British Speedway - 2012 Season Preview

With March rapidly approaching and thankfully a relatively quiet winter behind us Its time to start looking forward to the 2012 Speedway season.

As usual a few changes have been made to the SCB rulebook at the AGM. The main changes were; the one rider over 8pts rule has been removed, points limit upped to 41, EL best pairs shelved, Eastbourne and Kings Lynn will not compete in the KO Cup and Jon Cook promoted to BSPA Vice Chairman. The full British Speedway AGM Statement is available here

Perhaps more surprisingly there has also been some major changes to the SWC format. The hosts Sweden have been handed an automatic place into the final at Malilla. Meaning that only one team from the race off will go into the final. The automatic qualification to the final of the host nation allows the competition to expand to nine countries. Teams will now only include four riders instead of five and meetings will be cut from twenty five to twenty  heats. Full details regarding the changes and new format are available via the official FIM Speedway World Championships website 

Ticking Timebomb or Key to the Title?

Mario Balotelli, Love him or hate him he's an immense footballing talent who's never far from both the front and back pages of the papers. At the tender age of 21 he is undoubtedly one of the most talented up and coming footballers on the planet, however his extrovert character and off-field antics often lead to problems. 

Super Mario has Pace, Power & Technical ability in abundance. These abilities were shown against Manchester United as he grabbed himself the opening 2 goals in Manchester Citys 6-1 demolition of Manchester United. The now famous celebration following the opening goal (pictured above) was in reference to Mad Mario and his friends setting fire to his bathroom in his £3 Million luxury home. The fire brigade were called at 1am on Saturday morning and the substantial blaze was reported to be caused by Mad Mario and his friends lighting fireworks and firing them from his bathroom window. Following the incident Mario became an ambassador for firework safety, giving his full backing to the Treacle campaign for firework safety. You just can't make this stuff up!