Bavarian

Nice to see a couple of Tasmanian tracks hosting the solos again. However, on the other hand there are not a lot of WA dates on the list, except for a couple of sidecar events at Geraldton. Will there be solo speedway at Kwinana this year? And, there seems to be no more solo action in the Northern Teritory? Does Darwin still have some Solo speedway? But there's one more track I have never heard about - Moruya (NSW) - where is that? Is it a new track? Who is running it?

Where was Wallner?

Wait for this Saturday Night in Austria -Stange, Hefenbrock and Smolinski are all in the Under 21 World Final. Let's judge them after that.

Honestly I can't understand why the Bydgoszcz team manager did not protest and defend his rider against the harsh exclusion after the crash with Jacek Gollob. It was obvious that none but Jacek was to blame for the two riders coming down in that situation. PePe was on the outside and had already gone past Jacek, when Jacek moved out trying to block PePe. Where was PePe supposed to go, squeezed in between Jacek and the fence. I mean Gollob could have gone to the inside there was the whole width of the track available for him but PePe could go nowhere. Jacek's move caused the accident and this was pretty obvious to everyone who saw it. How can the referee make such a diabolical decision is really beyond me. He can't be so stupid, can he? Maybe he was just not brave enough to exclude a home rider or even worse, he might have played his part in the home team's strategy to win this match at all cost. I wouldn't blame anybody more than the referee. If a rider makes such a move as Jacek Gollob did, he should be rightly excluded, but to make a decision like this referee did, is the real scandal. I hope the PZM does take a closer look at what happened here.

Fritz Wallner who is still only 18 years old.

Switzerland DID stage speedway racing in the late 40's - see Brian Collins' excellent website for details of a Test match held at Zurich! They also had an annual grass track meeting in the 80's and 90's and of course a world longtrack champion in Marcel Gerhard! I guess the list of country's with any involvement in speedway is very much complete as it is here, even including such obscure nations as Ethiopia or Fiji as the birthplace of a couple of riders. In addition to this I remember that at a world ice racing meeting at Inzell in Germany about ten years ago there was a rider from GREECE, which is one other nation that has not yet been mentioned here. I can't remember his name, though, and I think after only a couple of seasons he retired from ice racing. Malta, though, would not only feature as the birthplace of Mark Loram, for there was speedway (of a sort) organised by the British Military, much the same as in Egypt, Germany and Italy, in the immediate post-war years. And if I remember it correctly, there had been other places, too, were the British soldiers organised their track racing, such as Aden and Palestine, possibly Cyprus as well. Up through the years there were a number of proposals to introduce speedway racing in some rather exotic places. For example promoter Trevor Redmond DID introduce stock car racing in Jamaica and as he was of course first and foremost a speedway man, looked into the possiblity to let the bikes take to the track there as well. They never did, though. Plans were also afoot to let the solos race in Panama, sometime in the early 70's, but that too never happened. Mexico did happen, though, with a little help from the USA. In South America the sport flirted for a very short time in Venezuela 1959/60 and Brasil around 1980. Uruguay had seen speedway racing in the 1930's and again shortly after the war in the late 40's/early 50's, with the riders coming over from across the Rio De La Plata from the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires. Argentina itself is the only place in Latin America were the sport really took a hold and has survived since the early 1930's up to this day. Chile I guess did never have speedway, it may have been considered, but I am not aware of any tracks or riders there. There's more to think of in Africa and Asia. Does anybody know more about the history of speedway in Singapore?

Who is going to replace Kennett as reserve?

For the record, the visiting New South Wales won the 2005 State of Origin Solo Challenge by 3-0. Match results were: QLD 49, NSW 59 at Ayr QLD 51, NSW 57 at Brandon QLD 47, NSW 61 at Rockhampton Note: The home team was actually riding as North Queensland "Young Guns" and the visiting team was advertised as New South Wales "Young Stars". Meetings were held on July 9, 16 and 23.

I find this week's RED FLAG column in the Speedway Star very interesting and I agree 100% with the author. The current SWC competition as a 4-Team event is a big handicap for the general acceptence of Speedway's version of a World Cup tournament. It is not really team racing, but each man on his own. It really should be done as with all other major sports - Team versus Team - that's how it should be. And that is also what the casual spectator is used to from watching the Elite League matches on Sky. Even the one preparation match for the SWC was a match between GB and Australia and not a 4-Team event. With either six or eight teams involved the SWC tournament could be staged as a knock-out competition, or with a couple of groups of three or four teams, followed by semi-finals and a grand final. And yes, I would go for Red Flag's idea to stage the SWC just once every two years - with the other year for qualifying matches, involving the emerging nations. It would make this competition so much more prestigeous.

well said, iris! England must take care to produce anything like the current generation of young German speedway riders. Germany will maybe not score more than 10 points or so against Sweden, Australia and Poland, but I would fancy their chances to finnish ahead of the Czech Republic or even GB if they, instead of Russia, were in the Swindon qualifyer. With a little bit more international experience behind them, our youngsters will be as good as any of the Danes, Swedes or Poles. And Britsh League promoters will (or actually already did) sign them for their teams.

