SPEEDY69

Compared to the FIM regs: "If a rider crosses the white inside line fully with both wheels or leaves the circuit, they are adjudged to have retired from the race – unless they left the track to take essential avoiding action (e.g. to avoid a fallen rider)." I think the interpretation of the 'crosses the inner edge of the track' will be the same as 'crosses the white line fully with both wheels' In any case, the ref wasn't interested!

Both wheels have to be wholly over the line - and even then if they're doing that to avoid a collision it's ok - which he wasn't but Emil could have taken that route to avoid the almost stationary Leicester rider on bend 3/4.

And to me this is what makes good use of the wildcard.

Yeah, definitely not to the promoters and FIM who decided them, or him but just everyone else 😁

That doesn't matter at all. As a commentator he and Allen simply gave their opinion that they thought the award decision was wrong, not that it was against the rules. I also thought it was too early.

That was a pretty good meeting, the Leicester track provides good opportunity for racing and of course the tension was visible. I expected Brennan in heat 15.

OK,so Woffinden being picked is surprising to some but at least it fits the definition of wildcard, rather than just the next three after the top 7.

Agree is irrelevant, it's talent and nerve that counts. I've seen enough riders to spot who's got it and who hasn't, nothing dismissive about that.

Ha, only due to the nothing meeting after the cut off🤣

Surprised it's taken you so long, witches fans knew that after the spell he had at Foxhall a few years ago.

Doyle at least made a final this year, something Fricke never looked like doing.

Wasn't solely the atmosphere at all though. As I said, the production/running of the event for fans at the stadium was very poor. Forgot to mention GB - Bewley didn't ride like I expected him to but Lambert was ok and Brennan gave it a go.

Woffinden is lucky here I think, given his performance the last series he was in. Doyle has not had many wildcards previously and did show he can make the finals of GPs even though he was badly injured this season. Fricke is always going to be around the 'not just made the top 6/7/8' I think. The format and any qualification changes may bring some interest otherwise I think there'll be little drama on show.

Well, we got back to the UK last night after attending this. The flight and hotel we stayed in were great. Torun was a nice little place and we had a good look around on the Sunday. The disappointment was the event itself - no, not the racing as we enjoyed that. It's always better to be there live and the stadium was great from a viewing and noise perspective. We thought the crowd would have been bigger, given this is meant to be the place that many think all other speedway nations should look up to but it was only half full. The 'fanzone' was tiny with little in the way of interesting content. We were not offered any programmes or race sheets and didn't see any for sale anywhere. Navigating to our seats was not straightforward either. The centre green announcer was obviously partisan for Poland and he tried his best to get the Poles involved, which worked but we couldn't hear the english announcements/interviews. The catering was awful but that didn't matter as we'd eaten beforehand. Overall, it was the organisation, signposting and management of spectators which was poor and nowhere near as polished/professional as Cardiff for example and even Belle Vue. We do these events much better in the UK. For the meeting itself there were some good battles, Freddie got owned by Zmarzlik in one race and cost the Swedes points as he didn't look for his partner once I don't think. Zmarzlik fell on purpose at the start of one race to get a re-run and iDudek did the same in the semi - Denmark were really unfortunate not to make the final. Looking in slow-motion does not show what we all saw in the stadium. As for the final it was great to see Australia do a number on the Poles and whilst I'm no fan of Holder, Kurtz again proved he's the best rider in the world this year. So, will we go back to Poland for another event - probably not. Prices are cheap and Eastern Europe makes for good breaks/holidays but we won't be basing any future visit around speedway.

He had a winning head to head record over him in the GP series.

Deserved to be world champion, no doubt in my mind

Where was madsen supposed to go or do differently there. Poor refs ref.

Zmarlik went down very easily there

It's wet on back straight inside line. Rest of track is fine

Awful. We're here and 20min? s to go, about 1/10th full. I thought this was the pinnacle place of speedway? Foxhall would have a bigger crowd!

7 teams and only 6 benches, typical speedway!

Mitch could have trapped Persson on the inside there, fantastic team riding, not!

Exactly, can't always go by averages in one league! Would he have done it the following year, no but it created a lot of interest. Most GPs now are snore-fests with little unpredictability.

Will be getting an early night tonight for the 6.15am flight tomorrow. I see rain is forecast to start about 6pm, just my luck🙄 Still, it may not be much/affect the track but am looking forwards to a busier stadium!

I enjoyed the meeting last night - great to see how the riders got on, particularly from the lesser nations - Levishin was giving it a go, Bednar and Partnitski created interest, even the Argentinians got better but such a shame there was no crowd at all - if it was held in one of those smaller countries then maybe it would have been better?