IainB

Steve Worrall (as are many others) is better than Kemp, whether he was asked I don't know, but Kemp could easily be in the same position as Steve Worrall in a few years. Test Matches are for sorting the wheat from the chaff not world championship events

I think I heard Lemon also say (on the talk speedway podcast) that Chris had also declined to ride. What the hell Lemon was doing using Lidsey against the Poles beats me, he's made some very strange decisions in the past also... I wonder if his performance is ever scrutinised by MA To be fair if any of the other countries lost a rider of the calibre of Woffinden they would be in severe trouble, GB have been very unlucky for the last couple of years in losing him for the SoN. Sweden without Lindgren, Denmark without Madsen, Aussie without Doyle, Russia without one of their top 2 etc IMO you should ALWAYS pick your strongest team for a world cup event, there are many riders that should have been picked ahead of Kemp, no disrespect to him. If you constantly pick youngsters "to give them experience" then you ignore the riders that you were giving that experience to a few years back, you then get into a catch 22 situation of giving riders the experience and then jettisoning them after they've had the experience. Steve Worrall was "given the experience" a few years back and now he's totally forgotten about. At least he didn't mention Greg Hancock tonight... which must be a first Absolutely spot on False dawn, can't disagree with a word you say. This was a world championship event for god's sake and to treat it like an end of season fixture filler that just needed to be run to get it over and done with was a complete disgrace and devalued an already massively devalued competition even further, if that's the way they're going to treat it they should just scrap the competition. The track was a disgrace and the meeting should have been called off before the start. The bumps in the track have been there for weeks as seen in Lublin's final Ekstraliga fixtures and nothing was done to smooth them out. To hold this even in October was complete madness, why on earth it wasn't planned for the summer months like it always has been is a mystery

"He looks like a flying hairpin"... you don't get Speedway commentary like that anymore, brilliant!

It depends what you define as team riding, often commentators on TV say a rider is team riding if they see them so much as glance at their team partner... This for me is not team riding

I'd be very surprised if we saw anything like this in the SON... Especially as Pawlicki isn't even riding!

It was actually heat 14 but for those that haven't seen it:

Anything seems to go in Poland though, I think it was Pawlicki that nearly put Zmarzlik through the fence In one race and they were having a big love in down the back straight after the race... In this country they'd be rolling around on the track fighting each other

I'll agree with you that generally it is, l don't know if you saw the Polish play off final but there were 2 clear examples of how to and how not to team ride. When Gorzow were struggling to build up any kind of lead during their home leg I remember 1 race where Wozniak was struggling to hold 2nd place while Zmarlik was blasting around 30 yards clear at the front and Wozniak really could have done with his help. Then the best bit of team riding I've seen in years was Pawlicki doing all he could to get Pludra home for the win in the final race of the season, was a joy to watch.

I thought in many cases it left a lot to be desired and wasn't based on what the track needed but more like we always water the track after 4 heats and we always put this amount of water on so this is the way it will always be. The first semi was often ruined due to over watering

As it seems that Russia are now the emerging nation in Speedway, perhaps it's time for a return to the 4/5 rider format?

It was great to see Bewley finally showing the form that we've seen him show around the NSS. His kit is quite obviously not up to scratch for Polish League racing and it must have been a bit of an eye opener for him (and me). How he goes about funding the investment that is obviously needed in his equipment is the big question as it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Maybe GB Speedway should step in and invest in the machinery he needs, like they did with with Steve Worrall & Danny King (I think) a few years back, although I don't think it was under the GB Speedway badge back then. Maybe they could offer some kind of loan scheme, like a student loan, and the rider starts paying back their loan when they have reached a certain standard (earnings) in the Polish League.

The problem with holding a "Final" race in any pairs competition, whatever the scoring format, is there's big potential for a massive anti-climax. A tape touch, 2nd warning, e/f from the start, any type of exclusion and all of the tension is lost. It amazes me that the authorities still want to paly roulette with this system for pairs meetings as it's bitten them on the bum a few tomes in the past

It was possible to win by just winning 1 race and not scoring another point... if everybody else got excluded in all of their other races, unlikely though unless the ref was Frank Ebdon! Lot's of things are possible though not always likely. I think all the fans and riders want is the fairest scoring system

Have the Worrall's been jettisoned by GB Speedway? Steve was on the verge of International class before his injury, seems a strange decision to pick Kemp ahead of either of them

There was no BSF then... I'm sure there would have been many complaints

Totally agree and I love watching him and long may it continue. Totally agree that it could happen to any rider at anytime but I also think that the way a rider rides will also add to the chances of injury. I think Tai has been quite unlucky for example with injuries as he's not a "wild" rider he's more of a Greg Hancock type, who had a very long career without any real "big" injury. It's just that when a rider does have a big injury it can affect them, look at Chris Holder, he was quite a spectacular rider before his injury and has never been the same since.

For me he takes too many chances too early in races and I think it'll only be a matter of time before it catches up with him, he makes some very desperate moves very early in races, compare him to Tai who will let a race play out only making a desperate move, if needed, on the last bend. I think Bartek has been quite lucky so far to not have a "big" injury a season ender and it'll be interesting to see how he comes back from one when he inevitably does

And it was still better than anything I've seen from the Ekstraliga or Sweden this year!

You obviously have an interest in Speedway, you should go, maybe just once a year, you never know you may re-discover your mojo, I re-discovered mine last year

You should start posting more positive stuff then I'd never heard of Tarasenko before the Swedish play-offs this season, who is he? has he been riding long? how old is he? They certainly do seem to live life at a different pace in Sweden, I always make sure I record the whole channel for the whole night when there is a Swedish match on as I got tired of missing the last few heats over the last couple of years. Fans seem contents to just sit around for the whole night and watch tractor racing... it makes it seem like meetings at Leicester are held at lightspeed And while they did brilliantly this year to get some kind of league championship staged it was all pretty mickey mouse stuff in the end with rider availability etc.

That's fair enough, if you or your family are in the vulnerable category please accept my apologies and I think you're doing exactly the right thing. I also think you should attend the Speedway as soon as you are able and follow all of the restrictions that are required .

Wow! He's no spring chicken then... a late bloomer

How old is Jack Holder then?

Why would this force Chris Holder out? I didn't think there was a points limit... sounds like they might be trying to reform the team that got them relegated

You should look at the Talking Dirty Show (Fuelled by Monster Energy) where he carried out an inciteful interview with Bartek Zmarzlik with searching questions like "what's in your water bottle"... oh and he couldn't do it without swearing