Announcing my new found fanship of Speedway!
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Speedway is a minority sport... Even in the countries it's most popular (if you see what I mean). I've been a fan of it for about a month, all on the back of the 2007 Speedway Grand Prix of Great Britain.
Speedway is basically a 4 lap motorcycle race on a dirt track. The bikes have no brakes, and no steering wheel. The only way to slow and turn the bike is friction. The best riders come from Scandinavia, along with some from Great Britain, Australia and the United States.
This race I'm about to show you was the Final of the Grand Prix. After 20 Heats, the 16 riders were down to 4. Chris Harris is a British rider, who is barely a top 8 rider who exceeded all expectations to get into 3rd at a race earlier in the season. He usually misses the start every time, and fights back on the remaining 4 laps.
In this final, his opponents, Greg Hancock, is an American veteran, 1997 World Champion, and Australian's Crump and Adams are also veteran riders, Crump was the 2006 World Champion. There had been no British winner of a Grand Prix for 6 years.
Race 1 (Heat 3)
Harris v Pedersen, Crump, and Humpel. Pedersen is Number 1 in the Championship, Crump is 6 and Humpel is 9. Harris is Number 4 in the Heat on paper.
Race 2 (Heat 8)
Harris v Hancock, Nicholls and Zagar. Harris is Number 2 to Hancock on paper.
Race 3 (Heat 10)
Harris v Anderson, Pedersen and someone else... Harris is Number 3 on paper.
Race 4 (Heat 13)
Harris v Jonsson, Adams and Holta. Harris is Number 3 on paper.
Race 5 (Heat 19)
Harris v Gollob, Howe and Lindback. Harris is Number 2/3 on paper.
Harris had enough points to make the Semi Finals.
Semi Final (Heat 22)
Harris v Adams and Humpel. Pedersen was excluded for a false start. Top two make the Final. Harris is Number 3 before Pedersen was excluded.
Final (Heat 23)
Harris v Adams, Crump and Hancock. Harris is Number 4 on paper.
Ever since that night at a jam packed Millennium Stadium, I have become a fan of Speedway. It's really entertaining, and is a bit like F1 with its Grand Prix season. But it actually puts races where the fan base is - it has two races in Poland and Sweden under the titles of European Grand Prix and Scandinavian Grand Prix.
I am currently building the wiki for this, I've already done all the Grand Prix from 1995-2007 in terms of where they were, and winners - I need to fill in all the driver pages now, and do the Speedway World Cup page (something you'll hear about on Saturday).
So feel free to help me. I hope you enjoyed the videos!
