19/05/2020
You are automatically drawn to some people in life. Others find you. Knowing them makes life better and helps you see it anew or for what it really is. The late Gordon ‘Gordie’ Day was a gentle soul with an intense curiosity about life and people. He charmed and was charming. He found everyone and […]
01/12/2019
AWARDING the exclusive rights to for the Speedway Grand Prix and Speedway World Cup (latterly Speedway of Nations) 2001-2021 has been hugely lucrative for the awarding body The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM). According to various business entities – a veritable alphabet soup of Benfield Sports International Limited, BSI, BSI Speedway (An IMG Company), BSI […]
27/11/2019
THE FIM will announce the winning bidder for the tender for exclusive rights to the Speedway Grand prix and Speedway World Cup/Speedway of Nations this Saturday evening at their annual Gala Dinner at an unassuming five-star establishment in Monte Carlo. So will this announcement herald the start of the long sad goodbye to BSI running […]
01/10/2019
THE Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) deadline to submit expressions of interest (tenders) to identify candidates interested in winning a £100+ million contract from them by becoming involved as a Promoter of “the Championship” – aka the “FIM Speedway Grand Prix World Championship, FIM Speedway World Cup & FIM Speedway of Nations And On an […]
16/08/2015
Not known for their philanthropy or diffident approach to business, the venture capital owners of global sports, events and talent management company IMG probably remain completely unaware of the Speedway Grand Prix, let alone BSI Speedway managing director Paul Bellamy. That said, a debacle on the scale of the recent Warsaw Speedway Grand Prix – […]
01/01/2015
Fans who wish to savour the statistics of the Speedway World Championship continue to be very badly served by both the F.I.M and the Speedway Grand Prix series current commercial rights holders and organisers BSI Speedway (an IMG company). Both continue to choose not to publish official attendance figures for SGP series events. The F.I.M. […]
08/12/2013
Latest figures reveal that the FIM Speedway Grand Prix series average attendances continued to fall in 2012 and 2013, despite the ‘blip’ poor results of 2011. Worse still, SGP series continues to decline in popularity at most series event venues and overall. This isn’t really a great surprise – since 2002 the trend remains one […]
14/08/2013
It’s a really tough job to learn anything of value or gain insights from Speedway Grand Prix reports on its website or in trade press reports, let alone any SGP programme. That said, though not an exact science, the ongoing declining popularity of the Speedway Grand Prix is, perhaps, further laid bare by recent […]
09/12/2010
After (allegedly) the most exciting Speedway Grand Prix series since the dawn of time, the ‘high’ quality of the racing product appears to have little impact at the turnstiles. A quick glance at the official F.I.M. figures for each venue recently published in Polish magazine Tygodnik Zuzlowy reveals that overall attendances remain more or less […]
22/10/2010
Unusually, the permanent wildcards selected for the 2011 Speedway Grand Prix actually look surprisingly sensible choices. This hasn’t always been the case and the performance record of those permanent wildcards selected by the powers that be has often been spotty. Much more significantly, their performances have been historically worse than those riders who qualified for […]
31/01/2010
Attendance figures for the 2008 and 2009 Speedway Grand Prix (SGP) series have finally been released from where they’d been held in a file marked ‘Top Secret’ inside the BSI/IMG bunker located on the outskirts of London. A quick first glance indicates that the SGP World Championship outlook remains cloudy and its popularity with fans […]
24/04/2009
The new series of the Speedway Grand Prix is about to get underway but, arguably, finds the glamour of its start marred by cost-cutting, secrecy and prevarication. Sadly, the fanfare over the arrival of a new website for the Speedway Grand Prix fails to paper over the vexatious issues and unanswered questions that still beset […]
02/04/2009
It was only last year that the Speedway Grand Prix ‘organisers’ boasted on their website about the ludicrous concept of the Super Prix events. It was another of those new fangled revolutions that nobody had asked for or could really see the point of, despite hollow protestations that this “finale” would add to the drama […]
05/01/2009
The recently published FIM Speedway World Championship Grand Prix Regulations 2009 make interesting reading (listed as regulation 077). Unluckily for the riders, their pay rates remain frozen for 2009 (just like they did in 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005). The FIM have again produced an extremely comprehensive 39-page document that covers everything from the specifics […]
18/10/2008
The Daily Mail has wholeheartedly joined the Internet age with various blogs on its website and, quite amazingly, one of these is dedicated to speedway! It’s called Speedway from Skezza with a masthead that features a photograph of a youthful looking member of the newspaper staff. Albeit one with an irksome matey nickname, gel in […]