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Turning to the current scene, sadly my planned trips back to Rye House have been scuppered so far by health so my chance to comment on actual sightings hasn't happened. But I've watched TV and video clips, read carefully the reports of others and yes, I'm worried. Knowing a little about losing money at Rye House (thankfully as an onlooker only) I suspect it's haemmorrhaging again. Like it or not, Rye House's history lies in weekend racing and has since Dicky Case ran it as Wembley's training track prewar. It grieves me to think of the place dead at weekends just so the promoters can run in the 'big time', or at least as 'big' as Britain can get these days. It was ambitious of BMR to take the Rockets up. It might have been more sensible to mix the ambition with knowledge and experience. I suspect it might have been cheaper. I've heard of last years figures and they were frightening enough without running without the TV money this year. Have there been demoralising pay cuts? Something's wrong. I will not speculate on reliability of payment - I have no evidence and that would be wrong. I want to see a stable Rye House running at weekends and whatever league it takes to achieve that then go for it. Steve Ribbons evokes the days of the Infradex team. Is what we've got now really better than a thrilling team of home-developed talent who were always free for a chat after racing? No it's not about 'rosy glasses', it's knowing what does or doesn't work at Rye House.

It's a shame how the place has turned out, it's being run into the ground and it would be a sad state if it did shut but that is all that looms in the future for Stoke. Needs a new promoter but the current promoter wants ridiculous money for the sale. It has potential to be a great stadium but not with this current shower running it!

Like how far our heads can get in the sand before we stop breathing?

Well just to keep this post going I've just noticed that every Glasgow rider is now doubling up or, in the case of Jack Thomas, down. I don't care what anyone, rider, fitness expert or psychologist says but no one can give 100% to two or more jobs especially with the amount of travel involved in speedway. Fans are yet again being short changed while the sport is being diluted by stupid rules.

WHEN I was assistant Race Director for a Copenhagen GP at which Madsen was the wild card, he was late for signing-on, late for riders' briefings and late for practice. Remember asking him whether he was on a different time zone. Seemed in a world of his own. Strange character.

Hello back!

Maybe he should stop with the golf carts and walk with his club's...

Shanes and Rye is not a good fit. He’s not a point and a half better than Clegg’s 2 point average so to sign him would be stupid. At least we didn’t sign him on an 11 odd average!

Even Keith Chegwin wouldn't take that swap

We were warned about KK when he signed. His inconsistency drives you mad. Most of the Rockets side have been up and down all season. In fact the only consistent rider had been Max Clegg.

KNOWS his way round Rye House

Unfortunately that's what it is all about nowadays with riders,how many meetings can I ride a week ,doesn't matter who for.

Still going through old mags, and back in 1978 Belle Vue were celebrating its 1502 member to the Supporters’ Club. I know it is 40 years since, but perhaps the lure of following a team – you needed to join the club to travel on club coaches – was one of the reasons. Belle Vue, admit ably, had an attractive side, but they had a decent line-up for much of the seventies. My belief - back then; it was the lure of following a side you could identify with. They were your boys, which you felt all sort of emotions when they won and lost. Racing was no better, but you had the belief that it was your side. You were energised to follow it on its travels, even the odd individual meeting that one of your riders was in at some far off corner of the country. But that has gone. And so-called promoters scratch their scratched-scarred heads wondering why. Speedway has suffered a continuous decline since 1978, but modern day speedway puts two fingers up at the fans that want that team ethic back we had even 20 years ago. When you see men on television riding in a Swedish match and scoring well after having had a bit of a stinker for your club just 24 hours earlier, it makes you think – why should I support a team of riders who don’t really mind what they net for you or your team, because they have a preferred match in Sweden or Poland later that same week?

Id be surprised if a well respected Speedway man like Vasey puts his name to the shambles that is Stoke Speedway

Anyway...back to planet speedway..glad to hear Ulrich has no broken bones.

You worry about Poole, Somerset seem quite happy with Garry May.

Jack has knuckled down and gets on with his job. Very easy to work with. Must be happier this year.

best thread in the championship section i’ve seen in a while I have to say! Sheff fan realising his team isn’t anywhere near as good as he thought and unhappy that they was knocked out of a competition even though everything was followed by the rules...

Meaning?

I reckon the losses will be a lot more than 30k at numerous tracks by the end of the season.

They kept animals to protect their grain.That is why we have domesticated cats,brought to Europe from Egypt by the Romans.Meat was expensive and even up to the 19th century lots of people survived on mainly a vegetarian diet.The reliance on vegetables or particularly the potato was shown in the famine in Ireland

Calculator to hand I hope. Those scores get tricky come heat 14.

