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 […]
03/08/2009
After the borefest of the Latvian GP, it’s hard to get excited about tittletattle in the Star claimed to be “whispers from the corridors of power” that trails notionally ‘exciting’ news that the SGP might expand into Russia in 2010 and, in as yet unspecified years ahead, to “India, Asia & Australasia”. All these countries […]
26/07/2009
For those of us outside the charmed circle of speedway bigwigs and journalists who receive press releases from the BSI Press Office, we have to suffice with the thin informational pickings provided by the cleans whiter than white SGP website. Occasionally the SGP Press Officer, Philip Rising, selectively responds to real or imagined comments about […]
30/04/2009
A snippet about entertainment at Cardiff that appeared in the lengthy coverage of the Prague Grand Prix (the first of the 2009 series) in this week’s Speedway Star inadvertently yet again reveals the desperation of the cost-cutting measures that BSI Speedway appear keen to undertake. Arguably, it also signals they have already planned for 2009 […]
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 […]
15/01/2009
Widely seen as the man with the real brainpower in the team of all talents that makes up the BSI management team, Paul ‘Really Important’ Bellamy (Managing Director BSI) has kindly deigned to be savagely quizzed on the SGP (including the Gelsenkirchen fiasco) in this week’s Speedway Star. Billed on the front cover of the […]
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 […]
22/12/2008
After mismanagement and cost cutting apparently ensured the cancellation of the Gelsenkirchen Grand Prix in October, “Paul Bellamy, Managing Director of BSI (Speedway)” [as he’s snappily known] read from a prepared statement in the bored manner of a speaking clock to signal the emotional depth of his frustration at the inconvenience caused to the fans. […]
31/10/2008
Once again, the end of the 2008 Speedway Grand Prix sees Paul Bellamy, John Postlethwaite and Ole Olsen comfortably ‘earn’ more money than anyone else with some connection to the series. Remember these are the ‘fat cats’ with the business acumen and marketing genius not to be able to manage anything as simple as a […]
12/10/2008
Taken from Holsted Speedway newspage: The charge by the calling off from VM to speedway racing can be risk that run into a tocifret millionbeløb. Gelsenkirchen Earth risk to be vådt , catching decent locates that out to Guds available nature. Wet earth is difficult that do dry , catching decent to cold oktobervejr throw […]
11/10/2008
Ignoring that it’s a further embarrassment for the sport in the eyes of the outside world, the cancellation of the final Grand Prix of the 2008 at the “splendidly-appointed Veltins-Arena at Gelsenkirchen” has to raise yet more serious questions about the competence and visionary management of the organisers, BSI Speedway. It must also cast doubt […]
03/10/2008
Given that the Speedway Star and the Speedway Grand Prix appear wedded at the hip, it’s astonishing to read some reasonably strong criticism of this event within its pages (both on September 13th as well as the subsequent meeting report on September 20th). Let alone to find that the chief critic is Philip Rising! Beyond […]
17/07/2008
An incredible four days after the 2008 Cardiff GP ended, the organisers are so desperate to further swell their coffers that they’re already trying to put their grasping hands inside the British speedway fans less than bulging pockets with a so called ‘special offer’ for next years event! Not yet migrated to the seemingly endless […]