enotian

Could they field a 7 man team to rival the Collins' or Pedersen's?

Who wins? 15 heat 7 man team match between a team whose riders surname is Collins and a team whose riders surname is Pedersen. From any era in the sport. Are these the two most prominent surnames in speedway history or are there any others worthy of mention?

“Our final rider will, I can say now, be a rider with an average that will keep us close to the new points limit, and this also means we have a solid team with strength-in-depth the key that we believe will gain us success on track. They will be a team of entertainers, a team who all want to race for us and get us, and our fans triumphs to cheer from day one to the end of October. 2022 is going to be a year to remember at Brough Park!” You didn't dream it. Plus it was part of the same press release which announced Wilson Dean and Congreve so no arm twisting has occurred post the assertion of being close to the points limit. A couple of things could have happened post the press release. 1. Congreve as a 4.00 instead of a 2.00 or 2. the points limit is different to what was expected. At the time I thought the statement inferred that the 7th rider was signed. But with hindsight it sounds aspirational more than anything.

I recall the one season 1 to 7 home and 8 to 14 away (like Poland do) trial but i'm struggling to recall squad numbers? I'm sure it was a massive success.

In a world where merchandise can be a profitable income stream is it not only a matter of time that the riders insist on wearing their own 'unique' rider number? "And riding at number 1 it's number 505 Robert Lambert!!!". No different to when squad numbers were introduced in football and it doesn't seem to matter in SGP.

It's all relative to how the opposition lines up isn't it. Presuming that the away team gets to see how the home team has lined up. So if the home team line up with a 'traditional order' the comparison provided by Humphrey below is key. If the away team manager thinks his highest averaged rider is unlikely to defeat the home teams #1 (or their #5 as well) then you wouldn't select them in position #1 or #5, putting them up against the home #1 and #5 on 4 occasions, in the first 14 heats. Presuming that the away highest average rider can beat all the other home riders (2, 3, 4, 6 and 7) then placing him in position 4 would yield 10 from 4. Compared to 8 from 4 in the number 1 position. Of course that would mean lower averaged riders taking harder rides so their scores may drop by the equivalent or more so nothing is guaranteed. But if you knew that one of your lower averaged riders was going to struggle against any of the opposition you might as well put them up against the tougher opposition. Of course it does rob the paying public of seeing the top riders from each team locking horns as often as they do with the fixed line ups. Which is presumably why they're fixed. I'm not too fussed about seeing the opposing best riders up against each other three times during the meeting and would be more interested in the tactical nuances (I still wish every rider could take one TAC sub per meeting whenever a team is 6 down). However, there'll be others who want to see those top riders clashing more often.

It's relatively recently isn't it. Last 20 years or so. Done to appeal to the mass TV audiences.

Agree. Choice of R/R or handicap. Keep it simple. Missing riders average less the average of the no.8 replacing them (i.e. 9 pointer missing replaced by a 2 pointer, add 7 points to the team total at the end of the match), retaining 7 man teams and given opportunity to no.8 youngsters. Potentially for a missing no.1 or no.2 uplift the average to reflect 5 heats but you don't want to incentivise missing top men. If both teams are operating a no.8 replacement net off the handicaps so only the team with the highest handicap value has the net handicap added to the team total at the end of the match.

mid 80's when I first got into speedway Havelock, Dugard and Silver were the future of British/World speedway. All had great debut seasons in the old National League (Div 2 for newbies) averaging 7 ish in a fairly strong league with the likes of Kennett, Jessup and Collins in it you'd been World Finalists not to long before. I'd have said Dugard would have been the one to become a World Champ. World Final debut at Bradford in 1990? Must have been in his early 20's at most. Seemed to freeze in the spotlight and scored nothing or next to nothing. Don't ever recall him doing anything on an international stage thereafter apart from the wildcard (at Brandon?). Superb domestically for a long time, against all the top guys in the World.

The 15 heat format is pretty good in that it provides a min of 4 rides from 4 different programmed gates for each rider. Not sure if each rider faces every opponent? But you're never going to get the perfect formula in that respect, apart from a 16 heat 4TT. What the 15 heat formula has done is given an advantage to teams with two strong heat leaders over teams with strength in depth. Those teams have to be more than 8 ahead going into heat 13 to stand a chance of winning with heat 13 and 15 likely to yield an 8 point turnaround. It's all a bit predictable and stage managed I kind of understand placing the highest averaged rider at number 1 what with the top averaged rider naturally being referred to as the teams No.1 but I don't think it is that difficult a concept to grasp for the general public. I like the idea of different types of team (strength in depth vs strong heat leaders carrying a tail) and I think allowing teams to line up tactically to counter the oppositions strength would only add to the unpredictability. I don't see why a rider can't occupy any of the 7 positions. The lowest two averaged riders will still be the reserves regardless of which position they line up in. Whilst I like the idea of each rider having a start from each gate I think allowing a team that's trailing by 6 to choose the best gates is also a way of increasing the unpredictability of a match which has to be a good thing.

