chunky

I don't have an agenda against you; I have a distinct aversion to stupidity! Opinions don't matter - facts matter. Just because you think Tai "isn't committed to English speedway", you use that to devalue his ability and achievements. There is absolutely no correlation between the two, yet you continue YOUR agenda against a rider who has achieved far more than ANY OTHER BRITISH RIDER. I use FACTS, LOGIC, and REASON to show how good he is, and you counter that with an irrelevant opinion based on your dislike of him. How is that anything like an "agenda against you"? I don't feel that I am "above" you, but the facts I provide do far outweigh your opinion.

And into the 80's... I went there many times. Big open track, and they served the hottest tea on the planet! Steve

PC did not "win for England". Whatever England won as a team, was won by the WHOLE team. As has been said, he was just one of a number of world-class English riders at the time. Tai does not have that, and that is not his fault, but people still use that against him in an attempt to prove that he is not as good as PC. Again, I'm sure that you are using the three World Team Cup holds (and maximums) to show how good he was, aren't you? Again, England had more world-class riders at their disposal then than any other nation. THAT is why they won, not because of Peter Collins. Again, the only true top-liner he faced in those finals was Michanek. The other top riders of the era either didn't qualify for the final (Mauger, Olsen etc), or were on Collins' team! PC won twelve races in WTC finals against largely mediocre opposition. Woffinden won twelve races in the SoN final - against the World's top riders! And faced them twice! Your above response to falcace was irrelevant; nobody was talking about whether you "preferred" racing back in the day. Facts are facts, and the two most obvious facts are : 1) Tai's world championship record is far superior to that of any other British rider in history. 2) With Tai being the only true world-class rider available, it has been impossible for GB (as a team) to achieve the success of previous eras (a la 1970's Denmark, and I don't recall anyone saying Olsen wasn't that good, simply because Denmark weren't good enough to win anything as a team). The fact that you use the quality and success of other riders to bolster your views of PC is ridiculous, and the fact that you play down Woffinden's achievements simply because there have been no other quality British riders in recent years is doubly ridiculous.

Commitment to England, age, tattoos, charity work, literacy, vegetarianism, mid-season retirement, sexual orientation, or whatever... NONE of those factors have any relevance when determining the ability and achievements of a speedway rider.

So was the old world final system, so your point is?

That really is sad news...

You can - but you refuse to. Like another forum member who refuses to accept a dual-World Champ as a top rider merely because he retired mid-season...

Obviously, Lee was more talented, and he achieved more, but a lot of people forget that Moran was 4th in each of his World Final appearances, and actually averaged 11 points in World Finals - higher than Lee's WF average. That's still pretty impressive...

The reason I say he was the biggest waste of talent because he had more talent than anybody else, and therefore more to waste, and his career was so short purely because of his own doing. I think that it is harsh to include Ward when his career was cut short by injury.

Actually, PM's on here SHOULD be the easiest - certainly if you disable those email settings. Seeing as I get hundreds of work emails every day, I do try to avoid recreational emails if necessary. Now, I have noted your email address, but you should do one thing IMMEDIATELY. DELETE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES FROM THE ABOVE POSTS! You should NEVER post your private email addresses on a public forum or page. Again, I don't send PM's to any email address, just your username here.

Okay, I think I found the culprit! While you are logged in go to "Account" in the menu. Then "Account Settings", and scroll down to "Notification Settings" (below "Other Settings). Click on that, and scroll down to the bottom where you should see a heading "Messenger". The tabs underneath will probably be showing green, which indicates that you will receive an email to tell you that you have a message. Disable those, and you should be good to go.

That's weird? The PM's on here should only stay as PM's on here; they shouldn't be connected to any email addresses. Unless there is a way to forward PM's to email addresses - which I don't know about? Many apologies, Bob, but I have never heard of such a thing! What I will do is look and see if there are any settings, which you should be able to set/undo. Perhaps anyone else reading this knows something?

Because they go by performances and results...

Dudek missing out could really have changed things, and honestly, I thought he was on his way out. Had he failed, I do think that he would have been out and replaced by another Pole. Everything I said about Lindback...

It doesn't matter; he was also the biggest waste of talent that speedway has ever seen...

Of course, and when we were arguing about Lee before, I myself stated that while I wouldn't place him above Collins, Woffinden, or Craven as far as "best" British rider, he was perhaps the most talented and potential-laden rider in the history of speedway. Unfortunately, some people can't differentiate between "best" and "most-talented", and the sad thing is that most of the really talented youngsters don't get anywhere near fulfilling their potential. That's not just a speedway thing, either.

I get what you're saying, but should we base World Championships on league averages? Again, I would personally have gone for Michelsen over Lindback, but that doesn't mean that I clearly believe that Michelsen is one of the top 15 riders in the world, or that Lindback isn't. Of course, it's all conjecture, but would Drabik or Michelsen have finished higher in the GP standings this year? Personally, I don't think so, which means that you can't really argue against Lindback's inclusion for 2020. Again, it shouldn't just come down to league averages. Three of the absolute best (highest averages) and most consistent riders in the then-strongest league in the world were the Boococks and Ray Wilson - and between them, how many times did they mount a serious challenge for even a rostrum place, let alone a World title? Taking Eric Boocock, a consistent 10.5/11.00 average rider in the BL over a prolonged period of time, and most of the time, he struggled to reach the latter stages of the World Championship. League averages can be used as PART of the ranking process, but really can't be used as a true reflection of world class.

Nah, if somebody is out of action for more than a month or so, just forget about them, they're done...

If only it were that simple... Speedway has NEVER been like that, despite what our memories seem to tell us. Problem is that everybody appears to see different things. There have been a couple of dire ones this year, and there have been some poor-to-average ones. However, while quite a few of us felt that meetings like Vojens and Cardiff weren't great, but were still enjoyable, others felt they were the worst things they had ever seen. Wroclaw was special, but if every meeting was like that, it wouldn't be special. And people would find something else to whine about...

That's what I thought...

Do you have any compelling evidence to the contrary?

You got that right... Nobody who saw Wroclaw could fail to get a buzz...

Firstly, Vaculik doesn't belong in this conversation; he is better than the others mentioned, and he finished fifth - comfortably. Lambert's performances tailed off after the injuries. I'm not saying he was top eight material, but he would have been much more competitive overall. I don't know too much about Drabik, and haven't seen that much of him, but I don't feel that Smektala is better than Lambert.

Thinking about it, my personal list would be almost identical, just switching Craven and Woffy.

Cant say I disagree with you, but that isn't the fault of the riders involved; qualification opportunities are there, but if nobody new is able to step up and qualify, then what can you do? The problem is that there are a small group of riders who (and this may sound harsh) aren't good enough to consistently challenge the elite. However, there is nobody out there better than them, so they usually re-qualify, or get the wildcards because there is nobody ready to take their place.