lucifer sam
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Posts posted by lucifer sam
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14 minutes ago, Tracy Bird said:
two nights before rod hunter 21pt maximum joe owen 14(including 1 fall) 35 out of 41 in a knock out cup defeat 55-41 at weymouth.martin scarsibrick scored 5 out of the other 6.
a week later joe owen 19 rod hunter 17 in a 54-42 defeat at Exeter, alan emerson scored 4 out of the other 6.
The other two are still unbalanced - but the Oxford win is impressive because it's unbalanced and they still managed to win!
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Best winning unbalanced performance:
Oxford 47 Newcastle 49 from 1983
Both Rod Hunter and Joe Owen scored 20+1 for Newcastle - two riders scoring 40 out of 49 for a winning side! Also, unless anyone can find evidence to the contrary, the only time two seven-ride paid maximums were scored in the same meeting!
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Any chance of BWitcher disappearing back to waffle complete nonsense on his Covid-19 thread, so that we can get on with discussing the Prague rounds.
Intriguing couple of rounds ahead. Woffy is traditionally strong around Prague - can he come strong and get himself back into contention? On the other hand, not a track that Zmarzlik seems to like! But Lindgren seems to be the rider who is pulling out all the stops at the sharp end of meetings, which is critical under the new points system.
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15 minutes ago, marko said:
Doyle isn’t exactly an angel himself, if you live by the sword........
Yup. Twice rides Madsen hard and cries when it's done back!
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9 hours ago, BobC said:
Where to start?
Easy. From the moment of ordering a ticket, to going into the stadium, finding my vantage point, watching the racing and then leaving. Couldnt have been easier.
It was easily the most enjoyable meeting I have been to at Plymouth for years. Everything was controlled perfectly, people always on hand for those who needed help.
The track? I was critical of how things went last year. This time? Probably the best its been in my memory,(I was at the very 1st meeting here) So to that end, I certainly applaud Mark and his team for their efforts. Last night was deserved reward for all their hard work.
Only a couple of minor things I didnt like so much. The parade presentation and after the 4 lap blast was a little chaotic.Needs sorting out. Also Mike on the mic, please learn how to pronounce riders names. Every time Alfie came out, we had a different version of his name as in Bow (front of a ship) tell as in bottle! Amusing to start with, but not so by the end of the evening.The constant cutting across announcing/Childsy interviewing too. Not my cup of tea.
The riders deserve a huge amount of credit for the way they rode.I wasnt expecting to much, but they certainly got stuck in. Some terrific tussles.Well done to every one of them.
The stadium itself has been transformed with a superb main stand,great viewing. Mark and his team have certainly worked very hard on that.
I havent been to any of the other meetings in the UK this season, so have nothing to compare it to. Based on this meeting alone, Plymouth have certainly set a high standard for others to follow.
I would give Mark and his team 99 out of 100. Sort out the presentation side of it and you would have had the 'perfect' speedway meeting. Oh, and if I could, I would happily shake Marks hand and congratulate him on,not only a job well done, but a job that British Speedway would have been proud of. Well done.
Thank you for a very enjoyable nights entertainment.
Sounds a great night, Bob. Plymouth is quite a trek for me, but considering a Saturday night in October - probably Plymouth v IOW.
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Tickets on sale for British Under-19 championship:
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Just now, Fromafar said:
Wishful thinking,no disrespect to the GB youngsters but there is only a couple of years between all this talent at U/21 level.Its decent competition our guys need.
Well, we do seem to be entering all the Under-21 and Under-19 comps. It would be nice to see a few Under-21 test matches as well.
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1 minute ago, Fromafar said:
It really puts into perspective where we really are regarding young talent, without Bewlays 17 points we really were not at the races.The Danes have some talent coming through again though.These foreign youngsters will not even contemplate riding in GB nowadays though.The Brits will struggle to get a decent level if they don't get the opportunities to ride against these guys abroad.
I think a lot of our talent is in the younger ages ranges.