He isn't related to Peter Madsen is he? (guy who was recently convicted of murdering a journalist on his home-made submarine near Copenhagen)

The word 'entourage' springs to mind!!!

Wish you hadn`t posted that as it`s reminded me that in the same season we(the Racers) had the Kai Niemi guest farce. I thought i had just got over it but i`m not so sure now.

He was merely a shadow of the rider we know he can be on Sunday , Witches fans and management must be totally frustrated with his recent performances when you know there is a much better rider in there somewhere, your management need to get to the bottom of whatever is problem is, be it mental block, physical, injury, or machinery problems, no one likes to see riders with talent just wasting away when know they have something about them and know they can do a great deal better. I was very disappointed in his efforts at the showground.

Great result, awful speedway. Felt so sorry for our little entertainer.

I have been saying this for yonks. That's why I'm out!

There were more empty spaces on the terraces than I have previously seen on my many visits to Wolves. It is worrying if that really was only 20% down on normal. What I did notice last night was that there was only one racing line and that was right down by the kerb. I know that there has always been the fastest line coming out of the bends by the kerb but in the latter stages of meetings there was often an outside racing line. Last night the track staff were obviously concentrating on maintaining the "Karlsson Corridor" during the mid meeting track work and all that did was to continue the processional racing.

OXFORD 51 1. Tim Mount 3-2*-3-2* = 10+2 2. Martyn Smith 2*-2*-3-3 = 10+2 3. Steve Edwards 2-2*-F-1* = 5+2 4. Gavin Ware 1*-1-1-2 = 5+1 5. Max Pankhurst 3-3-3-3 = 12 6. Darren Carr 1*-0-1*-0 = 2+2 7. Richard Sar-Butt 2-1-2-2 = 7 SOUTHAMPTON 32 1. Geoff Jeggo 0-1-1-1 = 3 2. Chris Pullen 1-1-2-2 = 6 3. No rider 4. Graham Knowler 3-3-2-3 = 11 5. No rider 6. Steve Eldridge 3-2*-3-3-1* = 12+2 7. No rider 1. Mount, Smith, Pullen, Jeggo 71.2 2. Eldridge, Sar-Butt, Carr [3-riders only] 77.5 3. Pankhurst, Smith, Pullen [3-riders only] 67.1 4. Knowler, Edwards, Ware [3-riders only] 70.6 5. Pankhurst, Mount, Jeggo [3-riders only] 67.9 6. Smith, Pullen, Sar-Butt [3-riders only] 71.7 7. Knowler, Eldridge, Ware, Carr 68.9 8. Mount, Edwards, Jeggo [3-riders only] 71.9 9. Eldridge, Sar-Butt, Carr [3-riders only] 77.0 10. Pankhurst, Knowler, Ware [3-riders only] 66.6 11. Eldridge, Sar-Butt, Edwards (Fell) [3-riders only] RACE AWARDED 12. Smith, Pullen, Eldridge, Carr 71.4 13. Knowler, Ware, Edwards [3-riders only] 70.3 14. Pankhurst, Mount, Jeggo [3-riders only] 67.9 SOUTHAMPTON 32 1. Geoff Jeggo 1-2-N-N-1-2 = 6 2. No rider 3. Chris Pullen 0-2-N-1-3-0 = 6 4. Graham Knowler 2-3-3-2 = 10 5. No rider 6. Steve Edridge 3-2-N-3-2 = 10 7. No rider CASTLEFORD 44 1. Rider-replacement 2. James Laker 3-3-3-3-3 = 15 3. Andrew Palmer 3-3-2*-N-3-3 = 14+1 4. Will Little 2*-1-2-2-1 = 8 5. No rider 6. Darren Carr 1*-1*-N-N = 2+2 7. Robbie Higgins 2-1-R-2 = 5 1. Laker, Little, Jeggo [3-riders only] 66.3 2. Eldridge, Higgins, Carr [3-riders only] 74.3 3. Laker, Jeggo [2-riders only] 65.2 4. Palmer, Knowler, Little, Pullen 67.1 5. Palmer, Pullen, Jeggo (NS) [2-riders only] 72.4 6. Laker, Eldridge (F.Rm), Higgins [3-riders only] 65.7 7. Knowler, Little, Carr, Eldridge (NS) 68.1 8. Laker, Palmer (F.Rm), Pullen, Jeggo (NS) 68.3 9. Eldridge, Higgins (EF), Carr (NS) 82.8 10. Knowler, Little, Jeggo [3-riders only] 69.1 11. Pullen, Higgins, Palmer (NS) 73.6 12. Laker, Eldridge, Carr (NS) 67.2 13. Palmer, Knowler, Little, Pullen 67.6 14. Palmer, Jeggo [2-riders only] 71.8

Why are you being sarcastic like that do you not believe the pics ?

