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I've watched it now, young Turnip, and as I suspected it was better than any of the Elite League rubbish served up on Sky Sports so far. But you thought the SWC in Leszno wasn't up to much, so what does that say? Just you continue crying into your beer over the failure of British champions, former and current. I just don't know how the former British champion has the nerve to keep turning up - 59 GPs and not a sniff of a win.

Typical nonsense from the Turnip. Probably distraught at the failure of the former British champion.

Yes, why not?

Haven't seen the action, but will watch the replay. But everyone could see from the SWC last year that Leszno is a great track. But Olsen is a golem who hates everything the fans love. He hates entertainment, he hates great racing, he hates seeing happy fans and he's no fun whatsoever. I feel much the same about Olsen as I do about syphilis. The FIM need to get a funhog in as race director.

Agreed. The former British champion is now 59 Grands Prix and counting - only eight riders can better that number and they've all won at least one.

I wouldn't have thought it's a good guess. Sweden are surely more likely to go with Forsberg, Kling, Zetterstrom or Nermark ahead of Max, While I suspect that the Czechs will be looking at Tomicek and Sitera, over Topinka and Makovsky, although I do think Adrian Rymel stands a chance of being selected. As for the Danes, well, you've got Bjerre and Mads Korneliussen to consider, along with Gjedde.

Well, he rides for the Polish national coach Marek Cieslak at Wroclaw, so he probably stands a chance of being in the squad, but I don't see him making the team - I think a few riders will be in the running for the fifth spot in the side, after Gollob, Kasprzak, Holta and Hampel. For example, Wieslaw Jagus is having a great season for Torun, Kolodziej is doing well for hapless Tarnow, then there's Walasek and Protasiewicz at Zielona Gora. The Polish round is at Leszno, so that would bring Balinski into the frame. And then there's Jedrzejak at Wroclaw.

And has Watt become French?

I take it he's never called J0000nas in Bydgoszcz.

Amazingly, Norbert Kosciuch was mentioned as a possible target for Berwick last season, before they signed Truminski. It looked like he'd have been quite a catch. And Skornicki put in a good shift for Poznan as well. But the star of the show, once again, was Sajfutdinov - what a talent. But someone really ought to tell Elite League promoters that we can see this type of action on-line and then maybe they'd try and give us a little entertainment on a Monday night. At the minute, the Elite League is just being embarrassed by this feast from Poland.

Leszno, or as Leigh Adams splendidly persists in calling his adopted Polish home of 13 seasons, Lezno, is just much faster - over ten metres longer than Gorzow, but the track record is about three seconds lower.

Track lengths in the Ekstraliga: Czestochowa: 368 metres (Track record: 62.21 seconds - Greg Hancock, 2006) Gorzow: 329 metres (Track record: 61.16 seconds Tomasz Gollob, yesterday) Leszno: 342.5 metres (Track record: 58.4 seconds Krzysztof Kasprzak, 2007) Rzeszow: 395 metres (Track record: 66.45 Maciej Kuciapa, 1998) Tarnow: 392 metres (Track record: 68.16 Tony Rickardsson, 2006) Torun: 333 metres (Track record: 59.03 Tony Rickardsson, 2005) Wroclaw: 387 metres (Track Record: 63.5 Jason Crump, 2007) Zielona Gora: 340 metres (Track Record: 60.68 Grzegorz Walasek, 2007) And track lengths in Liga I, without record details: Bydgoszcz: 348 metres Daugavpils: 373 metres Gdansk: 349 metres Grudziadz: 379 metres Ostrow: 372 metres Poznan: 397 metres Rawicz: 330 metres Rybnik: 357 metres

Alternatively, people could design their own racecard and keep up to date on their own. The following is the race formula for Poland's Liga I: Home team: 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Away team: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Ht 1: 14 (1), 15 (3) vs 6 (2), 7 (4) Ht 2: 9 (2), 10 (4) vs 1 (1), 2 (3) Ht 3: 11 (1), 12 (3) vs 3 (2), 4 (4) Ht 4: 13 (2), 15 (4) vs 5 (1), 7 (3) Ht 5: 11 (3), 12 (1) vs 1 (2), 2 (4) Ht 6: 13 (4), 14 (2) vs 3 (1), 4 (3) Ht 7: 9 (1), 10 (3) vs 5 (2), 6 (4) Ht 8: 13 (1), 14 (3) vs 1 (4), 2 (2) Ht 9: 9 (4), 10 (2) vs 3 (3), 4 (1) Ht 10: 11 (2), 12 (4) vs 5 (3), 6 (1) Ht 11: 9 (3), 14 (1) vs 3 (4), 4 (2) Ht 12: 11 (4), 12 (2) vs 1 (3), 6 (1) Ht 13: 10 (1), 13 (3) vs 2 (2), 5 (4) Ht 14: Nominated Ht 15: Nominated Gate positions in brackets.

Isn't that the second Gdansk meeting to be ratified after just 8-9 heats? I think last week was exactly the same.

Looks like: Rzeszow versus Czestochowa Gorzow versus Leszno http://www.itvp.pl/event/zuzel/ Which, I guess, is an early chance to see Krzysztof Kasprzak in action. Edit: Both meetings start at 5:30pm BST, by the looks of things.

What's happened to Marta?

You could try the following: http://www.speedwaygp.lv/?

With the final not being in Poland this season, meaning the hopes of victory for the Poles can't be too high, maybe they'll drop Rune Holta again. I don't think Balinski will be in the running, but Kolodziej, Dobrucki and Jagus would have to be in the running.

Norrkoping, I think.

That's awfully sombre music they have over the replays of Stange's crash.

The only Zielona Gora Poles left standing are Grzegorz Walasek and Rafal Dobrucki. In fact, a lot of the fancied Poles, such as Kasprzak and Hampel fell at the Polish qualifying stage, which last season's GPer Wieslaw Jagus didn't even bother with (obviously had enough of the GPs). Tomasz Gollob and Rune Holta also failed to enter. But Janusz Kolodziej is in great form for Tarnow, so I'd keep an eye on him.

Could we have a couple of Czechs at Leszno? Seems as though Bjarne Pedersen may have injured himself last night and Lubis Tomicek is first reserve for the GPs.

What about the Weirdity? By the way, started watching this meeting at the scheduled start time and there isn't a chance it would've gone ahead over here. But the track staff worked like demons to get the track into a reasonable shape and by the end there was some super racing.

QUOTE (Rob B @ Apr 28 2008, 08:27 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Night was all about gates 1 & 2 you could forget 3 & 4 and after the rain that got even worst. Not according to the former British champion and global superstar it didn't. According to the excuses of Nicholls, as reported in the Speedway Star: "Then the rain came down before my last two rides off the inside and the outside gates weren't quite such a disadvantage at the end".

No, he's had lots of bad GPs - Crump hasn't won a GP since July 2006 and for a rider of Crump's stature, that's poor. I'm not writing Crump off, but he won't be champion unless he gets his backside into gear.