Bavarian

meeting has not even started yet. It begins at 16.00h

But where was Loktaev, that 14 y/o wonderkid?

No, I don't want to see someone seriously injured. But crashes are part of the game and they spice up the product. Tonight it was very exciting watching this GP. You never knew what would happen next. I can't say that this was always the case with GPs when the tracks were oh so very smooth. Some of them were simply boring. And don't forget that not all of the crashes tonight were caused by the track conditions. Andersen's was, and Gollob's too. But Jonsson's not, and Nicholls' not, and those two by that crash pilot Dryml not necessarily. Dryml is a danger in itself. My opinion.

I find it amusing that Your British Sky reporter did not even know who won ? How stupid is he ? Didn't You guys get to see the top three on the podium ? Everybody knows that the winner of the final is the winner of the GP. The GPs are not decided on points totals, a reporter should have this little bit of basic knowledge. But even some people on this forum did not seem to know this. Sure that You are speedway fans?

Contrary to what most of You wrote, I think it was a great GP. Very entertaining, with lots of incidents (and accidents, non too seriously). Ullevi is a wonderful stadium and Göteborg a beautiful and traditional place for a speedway GP. Forget those little racetrack out in the woods. This was a very entertaining GP, it did not feel like 4 hours.

Now Mark deKok was/is definitely a New Zealander, not a South African.

Hasn't his son Mike Thackwell been a Formula 1 driver in the 1980's ? Anyone remember him ?

Why was Karpov missing?

Does anybody know the nationality of ex-Edinburgh junior James Hayhow? He came from Durban to Edinburgh, but was he South African, Rhodesian or Zambian? I know he was born in Northern Rhodesia, which after independance in 1964 became Zambia. Don't know if he ever held a Zambian passport? And another rider from SA of the 1980's, Wally Hill, was he English or South African? (I believe he was born in England?)

The big international meetings that Prof. Renisch promoted all took place in Vienna's premier sports stadium, then known as the "Prater Stadion" or simply as the "Wiener Stadion". The Stadium is still there, but has been modernised and been given a new name, the "Ernst Happel Stadion" named after one of Austria's most prominent football coaches. It hosts the big International football games, but does not have a club team play there on a regular basis (except for big derby clashes or UEFA Cup etc). Much like Wembley in England. In the 1970's when Bubi Bossner led the revival of speedway in Austria, there was racing in another (much smaller) football stadion in Vienna, the "Stadion Hohe Warte" (home of Vienna Football Club) and for a short period at a place called ASKO-X. In the mid-1970's speedway lost its tracks in Vienna and re-settled in the surrounding areas, such as Wiener Neustadt, some 40km south of the city. There may have been occasional speedway meetings at Wiener Neustadt in earlier times, but I am not aware of this. Certainly if so, those were rather low key events not to be compared with the big shows in Vienna that attracted crowds of 30 or 40,000.

Wiener Neustadt isn't one of those old times venues, speedyguy. Those old stars did race in Vienna, and those capital tracks are long gone.

Where was Emil ???????

This season (2007-8) the Argentinian Speedway Championship was staged for the 51st time in a row. It began in 1956-7 and has been run every year since. Indeed a proud history of the sport in this South American country. And as speedyguy quite rightly wrote, there was speedway there very early on around 1930, when many famous riders toured and rode in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay).

Only ONE rider from Argentina has ever ridden in the WTC (funny as it sounds) Emiliano Sanchez has ridden for ITALY in the WTC, since he has some Italian blood in his veins. ARGENTINA as a national team has never entered International speedway competition.

You guys are funny ! Hey spanner, I guess You will see the people here in Bavaria are dressed like any other in the western world these days. Don't know about the attendance for the meeting on the Sunday afternoon since it clashes with a traditional longtrack meeting in Dingolfing just about 70km south of Neustadt. Not the best of fixture planning by the club bosses.

There You go (with a little bit of UK support): 1 Jason Bunyan (Isle of Wight) 2 Andrew Aldridge (Rye House) 3 Andy Bargh (Isle of Wight) 4 Jade Mudgeway (Redcar) 5 Grant Tregoning (Mildenhall) 6 Alex Cunningham 7 Martin Emerson (Redcar)

Terrible. Kolenko was in such a good form this season. Let's hope he gets well soon.

@oddfossengen Yes, Jim Airey was the winner of the Papua New Guinea championship in the 1973/74 season. @puma sorry, don't know any other names of PNG riders. Would love to know more myself.

Actually Carsten Pelzmann's nationality is a special case. He was born and grew up at Olching, a suburb of Munich. He still lives there. He started speedway as a junior with the Olching club. He became good and eventually rode internationally, even representing Germany in the World Team Cup. Nobody ever would have assumed that he was NOT German. However, while his mother is German, his father is not, and Carsten himself isn't German either ! He is in fact an Austrian, as is his father ! At the early stages of his career, in the mid-/late-1980`s he revealed this to the then Austrian speedway supremo Bubi Bossner, asking if he could ride for the Austrian team internationally. Bossner however, did not want him (perhaps he saw Carsten as a rival to his own son's -Andy Bossner- speedway ambitions). So Carsten stayed in Germany, rode here and nobody ever seems to have questioned his nationality. Only towards the end of his career he ended up riding in Austria, where unfortunately his career ended with a serious back injury. Luckily he is fully recovered and living happily in Olching. He has a young son by the name of Ernst who rides in the youth class events at Olching. Don't know which nationality the little boy has though !

They plan to stage the first Russian SGP in 2010 at the recently upgraded speedway stadium in Togliatti.

What kind of track is that Zuidbroek ? Speedway or grass track ?

Yes Paul Muchene was (at least half) British, but either his mother or father was Kenyan. The bizzare thing about his fatal accident I seem to remember that the collision happened with another African rider (not that there are that many speedway riders with African roots). I can't remember the name but I am pretty certain that it was a young South African. Perhaps someone can either confirm or correct this, please. Anyone remember that South African rider's name?

You're welcome! It would be great to know even more about the brief history of speedway in New Guinea. After all, it is only about 30 years since they did race there, so the riders, promoters and people who attended those events must still be around. Anyone out there who knows more ?

Hi Puma, that was Kevin McDonald, the Papua New Guinea champion of 1974, 1975 and 1976 ! He was born in Melbourne on December 31, 1956, but grew up and lived 20 years in Port Moresby. Speedway started there in the early 1970's and Kevin McDonald was the most talented of the local riders. Several Australian riders,mainly from Queensland and the Northern Territory rode in Papua New Guinea, and McDonald also rode in a few meetings in Australia in the mid-1970's. He was quite good, twice finishing as the runner-up in the Australian Northern Territory Championship (1975 and 1976). Together with fellow New Guinean Garnet Thistlethwaite they came to England in 1977 or 1978. As far as I know Thistlethwaite only had second half outings in the UK, but McDonald was an instant success and signed for Newcastle Diamonds in 1978. He rode for them in just three matches, (3M-11R-15P-3B-18TP-6.55CMA), when he suffered a bably broken left thigh, that unfortunately ended his very promising speedway career. In the 1977/78 season McDonald even rode in the world championship qualifying rounds, to the best of my knowledge the only Papua New Guinean ever to do so. He entered via the Australian rounds, qualifying from the Queensland Final at Bundaberg, where he finished 2nd, before being eliminated in the second round (Northern Zone Final) in Sydney finishing joint 11th with 4 points.

Norwegian Basse Hveem