Mateusz

You miss the point - VERY likely he would not have had to ride in the run-off if he hadn't got an EF in his regular race.

Do you understand what ENGINE FAILURE means? They said on Polish telly Kolodziej had problems with his bike (you'd have to be blind not to notice that) and as it turned out a bit later - they found a litte pebble in a nozzle (?) of his bike. So no, he didn't blow it, he was unbelievably unlucky. Would have easily qualified if he hadn't got that bike problem. And now BSI are gonna give a charity wild card for Harris (5th time in a row?). Is he better than Kolodziej? No, he's not... but that's politics. I'm only happy the young Laguta got in - the Russians are crazy and I've got a feeling he may do much better than Woffinden next year.

Gorzow have been practising since yesterday so 3 days in total. They are taking it VERY seriously. Every Gorzow rider, including foreigners, was asked to show up in Gorzow yesterday. I think that Gorzow and Leszno will go through as the winners of their pairs. The biggest unknown for me is Torun v Wroclaw - everything's absolutely possible there, especially that they are unsure about their line-ups. Torun don't know whether Andersen will be ready for Sunday and Wroclaw are a bit worried that Bjerre may strike and not show up in Torun because there are some delays in his payments I think Zielona Gora will lose in Gorzow but I think if they score there around 40 points they may be better than the loser of the Torun v Wroclaw pair. All in all - really hard to predict the 4 that will qualify for round 2.

Does anyone know if they are forced by those FIM idiots to ride on those new silencers in this meeting?

This Sunday is going to be absolutely cracking! 2nd leg of the first round of the Ekstraliga play-off's: 6 pm (5 pm British time): Gorzow v Zielona Gora (43:47 on aggregate) Live on TVP Sport 7 pm (6 pm British time): Leszno v Tarnow (44:46) 8 pm (7 pm British time): Torun v Wroclaw (38:52) Live on TVP Sport Both tracks in these two televised matches are really good for racing. Gorzow v Zielona Gora in the main part of the season was one of the best matches this year - it had everything: falls, controversial decisions, ef's, tapes etc. It was just awesome and now when the result is EVERYTHING it must be mind blowing And it's a derby match so you can expect a boiling atmosphere made by the most fanatical fans in the country. The winners of these three pairs go through + one "lucky loser" who scores the biggest amount of points among the losers. So even if Zielona Gora score less than 43 pts, they may still go trough but have to wait for the results from Torun (I don't think Tarnow have any chance against Leszno - they are gonna be smashed there). Really looking forward to this Sunday evening expecting quality racing & drama. And all this spiced by controversy usual for the matches of such stake! PS. And I want Torun to fail ...because if they finish their season this Sunday, they will help one of the Bydgoszcz riders to prepare for our unequal battle (missing Sayfutdinov) in the race-off against Czestochowa (28/08 & 05/09) by renting him some bikes

I hope that Kolodziej will qualify (2nd league in Ekstraliga this year, just behind Gollob) cause he deserves it and is awesome this year... ...while I also hope that Walasek, Ulamek and Gapinski will not qualify (all 3 simply too weak to ride in SGP).

