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Speedway tournaments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2016

T. J. Fletcher
T. J. Fletcher*
Affiliation:
Department of Education and Science, Mowden Hall, Staindrop Road, Darlington DL3 9BG
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Extract

I like an active Saturday afternoon, so it comes about that I often end up watching sport on television. The other day it was speedway racing. I gradually became aware that I was watching 16 riders riding four at a time in a complicated arrangement of heats, the object of which was to ensure that each rider rode against every other rider exactly once. Naturally (?) there were 20 heats; but the question arises as to what numbers of riders may be arranged into a tournament, given the firm speedway requirement that four riders are to be on the track at a time, and the requirement that each meets each just once. It is also a problem to arrange the riders into heats suitably.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 60 , Issue 414 , December 1976 , pp. 256 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1976

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References

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