Grachan

Briggs would have probably won in 67 though.

There is a ridiculous claim going around social media that he should have been excluded for "riding across the infield" because he had both wheels over the white line at one point while preparing his gate.

Did the ref watch that replay? Palm-Toft was knocked off.

And Peter Collins might not have won in 1976 if he had had to do it over a whole season rather than on one night. But he didn't have to. So we'll never know.

I haven't stated anything as being fact. You can't make direct comparisons though. Different type of meeting. Different mindset. Different time of the season. Different track even, maybe. I have already stated previously that at the first GP in September - the one most likely to have been World Final night - Tai scored 4 points. FACT. It doesn't make his win any less valid than Ivan Mauger scraping through a qualifying round and then winning a one-off final. Both were valid ways of deciding the World Champion, and both systems gave valid World Champions. Most of the riders who won under the one-off system would have also won titles under a GP system, and vice versa.

Reading the statement on the BSPA website, the rules have been amended slightly to allow this (presumably with regard to the 5% only applying at home). Consequently, Poole's side is not illegal in the away leg anyway. It is within the rules and has been approved by the BSPA and the SCB. So... happy, no problem.

But we'll never know how Zmarzlik or Laguta would have coped once the Championship was on the line either. Neither could pull it off once they had a victory in their sights.

Whilst it would have made more sense if the guests were the other way round, surely Speedway has become too obsessed with averages in recent years, and if both teams agree on this then I don't see too much of a problem with it.

Ha ha. Well I wouldn't have even noticed if you hadn't posted that it was the case.

Or is he saying that the first GP in September (when the World Final was staged) should decide World Champion? Tai scored 4 points in that one.

But it wasn't a one-off World Final. What makes you think that a multi-World Champion would be able to, say, finish in the top 4 of the British Final. Or get through the European final which, if I recall correctly, used to have the top 12 riders qualifying? You can never know. Maybe, under the GP system, Mauger might not have won 5 titles. Maybe Hans Nielsen would have won more and Erik Gundersen less. You can only base riders' achievements using the system that they are using. Both systems are equally valid.

I don't understand why this agreement wasn't that the team with the higher average rider use the guest with the higher average.

Mine isn't, because, whatever happens, Swindon are still victorious. Win win

I think you only have to see what he did on Saturday when the real pressure was on to get the answer to that.

Actually, yes, you are right. Morris 6.91 Kurtz 6.75 Morris should be guesting for King's Lynn, surely? In the end, though, this is better than having a guest swap for each leg.

Blimey. Common sense prevails. Who'd'a thought it?

Oh God! That race! It nearly killed me, as a Swindon fan. I went to a Swindon v Ipswich meeting many years ago and there was a race between Jimmy Nilsen and Jeremy Doncaster that I thought was so good that I bought the video. I later put it on YouTube. This is it - back from the days when Swindon gave us great racing:

Probably true, but his win was more of a surprise. There is a big difference from doing well in qualifiers than there is in actually winning the title. Muller had already proved his championship mentality with Long Track wins. His win never surprised me one bit. What did surprise me, though, was the indignation from British fans afterwards as if a non-BL rider had no right to be World Champion.

Didn't Tai win as a wildcard first time round? Havvy winning the World Title was probably the biggest shock result in my time at least. Much more so than Muller.

I don't know why so much kudos is given to BBC Sports Personality of the Year. It hasn't meant a lot for many years now. There was a time when anyone could vote for whoever they wanted - although it seems that even that was filtered anyway. These days it means little more than winning I'm a Celebrity or Strictly Come Dancing. Just an evening phone vote - which has now, apparently, been made even more of a closed shop to ensure they get who they want. As soon as it became like REality TV it became pretty pointless really.

I agree, although looking back at the British World Champions since I started going in 1974, if any of them were made of the same stuff as Woffinden then it would be Peter Collins.

A lot of it, I think, goes back to the myth propogated at the time that if you didn't ride in the UK then you weren't any good. I also used to have a video about Ivan Mauger, calked Circuits of Gold, in which Ivan's wife talked about Ivan beating himself up trying to emulate stuff that Egon Muller was doing.

No way was Egon Muller a shock winner. I went to that meeting, and beforehand pretty much everyone on our coach thought he might win. He might not have won it on a Grand Prix system, but on a one-off in Germany he was one of the favourites.

I don't think many - if any - riders have the luxury of deciding where they want to ride these days. Most are probably just glad to get a team place wherever they can be fitted in, what with points limits, average restrictions etc. Even the World Champion was surplus to requirements this year, and while he was seemingly happy to move to Somerset, if they hadn't decided to come in for him then he would not have been there.

Maybe people are waiting to make sure he actually achieves it first!