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Wightlink Warriors Summer Spectacular Season Is Go! Fixture List for 2021 It’s been a while coming but Shale Track action will be returning to the Smallbrook Stadium as Martin Widman, Barry Bishop and former Wightlink Wizard Ben Ilsley supported by their dedicated team of volunteers are delighted to announce there will be a magnificent SEVEN meetings taking place during the Isle of Wight Summer Spectacular shale racing season – almost all in the major holiday weeks. The seven amateur meetings outlined in the fixture programme below - some of which will be in a team format featuring sides from across the UK – will include other motorcycle disciplines including a three round Island Masters individual competition. The action kicks off on Thursday July 22nd with Round One of the Island Masters that will feature 12 riders in a Grand Prix style meeting, along with Pee Wee bike action and 125cc youth races plus Category B 500cc speedway team racing with the Wightlink Wizards. The Wightlink Warriors have planned a bumper action-packed kick-off meeting and there will be no shortage of great entertainment. The programme for the whole season is designed to be as entertaining as possible with every meeting filled to the brim with motorcycle action, fun, and family entertainment. Co-owner Martin Widman said, "We are absolutely delighted to finally announce the seasons’ entertainment for summer 2021. It's been a real struggle as we faced up to new challenges almost every day, but we have navigated a way through them and we are confident of providing "top drawer" entertainment for all the family. Barry and I would like to thank Ben for coming onboard to help with the Island Masters Series which features some top-class riders from the world of grass and long track racing, and we could not have done that without him, but we also want to pay a special tribute to our volunteers who, despite all the problems going on behind the scenes, have been steadfast in getting the stadium perfect and ready for the season. We hope that their efforts will be well rewarded with the action we have prepared for everyone, and we cannot wait to see all our old friends and lots of new ones." Here is the fixture list and the Club hope to add more fun motorcycle disciplines too such as the infamous ‘Chicken Chasing’ mopeds: July 22nd Island Masters Round 1, plus a Wizards team match, Pee Wee bikes and 125cc youth races July 29th Warriors V Oxford V Cradley team challenge also featuring Uprights GM v Weslake, Pee Wee bikes and 125cc youth races Aug 5th Island Masters Round 2, plus a Wizards team match, Pee Wee bikes and 125cc youth races Aug 12th Warriors V Oxford V Cradley revenge challenge also featuring Uprights Jawa v Weslake, Ladies Match Race, Pee Wee bikes and 125cc youth races Aug 19th Individual Handicap Speedway plus ‘The Old Boys On Track’, Pee Wee bikes and 125 youth races Aug 24th Warriors V Oxford V Cradley ‘Final Showdown’ team challenge also featuring Uprights Jawa v GM, Pee Wee bikes and 125cc youth races Sept 2nd Island Masters Round 3 plus a Wizards team match, Pee Wee bikes and 125cc youth races Admission pricing will be announced shortly.

I think that hits the nail on the head. Certain riders prefer a track where 90% of winning a race is popping first out of the gate and then defending their position. Scunny isn't like that. It's a track prepared principally for the paying customers so that they can enjoy good racing. And yesterday those fans saw some superb racing.

FORGET race nights FORGET crappy little or large stadiums FORGET admission charges. What can be changed ....... STOP gardening at the tapes STOP practice starts all over the track prior to every race. STOP riders jumping every other heat causing a restart STOP delaying every heat until the ref puts on the 2 minute warning STOP delaying meetings waiting for riders having 2 races in a row STOP delaying meetings for endless grading of the track. Tell the riders they are paid for by the spectators , tell them they are there to ENTERTAIN, not piddle about re adjusting chains back wheel nuts, cooling clutches, and refuelling the bike after every false start. IT'S BORING TO WATCH.

I've been to ten meetings already in this stop start season. I've paid my money, so I'm allowed an opinion.

So fans should accept an expensive sub standard product and be grateful for it. This is 2021, people generally expect and demand value for money. Unless speedway promoters look outside their tiny little bubble, it hasn't got a chance.

Aged well this topic didn't it.

I have heard that before. Then again, I couldn't care less what riders think (providing the track is not dangerous). Surfaces should be prepared for the benefit of paying customers, not paid employees. I didn't go today, but all accounts it was a brilliant meeting so we could do with more track preparation like that not less.

Ipswich won the toss and took gates 1,2,3 & 4

15 heats....says it all really. In my days, not that long ago, it was 13/15 heats and a second half of at least 8 more heats. Sometimes a Rider of the Night comp, sometimes a junior match , sometimes .... heavens above....both. If you were lucky you even got 3 Golden Helmet races thrown in as well.