In four years time, the Danes and Poles might be bemoaning their inability to live with Jordan Palin, the Thompson Twins and Archie Freeman
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GB doing so well in running some very good Danish and Polish sides close. I hope the Danes win it now, because it would be a shame if a joker decided the winner. I didn't think they had the joker in the Under-21 World Cup - it wasn't there when I saw a qualifier in Opole in 2012.
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OTD September 2, 1973: Jerzy Szczakiel became Poland’s first World Champion, after defeating defending champion Ivan Mauger in a run-off for first place in Katowice.
It was a huge shock to most people outside of Poland, although the Opole star was more than a match for anyone on Polish turf.
Szczakiel was often unfairly branded the ‘Worst World Champion’ by British fans. He crashed out of the 1973 Daily Mirror International Tournament at Oxford, while he failed to score in the World Team Cup final at Wembley a fortnight after becoming World Champion while riding with an injury sustained practicing for the event.
But he wasn’t a one-hit wonder. He scored a paid maximum for the triumphant Poles in the 1971 World Pairs Final in Rybnik, when he and Andrzej Wyglenda took a comprehensive victory and left the New Zealand pairing of Mauger and Barry Briggs trailing in their wake.
Szczakiel won his opening three outings at Katowice, including a victory over Mauger in Heat 8 – a race in which the Kiwi only mustered a third.
Russian Grigory Khlinovsky bundled the Pole wide in Heat 15, but he came behind to recover second place. He needed to win Heat 18 to clinch the title, but he finished second to Ole Olsen to join Mauger in the run-off for first place on 13 points.
Polish ‘boy wonder’ Zenon Plech should have joined them in the run-off, but for some bizarre refereeing from West German Georg Traunspurger in Heat 19.
Khlinovsky, also in with a chance of the run-off, knocked off Plech as they battled for the lead on the final lap. The referee stopped have stopped the race and excluded the Russian, but allowed it to finish, before booting out the Russian. Under FIM rules of the time, a re-run was not permitted, while first place had to be given to Peter Collins since he had completed the race and Plech had not.
Maybe it’s just as well that Plech wasn’t in the run-off, since he had gained an extra point when Edward Jancarz let him through for victory in Heat 16 in a race stage-managed between four Polish riders.
On the other hand, Szczakiel had won all his points fair and square. In the run-off, he took advantage of a typically ragged start from Traunspurger. Mauger closed in, but he misjudged his inside pass of the Pole on the third bend of the second lap and came crashing down. Szczakiel completed the remaining laps alone to thunderous noise from a crowd of over 100,000.
Szczakiel become the first rider to defeat Mauger TWICE in the same World Final – a feat only John Louis would repeat. To his credit, Mauger was magnanimous in defeat and often praised Szczakiel. Research showed in the years between ’71 and ’73, the head-to-head between the two riders stood at a very close 7-6 to the Kiwi. Not many riders were able to go toe-to-toe with Mauger over this period.
Szczakiel passed away yesterday at the age of 71. RIP Jerzy.
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On 8/31/2020 at 8:52 AM, falcace said:
Yes, I must say that in the one-off era though, I didn't think the two day worked well at all. And yes, I was at that final too. Saturday night crackled along (although was still no barnstormer) and Sunday felt very flat with nothing to race for for half the field.
I guess we'll have two perspectives on it anyway. I assume you were cheering Hans Nielsen to the title? I was cheering Chris Morton and Sunday was a dead duck. It might have been different if the the lower half of the field had something to ride for....like automatic qualification to the following year's final perhaps? But, that wouldn't have been in the spirit of the one-off either.
By the way, I watched that final again on YouTube recently and was pleasantly surprised that some of the racing was quite decent. Also, Nielsen was a real cut above everyone else.
Yeah, we do have different perspectives of that weekend. For me, it was special, simply because it was my first foreign final, and of course, as you mention, we had Hans Nielsen to cheer on.
The Saturday night meeting was definitely the better for racing, which was just as well, the way Hans was trapping that night. Even Mort gated in front of him.
I think he had problem with his clutches, but still scored 12 points to keep himself in the mix. I do remember the Saturday night being a really cracking meeting. I think there was some decent races on the Sunday afternoon as well, although only John Cook gave Hans any kind of race.
