Robbie B

9.45pm

Great idea, I posted my disapointment on their Twitter page, just posted on their Facebook page, as well.

The Golden Wonder four team tournament, where teams raced in pairings, was raced at Wimbledon Thursday 6 July, in 1978, this is where I got this idea from. Just for the record the result of the meeting was: Wimbledon 31 (Edward Jancarz 11, Mick Hines 9, Roger Johns 8, Larry Ross 3): Cradley Heath 24 (Brunce Penhall 11, Alan Grahame 7, Pekka Hautamaji 5, Bruce Cribb 1): Belle Vue 22 (Chris Morton 9, Peter Collins 8, Les Collins 3, Chris Turner 2): Bristol 19 (Phil Crump 9, Colin Richardson 7 (as replacement for Steve Gresham),Tormod Langli 2, Nigel Boocock 1). An earleir Cronus Four Team Tournament was postponed, at Wimbledon, on Monday 1st May 1978. Which would have featured teams from Wimbledon, King's Lynn, White City and Swindon.

ELIT VETLANDA Vs VALSARNA is on Premier Sports tonight, but until 9.45pm, in the UK due to them showing football

Another racing formula you could use for World cups is. Teams of four riders, with a reserve that can come in at any time. No Joker. Riders race in pairs (ex; A 1&2 vs B 1&2, the C 1&2, D 1&2, B 3&4, C 3&4, D 3&4 etc) they then would race against each teams pairings, thus having six rides. The meeting would then consists of 24 heats.

I never said that the meeting should 16 heats. I said 16 normal heats with all riders racing each other, then have four nominated heats. So there would be a grand total of 20 heats, in the meeting.

I totally agree the final should be moved around more.

I know Poland are by far the strongest team in the world. But the all SWC meeting I think are mared by the lottery of the starting postitions. Teams could lose or even not qualify due to the way there set-up at the moment.

I never said that I didn't agree with the result. It's just an idea to try and spice the meeting-up, especially at the end.

I agree it was a good final tonight. But Poland did have the very best gates from heats 21 - 25. They had 3 gates two and 1 gate four. But making all teams having the same number of differnt starting gates, it would be much more fairer, to all teams.

The reserve could come in at any time to replace a rider, who may be out-of-form, like in the good old days, but he still would be limited to a maximum of six rides.

Well the speedway World Cup is over for another year, and congratulations to Poland, in winning it. But I personally think that now is the time to make some changes to the World Cup format, which would improve and freshen- it-up. So first-up I would change the team format. We all know that some teams struggle to raise five strong riders, for their national team. I would change the number of riders to four per team, plus a reserve. This reserve rider would be used for any unforeseen incidents, such as riders being ruled out of the meeting due to injury. Why should any team suffer from being one rider short? The reserve would also be allowed to replace any rider at any time during the meeting. Each main team member would still be allowed on tactical substitute race, if their team is six points or more behind, during the heats 1 – 16 only. Next thing to change is the racing formula. Now that each team consists of four main riders. The races would now be in blocks of four. Gates positions would be changed, so that all teams in each block would receive gates 1, 2, 3 and 4 once only, in each group block of four races, with no rider being programmed to have the same gate more than once during the meeting. This would put an end to team being disadvantaged, in having mostly inside or outside gates in blocks of races, as is the case now. This formula would be fairer to all competing teams. In theory this would make teams stronger. The number of races in the speedway World Cup as we all know is 25 races, per meeting. With four man teams it would revert back to the old traditional 16 heat formula. But I would expand on this, and add an additional four races, which would all be nominated, with no rider being allowed to race in more than once in these races. This would definitely give the team manager’s something to think about. It would also make it extremely interesting for the crowd. Who as we know like to play team manager during meetings, trying to work which rider would ride, in each of these races? And you must remember that all teams would have each gate only once during these races. This would certainly spice things up, towards the end, of the meeting. Now for the dreaded tactical joker. I think that it should either be completely scrapped, or allowance be given for all teams to use once during heats 1 – 16 only. As currently why should the leading team be penalized, for riding well and then a team struggling for points then be given an advantage, in a race, for double points, it just doesn’t make sense to me, or too many other speedway supporters, that I know.