Is that egg on your chin.

How can a rider taking his team mate down be all 4 back, one the Wolves riders had to be excluded! Rerun was all 4 but shouldn’t have had 4 riders in it.

It can be done providing the points monies don't get away from clubs again. But £15 on the gate (too steep but its happening), circa 600 crowd = £9k. £25 per point average across a team, decent team getting 50 points home and away = £2.5k. That leaves £6500 of leftovers. Yes there is then travelling costs, insurances, rent, medical etc but there is still a little meat left on the bone at those figures. The prime juggling act is how to get gate costs down / attendance up to balance each other out then the atmosphere is better etc. Get the points money down to £20 per point (and there are plenty of NL riders who would happily rider for that) and sustainability can occur. Sadly it only takes one or two clubs to buckle and throw silly money at riders and the whole thing collapses again.

We had hoped to have had more Brits in the team and thought about Adam Ellis but he was born in France. We wondered if Mark Loram could be persuaded to make a comeback but he was born in Malta. Meanwhile we were keen to welcome back Connor Bailey as he was not only an up and coming rider but also a decent personable young man. He was signed for last year and was on the BSPL rising star list for 2021. Unfortunately he was prevented initially from returning to the UK due to the Covid pandemic. So alls well that ends well. Welcome back Connor.

Too few races and too many delays sums speedway up. The whole show caters for the riders, not the suffering fans that pay to watch it.

Certainly 'everyone being off at weekend' has changed considerably however.. It's telling that other forms of Motorsport all run into, and through the weekends, rather than try and run during the week.. As has been alluded to on this thread "making a day of it" would be the best way Speedway clubs could attract new fans.. Bottom line is Speedway in the UK is just an opportunity for riders to earn money under an ultra tenuous "team" infrastructure, that ultimately delivers "Championships" hardly anyone cares about, achieve very little merit or kudos in winning, and certainly have no major financial reward... If that is your starting point to attract "new fans" and your one saleable item is 15 heats/minutes of Speedway, often ran on days to accommodate your employees wishes, then you are clearly not going to make a success of it..

I feel for Newcastle i really do. The current season is a bust and is about avoiding losing bucket loads of money and being able to come to the tapes again in 2022. If they do get to the tapes in 2022 the team assembly will be on the back foot because they don't have the financial clout of other teams which has been further hampered by this season. There is the dwindling fans numbers due to multiple reasons and then that will largely dictate the budget available for team building next year. Until the cycle can be broken it feels like repeated iffy times for the Diamonds

But you used to. Oh forgot certain belle Vue fans have short memories

Witches tonight: Jason returned too early.... Anders did his job..... Danny did well..... Jake looked nervous all night..... Craig had an off night..... Drew struggling at foxhall..... Paul did his job.... Ritchie no idea.....

If ever one big league was needed for speedway its 2022.

That is a shocking all 4 back call, fell off on his own

The farce on the start line sums up speedway. As screm says a mess.

If I chose to do a 600 mile trip knowing it may finish in 45 min, yes I would be happy. But in the years I went to matches non were as quick as 45 minutes nor do I expect a match to be, more realistically between 75-90 min, 90 is quite enough. What I don’t want to see is excessive gardening, pit gates open mechanics out at false starts, chain tensioning, numerous practice starts etc.

In fairness I was not overly impressed with this year line up when announced and did state on here we would beat Plymouth ( much to Lewy,s disliking) and Newcastle and couldn't see much past that. But the team has been fantastic around the EWR on every meeting I have seen (missed Leicester) with the racing getting back to its best yesterday was brilliant. I did eat humble pie and tell Rob as if you can criticise you have to be man enough to be mocked when your original thoughts were way off long May it continue

Yes the rain has been biblical down here,when I drove past the track this morning the 3and4 bends were totally underwater from the inside to mid track and more rain forecast. Hopefully when this match is finally taking place both teams will be at full strength.

Thanks. Certainly some valid points here and some fair insight on the plight of modern day promoters. My point over moving to a weekend model could admittedly been described as simplistic...and - taken in isolation - it is. There is a whole load of things that need to change for British speedway to ever get back towards being both a viable and credible proposition. Scheduling is just one. As others have highlighted the biggest issue of the product itself not being strong enough. It's unpalatable for a lot us, but people outside the sport see speedway as a Mickey Mouse sport. The whole sport needs a proper strategy starting with a blank piece of paper....finding out what the British public want from a regular motorsport outing and delivering that. And no, that doesn't mean pandering to the shrinking, ageing die-hards, much as they might whinge. Carrying on as it is will do nothing more than guarantee the sport's slow, inevitable death.