Another BSPL announcement that ends up generating more questions than providing answers.... ....not exactly great communication. No doubt vague enough to allow it to be made up on the hoof. I think we can all agree that young riders need more track time and in that respect the idea is a sound one. But what's the level? The fixed race nights would allow CL #7 standard riders to participate which could make it really competitive and challenging for the young riders. Or is it SGP4 250/125cc level? Those kids need track time to but it's not a natural progression from that standard to a PL Rising Star. No doubt all will be revealed when they've decided how it will work.

Track Cycling? Martial Arts? How many teams win a world championship after seven minutes of action? Not a fair comparison. If you compare to a team sport where matches last 80-90 minutes the world champs are held over a number of weeks. Relatively speaking, using the football FIFA world cup as an example, your country might get knocked out after three matches (the third may actually be a dead rubber but let's say three) those three matches equate to 5% of the entire tournament time (if all matches last 90 mins). If your country is knocked out of a 27 heat SON after two heats they've appeared in 7% of the entire tournament time.

The hope would be that the jeopardy of elimination for finishing last would alter the mindset and induce team riding. The 4,3,2,0 scoring didn't really do it in the round robin format whereby the leader rarely looked like risking the 4 points even if their opponents were accumulating 5.

Yeah, as I said above the seven team format does seem to generate the right number of heats but does that make it the most entertaining format? I'd prefer 16 counties in a knock out style competition rather than the round robin format. Fair enough all the countries don't face each other and some are eliminated after only two heats but that's fairly standard for world championships

Agreed nine countries is fine for the SWC. Hosts in the final. Two semis of four teams, winners to the final, 2nd and 3rd to the last chance, the winners of which progress to the four team final. You wouldn't want more than nine. But if you want a more international feel to a world championship event then the pairs allows that. Currently a SWC would only have Australia from outside of Europe. Admittedly the pairs only adds USA (and maybe Argentina or New Zealand) but if you wanted to develop riders from other nations then only having to develop two is much easier than four. I was referring to the seven team format used in the SON, where seven pairs face each other. Might just be me being a bit anal but I like even numbers. Odd when there's only three times during the event when all seven teams have ridden an equal amount of races. Whilst a World Cup of 7 person teams would be the ultimate genuine article they couldn't even achieve that 50 years ago in the hey day so I don't see it happening anytime soon. Nobody wants to see a Rest of the World team in a sport with any credibility. There are currently probably six nations who could put out a seven man team which could give any sort of challenge to a full Polish side. Maybe if you restricted the team composition to only two SGP riders at the top and two U-21 riders at reserve you'd even the odds for the other five teams and make it more akin to league speedway but it's hardly in the spirit of elite sport not allowing a nation to select its seven best riders. Might actually result in a decent competition (if the Russians played ball). You'd still fancy the Poles to win it but the match scores might be closer. No doubt if they did go for it by match three GB would be using Fricke as a guest for the injured Woffinden and R/R for Craig Cook.

Agree. Trouble with the 4TT SWC is there's currently only about nine countries who could field four man teams without dipping into riders without sufficient experience. If you want a wider range of countries involved pairs is the format. Not sure that the seven team format is ideal other than it churns out about the right number of heats and every team faces each other. Probably only warrants a one off final. 16 countries, 20 seeded qualifying heats (2 last places and you're eliminated) followed by quarter finals, semi finals and a grand final. 27 heats in total. Sure some of the qualifiers would be mismatches but the jeopardy of finishing last would apply to each heat. I guess you could spread the format out over three days with the 20 qualifying heats on day one with the bottom eight on day two and the top eight on day three, so the home nation is at least involved in two of the three meetings but really the one off meeting should be all that is needed for the SON. Let the SWC have the multiple events, one venue format.

in the same way the Superbowl is just a glorified American Football match. Glad the U21 reserve has gone. Smaller carbon footprint as well