The referee for the meeting is Great Britain’s Jim Lawrence, who also took charge of the Race-Off. SWC FINAL LINE-UPS DENMARK (RED): Mads Korneliussen Bjarne Pedersen Niels-Kristian Iversen Nicki Pedersen Kenneth Bjerre Team Manager: Anders Secher POLAND (BLUE): Krzysztof Kasprzak Jaroslaw Hampel Tomasz Gollob Piotr Protasiewicz Janusz Kolodziej Team Manager: Marek Cieslak AUSTRALIA (WHITE): Jason Crump Darcy Ward Troy Batchelor Davey Watt Chris Holder Team Manager: Craig Boyce SWEDEN (YELLOW): Andreas Jonsson Freddie Lindgren Antonio Lindback Jonas Davidsson Thomas H Jonasson Team Manager: Bo Wirebrand Taken from the SGP website

Yes live meeting in Sweden, but with delayed TV coverage in the UK due to bloody football

Yes live meeting in Sweden, but with delayed TV coverage in the UK due to bloody football may watch it on the web instead of waiting.

Hi Tony I noticed in the letters page of issue 14 of the Classic Speedway magazine. There was a letter from Mike Stanbra about speedway badges. If you go the Greyhound Derby website, in the speedway section Speedway Badges there have hundred's of badges, from loads of speedway clubs, from pre-war until late 1980s/90s listed with their year dates. Hope that this help to Mike Stanbra and others who may be intrested. Another great issue Tony, still reading my way through it.

Surprised there's no Ryan Sullivan for Australia, especially the way he's riding at the moment. Should be a cracking meeting. It's going too be tough for any team to get into the top two placings. Go Great Britain. second place will do me.

Australia (Red) Davey Watt Chris Holder Troy Batchelor Darcy Ward Jason Crump Team Manager: Craig Boyce Russia (Blue) Grigory Laguta Emil Sayfutdinov Roman Povazhny Denis Gizatullin Renat Gafurov Team Manager: Stanislav Khan Team Great Britain (White) Chris Harris Ben Barker Lewis Bridger Edward Kennett Tai Woffinden Team Manager: Neil Middleditch Sweden (Yellow) Andreas Jonsson Freddie Lindgren Antonio Lindback Jonas Davidsson Thomas H Jonasson Team Manager: Bo Wirebrand Confirmed line ups from the SGP website Sorry forgot to add this earlier The referee for tonight’s meeting is Jim Lawrence from Great Britain.

I see that next Tuesday night league match Elit Vetlanda Vs Valsarna won't be live on Premier Sports, because of football It will be shown later that night at 9.45pm UK time

Further Info for you. Rob Hollingsworth (Edinburgh), replaced Charlie Monk (Barrow) in the meeting. The other track reserves for this meeting who did not ride were: Dave Allen (Boston) and Derek Harrison (Milton Keynes).

World Cup race-off next week, is there any Allsevnkan League? Hope next it works OK for you bradonbee48 I copied and pate earlier. The correct rider results have now been added

Many thanks Anders Glad that Smederna still has a Jansson conection. First there was Joel, then Tommy, Bosse and now Jimmy.

Back to the racing at last after the interval. For brandbee48 I put the heat results score at the moment Smederna are 39-21 up. Heat 11 rerun unsatisfactory start. They are playing in the stadium Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen. Heat 11 Linus Lydin, Daniel Henderson, Gunn City, Timo Lahti (3-3) (42-24) Heat 12 Thomas H Jonasson, Kim Nilsson, Henrik Karlsson, Jari Makinen (4-2) 46-26 Heat 13 Kenni Larsen, Kauko Nieminen, Linus Eklof, Andreas Messing (ret) (4-2) 50-28 Heat 14 Thomas H Jonasson, Magnus Zetterström, Simon Gustafsson, Kim Nilsson (5-1) 55-29 Heat 15 Simon Gustafsson, Kauko Nieminen, Kenni Larsen, Thomas H Jonasson (ef while leading) (1-5) 56-34

wow, that takes some doing

Have to remember the week after the world cup to go straight to http://qrodo.com/ for Allsvenaken speedway. I missed a few heats tonight, waiting at the other website.