This time last year Coventry Bees’ captain Chris Harris swept past American Greg Hancock on the final strait of the final race to take the British leg of the speedway grand prix circuit.

This year, he failed to reclaim his crown, but the indestructible Cornishman with the hauteur of a young David Cameron emerged with even more kudos, reaching the semi-finals, despite a sickening, nose-breaking collision with Niels-Kristian Iversen, a team mate at Harris’s Swedish team, Vastervik.

Allied to Sky’s coverage of the domestic Elite league, Harris’s victory seemed to herald a new dawn for British speedway, if not to its popularity in the ’30s. In the event it failed even to herald a new dawn for Harris himself and last night was his first Grand Prix semi-final since his glory evening. Harris began the fifth round of the 2008 season 12th out of the 15 regular riders, not only 49 points (winners accumulate circa 20 points per meeting) behind Danish leader, reigning champion Nicki Pedersen, but one place and three points behind doughty British national captain Scott Nicholls, who reached his first final of the season. And yet demographics mean speedway is the sport of the future.

The British Grand Prix is a blue riband event for the Polish community, for whom speedway is a sporting obsession and for whom Tomasz Gollob - who began in second place last night - is a national hero of Lech Walesa proportions, despite his oft-voiced fear of temporary tracks, which resurfaced last night in a wretched evening.

So, paying up to £80 a ticket and aghast one of the giant screens malfunctioning), they invaded Wales in their thousands, waving their banners, wearing their scarves and sounding their klaxon horns. Until the dismal showing of the three Polish riders dampened their enthusiasm, they drank their beer (this was not a crowd notable for a preponderance of teetotallers), they sang along to pre-meet entertainment a bewildered Belinda Carlisle - who must surely have thought things would never come to this - and, when the racing began, drowning even the Millennium Stadium’s notoriously deafening PA, which added to the cacophony of the 500cc, gearless, brakeless, silencer-free bikes with faster acceleration than a Formula 1 car ensured ear plugs were a speedway necessity.

The format was simple: 20 four-man, four-lap, sub-minute heats, followed by two semi-finals and a final. There were thrills, spills (a grim tumble for Hans Andersen) and noise, oh so much noise. Harris’s first outing suggested a rekindling of his Cardiff magic as he whizzed past Gollob on the first bend and swept home, but by half-time he was trailing to the Australian, Jason Crump and the imperious Hancock. Meanwhile Nicholls’s victory in the seventh heat nudged him towards the semi-finals, where he won a thrilling battle for second place over Andersen. Harris was unfortunate to face Crump and Hancock in the second semi-final.

The erstwhile world champions sauntered through to join Pederson, pantomime villain after being involved but uncensured in almost all the evening’s crashes and Nicholls in the final. Then. calamity. Hitherto so canny and careful, Nichollss evening ended in ignominy when he was disqualified for breaking the tape at the start and the evenings three best three riders tussled for the British crown. To the delight of the crowd, Pedersen fell on the first lap, Crump edged ahead, Hancock couldnt catch him and the so called Wizard Of Aus became the first man to win four British Grands Prix.

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