There's plenty of young British riders out there with potential to be really good riders in the future, including Archie. The trouble is that the Championship is full of riders who should only ride at a higher level but now maximise their income by also riding at Championship level. I know these guys aren't SGP standard by any means but some of them are next level down, Masters etc. These guys are established and by having these two income streams and potentially some continental racing as well they have a massive advantage, in terms of being able to invest in better equipment, than these young kids trying to progress. No reflection on Archies ability but it's too difficult to compete in a league where the majority are on much bigger budgets. It's bad enough for someone like Max Clegg or Matty Wethers trying to compete with only one team place as opposed to everyone else's two. There needs to be a level which will allow these lads to gain track time (not just three rides) and progress against more experienced riders as well as other young riders. Unless there's an influx of teams into the National League (hopefully all six Premiership teams will have one) then I'm not sure where any talented kids get a ride? With potentially only nine teams in the Championship they could easily have retained the rising star scheme if they'd wanted. Atkins, Edwards, Lawlor, Parkinson-Blackburn, Ablitt, Freeman, Gilkes, Hagon, McGurk(s), Mulford, Spencer and Spooner would all benefit from riding against more experienced riders. But how would they fare against riders like Chris Harris with his 400 years experience and earning x times more than them. Had the Rising Star system been retained, to make the teams level you really need to also restrict teams to only one rider over 8.00 and no one would vote for that even if it makes financial sense for some of the struggling teams. On that basis they have to retain all the double upper/downers there is really no point of retaining the rising star scheme. I just hope there is some alternative option for these young kids to get track time and progress so they can progress to the next level. I'm sure Archie's time will come again but based on the youtube footage of Geordie Congreve (who is 4 years his senior) he would look to be the better bet in 2022. Presumably he comes in on a British licence as the Diamonds aren't able to access work permit riders. If that means just under 8.00 for the last rider Richie Worrall would make the Diamonds competitive especially with Wright at reserve.

Feb 6th 2021 New Zealand Solo Championship

I'm hoping that's a tongue in cheek post. Everything is relative so if there's two thirds more points available the pay per point can decrease. So if you were on £100 a point and earned £1,500 for a 15 point maximum, you'd now earn £1,500 for a 20 maximum at £75 per point. Maybe you'd need to adjust the guaranteed pay as 0 * £100 is £0 while 1 * £75 is £75. Importantly the riders aren't being asked to do anything more than they currently are so there'd be no increase in pay required. I've only responded because your response it probably exactly what the promoters will think. Feel free to whoosh me.

Yes that would make sense. So probably not a solution to the "paid for" product (other than as an add on to the main event) but hopefully a potential solution to the rider supply and demand issue. Although I imagine that transition from youth racing to professional league racing is expensive so it would be interesting to see if DSE have any plans to facilitate that. If they're serious about developing the sport internationally they need to create opportunities for those SGP4 and SGP3 riders to progress. Maybe that's the leverage for UK promoters to get more access to SGP riders or access to have some of these developing riders subsidised if the domestic leagues provide opportunities for them to develop. A career path. Afterall it is the SGP right holders who ultimately benefit from having access to higher standard riders from a wider geographical area. Sounds like DSE want to have more say over the riding talent and not let the Polish authorities rule the roost. So it could be a good time to get in bed with them.

Agreed. 1 point for finishing the race would avoid those "retired whilst last" and would add to the controversy over an exclusion. If you think about it from a riders perspective if you score 0 points for last and don't earn any (additional) money or contribute to the team score, then why would you complete the four laps, if there was little chance of passing the rider in third? I guess it's all marginal but by retiring whilst last you save on wear and tear on the machinery and fuel. It might even give you (your team) an advantage if your tyres have done less laps. I'm sure the extra 4 points per heat can be structured into the pay rates so that the riders earn the same and it doesn't cost the promoters more. why is 3, 2, 1, 0 simpler than 4, 3, 2, 1? The answer is it's not.

Is SGP4 the answer? "The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) and Discovery Sports Events have revealed their vision for the future of Speedway over the next decade. By bringing international Speedway together under one global promoter for the first time, the new vision will build a stronger and more connected international pyramid for the sport – from the grassroots all the way to the pinnacle of Speedway. Important part of this pyramid will be a new international entry-level category SGP4. The new SGP4 category will be introduced in 2023 and is planned to be cost effective with 4-stroke easy to handle engine that will be universal and equal everywhere. The Ambassador Tony Rickardsson is on the mission to develop the SGP4 category." You'd at least hope that the promoters are arranging to meet with Tony Rickardsson. It's not clear what the level of SGP4 "grassroots" is. You'd naturally feel that it's lower than SGP3 which wouldn't be a suitable product for the paying public but if you interpret it as being standard 500cc machinery then it's probably about a National League standard. A stepping stone from youth classes into the professional leagues. A sustainable pyramid is what is required.

Don't, by virtue of finishing last, the Diamonds get first pick of the Rising Stars in 2022? So Leon Flint at #6 must be nailed on..... ....is that the sound of goal posts being moved??

I think he did on track but was disqualified. I can't remember the incident (even thought it was only last night - worrying) but recall Charlie W announcing it when they handed back to the studio. Since 2015 rider #1 position at Torun has recorded more race points than any of the other 15 spots. Drawn at #1 tonight is Artem Laguta. Looks like a first Russian world individual champion.