IN sport, there can be too many statistics these days. American football, baseball and cricket being three main culprits that readily spring to mind.

But when I learnt Pirates star Bjarne Pedersen eats five pieces of fresh fruit each race day, I was tickled pink and had to pass that precious piece of information on to you.

Well done to Bjarne for enlightening us with that info, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Speedway is a particularly hectic game and consuming the correct types of food is a very important ingredient of him being a successful member of the Poole Castle Cover club.

In all during the 2007 campaign, Bjarne ate 575 pieces of fruit because he raced on 115 occasions.

What also amused me in Pedersen's press release summarising his season was that Bjarne, who rides regularly on a weekly basis in Britain, Poland, Sweden and Denmark, as well as in the Grand Prix, spent 217-and-a-half hours waiting at airports.

So international speedway stars have to hang around for their flights just like the rest of us.

Bjarne took 91 flights during the season from mid-March to the end of October -one every 60 hours - as he completed his gruelling programme of 115 meetings inside about 240 days.

I'd love to know how many hours he spent in the air, but maybe that is something Bjarne would want to forget.

Instead, though, he has happily informed us he used 245 back tyres in his races, so that should satisfy all you methanol heads out there.

Pedersen was also happy to tell us he finished second in the Polish Division One rider standings, and fifth, eighth and ninth, respectively, in the British, Danish and Swedish top flights to demonstrate he is definitely one of the top 10 riders in the world.

Bjarne also revealed he's got 10 bikes dotted around Europe that he rides on and had problems with the set-up on eight of them.

That hasn't put him off taking on even longer flights for work next year.

Apart from harbouring a wish to remain at Poole, and with clubs in Sweden, Denmark and Poland, he also hopes to line up in the Russian League for the first time.

It's a really long way to tracks like the one in Vladivostok, on the Pacific Ocean coast, just to ride in one speedway meeting.

But if the price is right, then it sounds like he'd be a fool not to go.

If he does, it will be interesting to see how much that ups Bjarne's race day fruit intake. And how much his shopping bill goes up.

By the way, I can now pass on two other important pieces of information.

Bjarne, who has stressed he wants to overtake Craig Boyce's all-time Pirates leading points scoring record, has finalised deals for 2008 with his two main English sponsors Farson Transport Services and Sea View Coaches.

Delivering the news, Pedersen said: "I'm very happy and relieved to have the agreements in place at such an early time, even though we are not sure what the team will be at Poole next year.

"I highly appreciate the support from Farson and Sea View Coaches. It is of great importance to me and I would like to pass on my sincere thanks to Dave, Bob and Steve."