BIKES GO FAST!

This weekend I’m going to try and keep away from the computer, otherwise there won’t be much time for reading in between television, as it’s speedway-stravaganza over the next few days (with a good helping of Deppinger shoved in on Saturday). It’s quite an exciting time in speedway at the moment so it seems like a good point to step away from books and talk about one of the few sports I really like to follow.

Speedway is a motor bike sport, which is most popular in places like Sweden and Poland but has a considerable following in Britain. Under the British league system there’s an elite league, a premier league and a conference league. The basic differences between the leagues are the speed of the races, the technology used in the equipment, the level of sponsorship (just like in the different football leagues but on a smaller scale) and the safety precautions. Teams must have an air safety fence to compete in the elite league (this is quite expensive, especially as you really need a back up in case the fence is punctured during a meeting), while premier league teams have boards or wire, which is part of why the races can be slower. Safety is paramount because speedway bikes have no brakes and speedway crashes can still cause fatal injuries.

Each team must contain seven riders, plus two reserves. Each rider has an end of year average, that is worked out from the amount of points they accrue over the season and this average must fit in a proscribed team ‘pot’ at the beginning of the season. The combined average amount changes almost every year and this year it was lowered to something like 37, which has meant several of the top riders have been unable to find places at British clubs this year (because they were high scorers and have high averages, meaning that a team manager would have to pick up more low scoring, low average riders than they would have to if they took on a middling rider and hoped he improved over the season). I think all the fans are still waiting to see if this lower points allowance really does make the league more competitive, or if it just means we’re deprived of seeing top riders ride in Britain.

Each league meeting has 15 heats, where four riders (two riders from each team) compete for first place (three points), second place (two points) and third place (one point). There are all kinds of other rules and point scoring opportunities, like putting in tactical substitutes and the new points scores for winning and drawing meetings will probably just be confusing if I try to explain here. So let’s just say there’s a home and an away leg to every meeting, your team wants to win both legs but are more likely to win the home meeting.

Our home team is The Wolves and after a dismal season last year we’re actually in contention to win the league. We have one of the smallest tracks in the elite league, the craziest announcer (he actually injured himself trying to recreate a Britain’s Got Talent Moment on the track) and the windiest stadium in winter. Me and my dad go to every home meeting as long as it isn’t raining. My dad used to follow speedway a long time ago, when http://www.cradleyspeedway.co.uk/ Cradley had a team (this is a massive speedway controversy) and has always kept up with it, but we started going to meetings together about five years ago.

Right now it’s about the middle of the speedway Grand Prix season, where riders who qualify race as individuals on some of Europe’s biggest tracks. Speedway Grand Prix has even more complicated math involved so lets just say at each meeting everyone races, the ones who get the most points move to the semi finals for that meeting, the riders who take first and second place in each of the two semis move to the final and one rider wins the final. Then all your points from each Grand Prix race you are in keep getting added together and the person with the most points after all the meetings wins the entire thing. This year the Aussie, Jason Crump looks set to take the title, yet again.

And on top of all the league and Grand Prix excitement this week is the Speedway World Cup where eight national teams compete. There are two meetings and the teams that takes first in each of them automatically get a place in the final, those who are second and third at each meeting go to a race off (which Britain were in on Thursday) and the first and second place teams from that meeting take the last spots in the final (Saturday afternoon).

This year there was a massive upset in the first meeting as the Russians took an automatic place in the final thanks to their new star rider and his motivational force. Denmark’s top rider was injured and unable to take part after the third round of races (there are twenty five races in each World Cup Meeting, five riders in a team and each rider goes out five times). In the World Cup you can no longer put someone else in if a rider has to bow out for any reason (mysterious injuries were happening last year when riders started to do badly). This pushed Denmark, who were the favourites to win, into the race off.

In the second meeting the Polish would not be beaten by the Australians, leaving the team with the current Grand Prix leader in the race off meeting.

Tonight we’ll watch the DVD of the race of meeting to see if Britain can make the final. It’s a young, promising team so I think fans will be happy if they just acquit themselves well and look to the future. Then Saturday we’ll watch the live final. I’d put money on Poland taking the cup whichever teams make the final, but I don’t think Russia will make it easy for them.

You can find British league meetings on Sky sports channels most Monday nights, or sometimes Wednesdays and Thursdays. You can see Grand Prix meetings on alternate weekends, where all you Yanks can cheer on your countryman Greg Hancock. To find out more about speedway check out the Wikipedia entry or the http://speedwaygp.com/ speedway Grand Prix website. You can watch a fantastic speedway race from the 2008 Grand Prix series at YouTube.

I’ll be using the magic of scheduled posting for the rest of the weekend – whatever you’re doing I hope you have a great time.