Shame also that the Isle of Wight has sent home Manuel Hauzinger (finnishing runner-up in this meeting), claiming he needed to rest and cure an old injury. Funny he did not need any time to rest back in his own country and continues riding really well this season.

This comes as a surprise to mayn people here in Germany. In the past BSI has shown no interest in taking over the staging of the Ice racing World Championships. It could become rather difficult for BSI as there are really only two major centers for ice racing in Western Europe, that's Assen and Inzell, and both clubs will wonder why they will suddenly have to pay BSI a lot of money, when up until now they were very happy to organise their one big annual meeting on their own and cash in all the money for themselves. I guess that both Assen and Inzell could satge big open meetings instead of the World Championship events and still get their big crowds. But for BSI to lose these two venues for the Ice Racing GP, they will be in deep trouble. There is no major venue in Sweden or Finland that regularly stages ice racing and Russia alone will not be easy to sell. However, rumour here in Germany is, that someone plans to stage a very big ice racing event in a huge stadium in Hamburg - a town that has never before seen ice racing. Wonder if that has something to do with BSI.

Isn't Sergei Darkin originally from the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan? Of course he now lives and rides for Russia, (or rather Arena Essex) but as far as I know he's from Uzbekistan.

Always thought that Korskro is (or rather was) a long-track. Since when do they have a speedway oval?

Matej Ferjan rode at Stralsund in the German Bundesliga. Hard to see how this could take precedence over a British Elite League match, to grant the R/R facility?

Has Bibra Lake permanently closed down or just for the season. Is there no place for the juniors to race/practise at Kwinana?

The top six of the last World Cup tournament are seeded for the next year. Each and every speedway nation can enter a team for the qualifying rounds, of which the other two teams for the World Cup tournament are decided. Neither Finland, Norway or New Zealand did see much of a chance for their own team (or could not finance it) so decided not to enter. The USA stayed away for some years, too, and only came back this year. Great to see our Young Germans, led by Smolinski and Stange, win the qualifying round in Italy. A huge thunderstorm has put an end to the meeting after 15 of the scheduled 25 heats, but the result stands. Not that our youngsters will stand much of a chance in the next round in Sweden, with Australia and Poland in there, too. Still a great achievement to be there at all, with a team of five U-21 riders, including a couple of late substitutes (Schäfer and Hertrich) they did a great job in Italy last night. Germany could soon become a happy hunting ground for British speedway promoters! There is not just Smolinski and Stange, we have a lot of talent and many of them are not interested to become long-track riders, as was so often the case with German riders in the past. The new generation is eager to make a career as pro-speedway racers in the UK (or elsewhere).

Ferjan is still a Slovenian citizen - therefore can only ride for Slovenia. He only rides in Hungary on a Hungarian MAMS racing license. Nevertheless, some of You seem to underestimate the Hungarian team. They have a very stong quartet of riders in Magosi, Tihanyi, Szatmari and Stefani, and are in with a good chance to win this meeting. I certainly rate them higher than the Italians, even with home advantage. Of course I hope that our German youngsters can win this one, though it is very unfortunate that half of our riders are engaged in a Bundesliga match on the same day and choose to ride for their clubs instead of the National team. Very bad planning by our officials. All of the German team are Under-21 riders! At Daugavpils, the Americans could be in for a surprise if the Russians are really hungry for success. Darkin and Kurguzkin are great riders with a wealth of racing experience and the three youngsters should be able to be fast enough to outpace the likes of Janniro, Larsen and Werner. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Russians throw out the USA in this one. Povazhny has informed the Russian Federation that at the moment he did not wish to be considered for the national team, due to him now living in Poland and having lots of other racing engagements.

thanks f-s-p, as far as I know Margus is racing mx as well, so may like the roughness of the finnish speedway tracks.

Very interesting. The one rider I would like to know more about is Margus Mandre, as he is the lone speedway rider from Estland at the moment. How old is Margus Mandre, and how good would You rate him? By the way, if I remember right, there was talk that a speedway track would be reopened in Estland this year. Do You anything about this?

Wouldn't Finland be able to send a team to the U-21 world team cup qualifyer at Abensberg? The Americans are now definitely out of it, as they can't afford to send a complete five-man team over from the States. There is now talk that a makeshift combined team of Hungarians and Slovenians will be included to replace the USA. Surely only a true national team should come in as replacements instead of a mixed nations side. Finland would be good, as would be Scotland!!!! Listen F.I.M. - does the participation of a comined Hungary-Slovenia side give this new competition more credit than a Scotland team (or Wales)?

Is tv4plus for swedish league a free prgramme or pay TV ? Also, are the GP's on Danish TV free to view or not?

It's where most of the French track racing takes places - the Bordeaux region

41 on the 24th of December 2004

Any news about that sidecar fatality at Rosebank on the 9th of January? Has it been confirmed? If so who was it and how did it happen? Does anyone know?