Charles Wright now gone from Somerset. The sort of rider we could do with. Our top five so inconsistent away from home and for example our new No1 picks up 2 points away at Lynn. But you get what you pay for I suppose and in our case over the last three years not very much

As Pirate Nick says there's 2 sides to every story.

Poole have 7 second string riders

Yeah. Everyone suggests I ought to let it go but no-one seems able to actually give a logical response to my assertion that Sheffield have the better results and should be in the semis. Anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics can see that basing decisions on average league-points when the teams have differing numbers of fixtures is always going to give an unfair advantage to the team with fewer fixtures. Personally I would never be happy with my team qualifying for a semi-final if their performance didn't merit them being there. There's no joy in winning on a technicality. Just ask the guy who climbed two-thirds of the way up Everest but claimed that since he'd done it in half the time, his achievement was better than Edmund Hillary.

Oh dear I believe you are digging yourself a bigger hole to JCB proportions. Time to let it go and next year you may do better .

Well said Gav.

Bloody hell he's a very lucky boy . Glad to hear it's nothing broken.

Had there been another side in the group and that side managed to make Peterborough drop those home points it makes it very likely THAT team wouldve been second in the group AND therefore in with a chance of being better placed runners up than Sheffield too

A bit like not accepting a simple principle of average points per match??

If you had seen him in the pits afterwards you would have understood why he didnt clear the track ;-) he didnt even know he was in Newcastle for a long time and asked his mechanic after about 20 minutes what had happened and where had he crashed. It was worrying to see him sitting in his chair with the lights on but no one at home.

What did your promoter say then. But if Sheffield had gained one more point away then they would have qualified, and they had one more chance than Peterborough.

Two good posts. Surely enough is enough. No one really wants to see a track close but neither do we want to hear of injuries or farcical circumstances further damaging speedways fragile reputation. A suspension or closure may be a blessing.

i will 2nd that josh pickering came and attacked the track and got on with his job as did ricky wells and entertained me and others around me thats what i pay my money for. well done the 7 diamonds

Hope he never gets his gating gloves. Fabulous entertainment

Can we take it as read that you wasn't at Berwick last night, Josh Pickering may be many things but out of control isn't one of them. Silly post really.

When was he out of control? Having watched him regularly he has great control, he gives 100% every time just awful out of the gate. Could be a great rider if he learns to gate

Just going through the 1980 magazines and came across a letter. The writer experienced at the turnstile one night another supporter enquiring, before he paid, about who wasn't riding in the line-up. When the turnstile operative gave the reply of four names, he walked off and said he'd save his money. The letter writer felt it was another fan lost to the sport. How many have followed this path? How many lost through rain-offs when promised the meeting would be on? The writer, even then, said a fan wants to know who is riding and not line-ups filled by everyone and everyone. And so we have the problem of speedway's decline almost 40 years on - with present day mish-mash more off-putting than even in 1980, perhaps, when the sport was thriving. Individual meetings were becoming less popular back then - but now we have a raft of such meetings dressed up as league, as many fans can't identify with who's in their colours, they'll be in someone else's at the drop of a finish flag. Most riders are now riding as individuals - team mates one night, racing against those team mates the next, a series of testimonials.

A record 150,00 people attended Coventry Motofest over the weekend of June 2nd/3rd. The organisers provided an excellent position for the SCS&S campaign group stand and we were exposed to thousands of visitors that we would not normally expect to see. We had so many positive conversations with people and everyone we spoke to wanted to see motorsports back at Brandon ASAP! http://savecoventryspeedway.com/news.php?extend.158

I have long followed speedway from the bike in the back of the boot days and stopped going in the mid 80’s. On my return in 2004 I couldn’t believe how more professional the sport had become with vans mechanics and 2 bikes for each rider. That mirrored our society then with greater wealth per person. Sponsors were happy to invest in riders and teams as times were good. Then came the crash in 2008 money tight sponsors disappear and speedway in my opinion has been on the decline since. The sport needs a backer for all the leagues but all we have is BT in the Premiership. A few thousand pounds going to every club in the lower leagues would probably make a world of difference. If those clubs then give it to the riders in higher wages then we’re back where we started! A free for all system doesn’t work so restraint needs implementing.