I'm only 31 so apologise for the age group!! these are the names I remember being there or there abouts during my time as a speedway fan....I'm sure I've missed a few!!

Roundy, you can remove Per Jonsson from the list due to the fact that he won the 1990 World Final at Bradford. Per finished with 13 points. Second place went to Todd Wiltshire who scored 12 and Hans Nielsen took third with 11.
That is what it will say in the record books long after you and me have checked in at the Horizontal Hilton.
What won't be mentioned is the fact that Shawn Moran also scored 13 points in the same meeting.

Per, sadly lost the use of his legs due to an injury sustained on the track, and Shawn, sadly lost the use of his legs due to the fact he is permanantly rat-legged and unable to stand on them.
How sad are both these tales about guys who were once at the pinnacle of their profession?

What about phil crump?

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will the long wait end????

Terry
Second place was never awarded, the recoeds show Moran as disqualified but they never upgraded Wiltshire and Nielsen.

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..And the only rider i would take out of there is Mitch Shirra.

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Gotta agree with that one......Mitch always gave 100%---ish......famous for always winning his last race (even if he had bombed in his previous outings).......but not of the class to be included in this list.

Terry, your quite right about Per Jonsson and the scary thing for me is....I was at Bradford that night[xx(].....I was tired and a little inebriated last night and that's my excuse...also holds as the excuse for Mitch Shirra too!
Not sure about Phil Crump though, I started watching speedway in 1979 and don't remember him too prominantly, which is not to say he wasn't worthy of the list!
There were a few names that I remember enjoying watching but couldn't say for sure just how good they were over their full careers....Sigalos, Autry, Crump to name a few.

As for my ten peneth, I always thought it was a shame that Kenny Carter never won the big one, and one of my most memorable speedway moments was watching him whining after getting excluded when Penhall won the title! Carter was the ultimate rider everyone loved to hate...a real character and surrounded by so much tragedy!

Phil Crump was yesterday's Leigh Adams. Top of the averages year after year, but couldn't do it on the big stage. If league points won you world championships, they'd both have gold medals.
The best rider I ever saw who wasn't crowned world champion was Igor Plechanov. As Ufa, or Russia, never hosted a world final, he was always up against home advantage, but that guy was dynamite. Dag Lovas was good enough to be world champ, but didn't want it bad enough.
Back to today, and there's no doubt that Ricko is as talented a speedway rider as anyone who ever sat on a bike.
Sam.

Steve, I sit corrected about 2nd and 3rd places not being upgraded. Being the cynic I am, I wonder who pocketed the second place prize money that night if only 1st and 3rd were remunerated?

Excellent topic you started Roundy.
Gollob is still active so still has the opportunity to remove himself from the list by winning the thing.

Dave Jessup coulda, shoulda, woulda at Wembley in 1978 but missed out after he, or some other nuclear physisist, decided that drilling holes in a 10p aluminium jubilee clip would lighten the motorcycle considerably, thus giving him an advantage over the rest of the line up.
He also drilled holes in his clutch lever, engine plates, lifting handle, wheel rims and even his steel shoe.
The ironic thing was that he was only three foot seven and weighed about five and a half stone(ish).
Inevitably the vibration on this lightened out jubilee clip caused it to snap, resulting in the manifold parting company with the carburretor, and Dave Jessup parting company with the financial windfall and the famous winged wheel that were his for the taking.

My biggest coulda, shoulda, woulda, though is Les Collins. The 1982 final in LA was his for the taking. Les went through the card in his first four rides and made the odds-on favourite, Bruce Penhall, look like Tobias Johansson when he literally blew the defending champion away in their heat race.
"All" Les had to do was win his last race which, on paper, was his "easiest" and he would be the world speedway champion.
Even a second place would give him a run off with Bruce and a further opportunity to be world speedway champion.
Les faced three Europeans in his last heat, I remember Gerd Riss was one of them, the other two escape me because this twenty year old, on his fourth day in America, was busy telling any American who would listen, (or understand my accent back then,) several home truths about their country, their speedway, how they only defeated us way back when because they had guns and we had bows and arrows, and how a fellow Limey, a fellow Manc was about to conquer the speedway world.
Les finished third in that "easy" heat. Nerves, who knows? Bruce, to this day, knows he got out of jail.
Me, I married a Yank and am still here.
If only we could turn back the clock. It could all be so different.
I wonder what Les is up to these days.

Take Leigh Adams out of the poll and you might have a reasonable poll.



Who is the idiot that always gives him loads and loads of votes

Malcom Simmons, Terry Betts, Split Waterman, Jack Parker, Bill Kitchen, Graham Warren etc etc

There have been a host of riders that were good enough, but never did it.

Really these polls should be by posts as the voting system on here allows you more than one vote.

My vote before the ADAMS FAMILY got involved, went to Dave Jessup who missed the title twice through engine problems.

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