But, to also answer Grachan's point, the place wasn't heaving, but I already knew from Bradford 1985 that every final couldn't live up to Wembley 1981 (my first World Final) in terms of atmosphere. By the time we reached 1990, I realised how good a venue Bradford was for a World Final.
But I think all the British fans were in a big cluster at Amsterdam and therefore there was a pretty good atmosphere in the stadium. The one that was really a damp squib (literally) was Vojens in 1988, where the bus took the wrong turning, got there less than a hour before the meeting and we ended up stood in a big puddle! Vojens wasn't fit for a World Final. Never gone back there again! And then you had Munich, which was a magnificent stadium, had the perfect result for us Oxford fans BUT it wasn't really racing was it?
Amsterdam was my favourite of the foreign finals that I attended (there was also Gothenburg in 1991). It was great that it wasn't 20 heats and then bang, it was over. It's no coincidence, that when I started going to Assen, I continued going for a good few years. Again, you were getting two meetings rather than one (three if you included the international meeting on the Friday. featuring the best non-Grand Prix riders), and that's always an attraction to visiting fans.
Maybe the two-day final should have been repeated somewhere like Gothenburg or Wroclaw and then fans would have got a real feel of how well it worked.
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26 minutes ago, Daniel Smith said:
Are there any other Motorsports where the GP winner never earns the most points?
Never? Would it interesting to go back and check but I would say the winner did have the most points in at least two-thirds of cases.
And every other motorsport offers points PER RACE. In F2, separate points are awarded for both the feature race and the sprint race. Likewise, British Touring cars awards championship points for each of the three races per round.
A Speedway Grand Prix has 23 races and was awarding points for each of them, in line with other motorsports. It is now the outlier in not doing that.
If you want to give the final greater emphasis, go back to 6-4-2-0 for the final.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The worst thing the new points system will produce hasn't even happened yet. It's when riders, having already qualified for the semis, manipulate the results to stop their rivals from getting through and speedway is then accused of being corrupt. It's most likely to happen in the last couple of rounds.
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On 8/31/2020 at 10:40 AM, racers and royals said:
Lets not forget that the Friday/ Saturday`s are only able to run this year due to the Extraleague`s co-operation in moving some Friday night meetings. Not sure that in 2021 they would think the same
FIM need to get tougher and make qualifying on Friday nights compulsory. Any rider failing to do so is banned - while no Federation is allowed to take sanctions against riders taking in an official practice. It's not like there aren't enough other Fridays in the season. If the Federation continues to offend, it receives a heavy fine and has sanctions taken against them - maybe that Federation has receives no wildcard nominations for five years. Stop the tail from wagging the dog.
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10 minutes ago, falcace said:
Great racing - tick
Flawed scoring - tick
But the other takeaway from this weekend is having GPs back to back on Friday and Saturday nights makes perfect sense going forward.
In terms of practically, financially and competitively. We all know it's a costly job and a half putting these events on, particularly for the one-off tracks. So, why not just do it twice over the weekend from 2021 onwards - offering better value for the punter, spreading costs thinner for the organisers, even greater exposure for sponsors, double the content for media? Have a small practice on a Friday morning and crack on into the racing for Friday night.
From a riders perspective, it gives ample chance for everyone to get something out of the weekend. Any rider struggling with set up on Friday, has a chance to come back wiser on Saturday and potentially, an even more competitive meeting. From a punter's perspective too, you could get a "double discount" for both nights and I think most would go for it.
Every GP I've been to - Cardiff, Prague, Daugvapils, Lonigo, Torun Krsko, Bydgoszcz - has consisted of a very enjoyable Friday night p** up looking forward to the next night. But would I rather have been sniffing the fumes and seeing 23 races? Damn right!
It does make an awful lot of sense.
I never understood all the negativity over the two-day 1987 World Final. It was the first time we'd travelled abroad for a final and loved that it was over two days rather than one, and we got to see 40 races instead of 20.
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38 minutes ago, mikebv said:
Great minds.....
It would tick a lot of their boxes...
Why was it changed?
Presume there was a flaw in the cunning plan?
