to his own of course, but in my mind when You are a speedway fan and have the chance to see such a really important qualifying meeting for the new SGP season right at Your doorstep and decide not to go there ist a strange decision, to put it mildly. What do You think where will You see the more hard fought racing action? At Your Somerset friendly event or at Coventry's world championship eliminator. Come on, get real !

Yes Gorzow went out after losing 47-43 at Zielona Gora. All they need was a draw and tehy had it after heat 14 it was 42-all, but Dobrucki and Lindgren killed them off with a merciless 5-1 in the last heat. Cruel world, now Tomek's Polish League season is over.

Yes, of course, as always in Norway just a one-off final over the classic 20 heat race scheme. Can anybody tell me how often Sola has now won this title? Seems to me he wins it every year!

Is it true that a brand new speedway track and club is set up in the Polish town of Przemysl ?

But why would he rather ride in a long-track meeting (I think it was actually a grass track) instead of in his country's national speedway championship final? Does anyone know how often Kylmäkorpi has contested the Finnish National Championship in the past? Did he ever win the Finnish title?

Why did Kylmäkorpi not ride in this Finnish final? Money???

hey iris, this is very strange to hear about the changing helmet colours at Brokstedt. Are they idiots or what? I know that some people want to keep the colours indicating the starting positions, but this is total nonsense in a team versus team match. All they do is confuse everyone who is watching. Can't they see that they are doing the sport no good at all with this stupid behaviour? I was at Landshut the other week for the Bundesliga match between the Devils and the Wolves, big crowd of nearly 3,000 and great atmosphere, and the helmet colour thing was done the right way there without any hickups as the home team riders wore red and blue and the visitors white and yellow/black for the whole meeting. No wonder that some clubs are more able than others to convince their paying public of the team versus team idea for the league. At Landshut the fans are all behind this, while it seems Brokstedt and Gustrow struggle to get the product across in a proper form. No wonder the people there are confused and don't like it, if the organisers keep making mistakes such as this helmet colours chaos.

No, BEL meetings this season are much better to watch than they were last year. Don't know why, but this season I enjoy the Elite League more then ever. Maybe it's just me or perhaps it's the presence of Charlie Webster????

The same mysterious bike problems that Tommy Stange had at Diedenbergen in the other semi-final round, which spares him a trip to Russia.

QUOTE (Robbie B @ Jul 19 2009, 04:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The joker could make for an interesting meeting, BUT ONLY if ALL teams are allowed to use one, when they want. To penalise a team (whoever they be) for leading the competition is COMPLETLY unfair, and for me made a joke of the result on the 2009 SWC final. I'm sure Australia would never had lost if they could had used a joker. Exactly right. I used to be very much against the joker, but have to admit it makes the meetings so much more unpredictable. BUT I fully agree that ALL teams should be able to play the joker. But there is a simple solution to this unfair rule. Let any team that had not played the joker in heats 1 to 24, automatically play the joker in the final heat 25. That would be regardless of whether they trail by six or more or are in the lead already. The meeting would still have been kept close right until the last heat, because those teams trailing by six or more will most probably already have played their jokers. But now in the last heat, the leaders (such as Australia in the SWC finals) or any other team that had not played the joker earlier, will get their fair chance to counter that and go for double points too in that one last race. In today's final in Leszno, Adams would have got four points instead of two for finishing second to Gollob in that heat 25 showdown. Fair enough, as each team would then have had one chance to double their scores during the meeting. This would be fair play for all teams involved and still keep the joker in it to spice up the game.

Absolutely, the mole is funny. It never fails to make me smile. Let me add that the SkySports presentation of the SWC tournament was truely excellent and the presenters crew did one hell of a good job. All of them!

You Brits just don't know how good You have it. Compare the Sky Sports Speedway crew with those employed in Polish TV or Swedish or Danish, and You will see how good Yours are. They are passionate, usually know what they are talking about, and often funny to listen to (Tatum and the mole) and Charlie Webster is my personal favorite. She is so cute and lovely. My kind of a girl, really! She makes my day!

Mention of the Philippines brings up a question. Did they stage speedway in Manila in June/July of 1975? I know that a toruing troupe of Australian riders, led by John Langfield, was supposed to go there, but I have never ever read a report of the racing or seen any race results. Does anybody know if it did go ahead?

What club does Jake Anderson ride for in the UK? And can anybody tell me where Andrew Bargh is this year? Probably still in NZ, but why didn't he retrun to UK this year. Thought he was NZ's best prospect of the current generation.

Just found this short video on youtube of "Speedway" in Brasil. It's an oval dirt track and they ride motorbikes, thats a start, but thats about all there is in similarity to what real speedway is. Someone got to tell them what speedway is and how they should do it. At least they show interest in our sport.