It's got nothing to do with the SWC dates Have they already been set, anyway? Yeah, it's been pretty widely discussed over here for a while. The changes have been initially agreed at some meeting of the Ekstraliga promoters and now they are waiting for the Ekstraliga authorities to approve them. Will try to say it briefly (as it's a VERY complex problem ) and point out the main issues - The biggest problem of the Polish league at the moment is that riders' wages have risen so much that most clubs struggle with making it even. They've got to pay off their riders and close their budgets, though - otherwise they'd not get a licence to ride in Ekstraliga next year. However, most clubs struggle financially more or less, mostly because riders want LOTS of money (a few times more than in UK / Sweden) and the Ekstraliga promoters are usually stupid enough to agree and sign such ridiculous contracts cause otherwise they could only get some average riders, lose all their matches and then fall down to Division 1. None wants it, of course, so this phenomenon has been escalating for years now and it is sick - riders wanting more and more money every year and the promoters agreeing cause otherwise after the season they'd be hung on local market squares by the fans, sponsors and others who care about the result only... ...Anyway, the system has to be changed cause: more money for riders require more expensive tickets. And expensive tickets is the MAIN reason of the poor attendances pasted above. There are other reasons as well (such as postponing many matches earlier the season - rain, national mourning, rain, floodings, rain etc., poorer results than expected in case of some teams - Bydgoszcz e.g.) but all in all the Polish society and speedway fans here are not too rich, in majority, and sometimes people cannot afford paying 30-40 zlotys for an Ekstraliga ticket (6-8 quid). I remember good old times when a ticket didn't cost much more than 20 zl. So... to get more fans at the stadiums the prices have to be reduced, at least a bit, and some regulations should be changed as well... ...Currently there are 8 teams in Ekstraliga, everyone rides again everyone home & away which gives us 14 rounds. Then we have the play-off's... which actually start from scratch and this seems to be the problem. The only advantage of finishing 1st after these 14 rounds is that in play-off you ride against the team that finished 6th (2nd with 5th, 3rd with 4th) which obviously makes your chances of going through much bigger but still, you can get the impression that it's pretty too much fuss just to finish on the position which makes your task in the play-off a bit easier. Theoretically, you can finish 6th and still become the Champion. Play-off's are super interesting but on the other side of the coin - some matches of these first 14 rounds are not really that important in such system. And fans knowing that actually everything's still possible in the play-off's give up going to some matches (of the first 14 rounds) since it's not cheap anymore to take your wife and kid to the stadium every Sunday afternoon, especially that apart from quality racing, a given match may mean nothing in terms of league points and place in the league table. To reverse this tendency, they've started thinking and thinking and... 1) In two years they want to have 10 teams in Ekstraliga... 2) ...which would provide you at least 18 matches each season (currently you have 16-20 depending on where you finish in the play-off). 3) Then there would be some little play-off, just to keep the tension till the last rounds (19 & 20th) - like 1st & 2nd team fighting home & away for the title and maybe 3rd & 4th team fighting for the bronze. And then this would be it - league points scored through 18 rounds would be crucial and matches more important. 4) To get 10 teams in Ekstraliga we need 2 teams to qualify from Division 1. Which is going to take place next year. No team is going to be relegated from Ekstraliga next year then (for the first time in history, as far as I know) while two teams of Divsion 1 are going to be promoted to ride in Ekstraliga in 2012. 5) So, theoretically, next year some clubs struggling financially could build up really weak teams - just to survive and ride a season, even losing everything - they'd not be relegated in the end, anyway. So to prevent them from this, they want to introduce some CMA's again - not sure about details but there's probably going to be something like a minimal CMA and maximum CMA for a team line-up. Just to keep Ekstraliga teams at certain quality level and to provide more close results, theoretically. 6) If Ekstraliga has 10 teams starting from 2012, Division 1 & 2 will probably be merged into one league, but that's just my presumption. And they'd probably kick out teams like Daugavpils and Miskolc if they had to merge these both leagues into one. In that order: 1) ticket prices 2) relatively poor results this season Apart from a few speedway cities (like ZG miles ahead of everyone and then maybe Gorzow and Leszno) Polish fans are very fussy and demanding good results, especially if they are used to successes every year. There's always a group of some die hard fans who would attend every meeting of their team in every league but that's not so many of them - in Bydgoszcz it's about 3000 people - I reckon. To attract other people to your stadium you need: 1st) good results (success!) 2nd) relatively reasonable ticket prices 3rd) good stadium facilities. This is why Bydgoszcz has got the worst attendances this year in Ekstraliga - the team lost most of their matches (because of Sayfutdinov's injury - Emil rode in only 4 matches for Bydgoszcz this year (out of 18-20 in total) and poor performances of the other riders) while the ticket prices went up before the season. Bydgoszcz fans are very spoilt as at some point of the Gollob era in Bydgoszcz we were winning the league every second year (4 Championship titles in 6 years: 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002) - people remember those times and don't wanna now watch some team fighting for staying up in Ekstraliga (except me & 2999 other die hard fans who would go to every match, no matter what ) 10-15 minutes by a cab. PS. Forgot to add - Taking care of Polish young riders they also want to give them more opportunities to ride in league matches. There may be 16 races in a match, inc two u-21 rides (there's one u-21 heat now - the first one) + some extra restrictions when it comes to signing up foreigners (putting them into your line-up).