Personally can't see one as it would deliver the winner getting the most points, and four hard fought final races...
It was changed to the knockout formula in 1998, when they extended the series to 21-22 riders (plus 2-3 wildcards).
It was also open to manipulation, with riders dropping points in the final outing to prevent another rider taking part in the A Final. That's what was good about the "every point counts" scoring system - it cut manipulation almost completely out.
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2 hours ago, mikebv said:
Re the points system. .
Should do a D Final, C Final, B Final and an A..
Keep it simple, top four to A Final, next four to B Final etc..
That way it rewards the best riders on the night for their performance v their counterparts, and the commentators can explain to those watching that each race counts to the riders final qualifying position..
25 to the winner, 20 to second, 18 and then 16 to the A Final riders
14, 13, 12, 11 to the next four..
9,8,7,6 to the next four
And 4,3,2,1 to the D Final riders..
Two points difference per final to reward those who qualify for the C, B and A Finals..
And a big points tally to the rider who wins a GP, (to reflect that hugh achievement)..
And the more GP wins a rider gets the more the likelihood he will win the World Title...
Which is how it should be..
And the rider who crosses the line first in the Final scores the most points,
Which is what the FIM want..
It would also keep most riders in with a chance of either going "up" a Final or dropping "down" a Final going into their last rides, and therefore potentially meaning a big swing in their final points tally (eg first in a C Final or last in a D would be an eight points difference), so should make for some great racing..
The exact format and scoring for 1996 and 1997.
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22 minutes ago, SPEEDY69 said:
But it's new fans/ businesses they want, not all of us anoraks.
The problem is us anoraks will quickly adapt to the scoring system - e.g. it wasn't that hard for me to work out the points last night, as much as I think the new system is daft.
It's the more general fans which won't understand the new points system e.g. how a rider can score 6 points in his races and yet end up with 8 Grand Prix points. It's really weird, having two different sets of points, and throws speedway out of kilter from almost every other motorsport where points are scored per race.
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1 minute ago, racers and royals said:
My prediction is 2022
Remind me, is it OneSport taking over? If so, the European Championship has retained the "every point counts" system.
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12 minutes ago, racers and royals said:
But that’s pure spin- there was pressure - winning and getting 3 more points added. Same for all 4 riders
Yup, plus the pressure of winning the final and therefore the Grand Prix and standing at top of that podium at the end of the night. If Bellamy thinks riders are happy to sit back in second place in the final, he needs to go back and watch some of the finals from the last few years.
When the Managing Director of BSI is so out of touch with the fan base, maybe a change is required.
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Just now, RPNY said:
But each race is 1 race? Similar to a final right?
F1 has 1 race per event, F2 has 2 races per event, British Touring Cars has 3 races per event, a Speedway Grand Prix has 23 races per event.
Each used to award points per race - speedway is now the odd one out.
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7 minutes ago, RPNY said:
I think the guy who wins the GP gets the most points isn't awful. To my knowledge that's the same basic scoring system to determine the winner in pretty much every other sport in the world.
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On the contrary, in F2, points are awarded in EACH race - in the feature race on the Saturday and the sprint race on Sunday. In the British Touring Car series, if there's three races, points are awarded for each of them. Same in virtually every motorsport discipline - points are awarded in every race. Speedway has now gone out on a limb.
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OK, two examples:
Laguta has 14 points entering the semi-finals. His reward for taking a further two wins is another 6 points.
Lindgren has 7 points entering the semi-finals. His reward for a second and a third is another 9 points.
That's nuts! If it ain't broke, don't fix it with a sledgehammer!
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9 minutes ago, NeilWatson said:
Gives plenty of options for 'team' riding.....
Hmm, yes. Another reason it's not a good idea.
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Just now, KeirStarmerFan said:
Preferred choice of gate?
All four gates are winning races.
Prague GP`s rounds 5 and 6 Friday and Saturday September 18th and 19th
in Speedway Grand Prix and Speedway World Cup
Posted
I thought it was just a good gate. He hadn't moved before the tapes went up. I wonder how many times Todd Wiltshire would have been unfairly excluded under the current starting regulations?