Unfortunately it's not televised.

This season has been tragic as for the attendances at league matches in Poland and the whole league system (regulations, riders' pays, ticket prices etc...) has to be changed asap... ...and it will be done - lots of changes in Polish speedway starting from next season.

I read yesterday in a Polish speedway weekly an interview with some FIM guy saying that probably there will be no GP in NZ next year because local authorities cannot afford it - they can give some grant for it but that's not enough.

It's all about excitement and drama - first, if you score enough to qualify for the semi, then if you are 1st/2nd and qualify for the final. Both semis and the final are the most exciting heats of the night and all in all I think it's a good combination - every point matters but there's also some luck (and lots of nerves) needed when it comes to the semis & final.

This is classic. He'll always be Bomber for the Polish commentators Another classic is the way they pronounce Reading (the name of town). It's never "read" as you pronounce this verb in the past tense but always "read" in the present tense - Reeeding

Yes they did And it wasn't even a ZG match. Leszno were racing against Cz-wa and ZG just wanted to annoy their local rivals a little

The official news is that Emil finished his season yesterday and will not ride anymore this yr.

They make all their banners by themselves.

ZG v Gorzow is on here: http://livestreamtv.50webs.com/livestreamtv.html

Maybe it hurts you cause you don't seem to be intelligent enough to lead any essential discussion representing rhetoric I could assign to a 15 year old retarded kid. Your only answer for everything is Rune Holta. I think you are pathetic.

This is why I thought you were 15

Personally I wouldn't mind UK having two 2 GPs - the whole series would more balanced if every main speedway nation (PL, UK, SWE, DK) had two GPs. The question is - where would like to organise the second GP in UK - at Wembley (would u get there the same crowd as u get in Cardiff annually?) or at Kings Lynn? However, I don't see much point in Poland hosting any GP at a temp track while we have such speedway stadiums like MotoArena in Torun - and almost exactly the same one to be built in Bydgoszcz within next two years (just a bit bigger and with a roof covering the track )) ...And then Gorzow and Zielona Gora won't be much behind when they finish re-building their stadiums.

Not sure about Sky broadcasting this event but it will be shown live on Polish Canal+ which means the live stream will be somewhere online as well

The whole point is that it wouldn't be much different. Gollob, Hampel and Holta are different class riders than Harris or Woffinden, simple as ... But I understand some of you cannot understand/accept it and try to think up reasons other than skills, hard work, consistence and professionalism these riders represent (or not). If you are focused on the British leagues only it may be a bit shocking when you find out that only 1 British rider rides in the Polish Ekstraliga and he's got the 47th average there currently. The rest is good enough to ride in our Division 1 or 2 only. We don't want it all. It's all about the money though, BSI are happy having 3 GP's in Poland cause Polish organisers pay them a lot for the rights to organise GP's in their cities. Stop moaning and blaming Poland for everything then. Blame British promotors, some of your riders' attitude and their lack of professionalism instead. Britain had many individual world champions in the past, it's time for Poland to catch up a bit with the statistics now I presume 15 in your nickname is your age?

Well, unlike some British riders who are too weak to finish in top 8 every single season, Polish riders don't need any wild cards to ride in SGP. So don't worry, we won't take any of your wild cards.

Gollob will, Nicki won't.

Obviously it was Gollob's mistake (he doesn't make many but this time he made a mistake, unfortunately) but his front wheel bumped a bit and he didn't do it on purpose. Such things happen. Some riders cause crashes involving their rivals frequently (like Pedersen) some other ones do it rarely (Gollob and a few others) but nobody's perfect. It's just a huge SHAME it was Emil who had to suffer this time

Emil's broken his wrist, confirmed by his manager. Bydgoszcz are f..ked.