1) They are NOT paid for by the spectators; it hasn't been that way in years. They are paid for by the promoters, who bankrupt themselves in doing so. If they truly were paid for by the spectators, they'd be riding for 7 quid a night... 2) They USED to go out to entertain. Unfortunately, speedway has gone the way of many other sports, and the only thing that's important to most riders is making money. Oh, and pretending they are some international sporting superstar. 3) Readjusting chains is NOT boring. In fact, it can compare quite favourably to some of the racing I see...

I think you would find that if football ran itself using the UK Speedway operating model it too would be struggling very badly to attract fans.. In fact, a better analogy might be if Poland ran its Speedway the way the UK ran theirs, it would also be on its backside.. It would have.. No tribal following of hundreds of thousands of fans.. No one club riders who are synonymous with certain tracks to help build that fundamentally vital loyal emotional attachment to the club and individual... No major individual and team sponsorship from national companies to fund the paying out of 'Superstar wages' to 'Superstar riders". And. No TV companies having to tender (willingly given the size of prize on offer), for the rights to broadcast a 'ratings winner' into millions of Polish homes every weekend.. "I say Gregorz, old bean, could I borrow Tai on Friday because Bartosz is riding in the GP Challenge Saturday night?".. "Sorry Marek, Tai is already racing for Leszno agsinst you that night because Emil is in the same meeting as Bartosz. I do believe Patryk may be available though if you call FZG".. "Be quick though, I believe Lublin are after him to replace Michelsen on Sunday"... Can't see the Polish fans, sponsors, or TV broadcasters going for that somehow..

I am sure even the most fervent away supporters from Glasgow and Edinburgh must have enjoyed their visits to the EWR, despite the results for them. The last 30 Championship heats at the EWR have produced some exceptional racing and all credit to riders of the three teams. Yesterday from the outset it was clear The Monarchs are a top heavy team and fairly weak for the other 4 positions. Around the EWR , any of the Scorpion riders are capable of big scores and Yesterday that proved the case. Jordan Palin had a terrific meeting for someone still very young and learning their trade and looks a fine prospect for the future big stage. Special shout out to our guest, sometimes guests just go through the motions, but yesterday Ully was well up for the task. It was nice to see him taking his plaudits and ever smiling, well done sir. Only negative from the meeting ,after two showers I am still getting shale out of my hair!

My argument would be that it's more likely to be the product that has changed rather than all the people who no longer go because they don't love it any more. It's a shame because when speedway is spot on there is arguably nothing better but it's so rarely like that any more unfortunately.

I think working hours have changed so much for both riders and fans that weekday meetings are no longer viable for quite a large percentage.

Kings Lynn is an absolute dump where you would see complete no names Norwich City are offering a cheapest season tickets for £500 which works out at the cheapest ticket of about £27.00 per game, the two stadiums and the general experience are a million miles apart. Speedway is an over priced sport for what is on offer.

The NDL price at kent is a 24 carat liberty

Neither did it mine. I was going to West Ham as an eight year old on a Tuesday night from my South London home. I slept in the car coming home and always got up for school in the morning.

On the face of it, what you say is undoubtedly correct - run meetings when you are more likely to attract paying customers. Unfortunately, its not as simple as that. For a start, three quarters of British Speedway clubs do not own their own stadiums and are therefore at the directions of landlords (Peterborough, for example, would have absolutely no hope of getting a regular weekend race night). Consequently, they take what they can get. Even those that do either own or have substantial control over stadiums (such as Belle Vue) may decide that other uses - such as stock car racing or greyhounds - are more likely to be profitable (BAGS contracts for greyhounds are extremely lucrative). Others - such as Kent - may have planning issues, while Isle of Wight could not possibly run on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays due to the situation with the ferries. Secondly, experience suggests that switching to weekends isn't always the solution. When Sheffield switched from Thursdays to Sundays it was so disastrous the club almost folded and I haven't noticed a significant change to Redcar's crowds since they changed from Thursday to Friday. When Ashley Taylor was considering opening a track in Cornwall, he told me that the days he would not run were Friday or Saturday as people were coming or going from holidays (possibly as many as half of our clubs might take this into account) and Adrian Smith advised at a Belle Vue fans forum some years ago that aside from school holidays attendances at Belle Vue were higher on Mondays than Fridays. Football's attendances certainly do not seem to be affected by playing midweek. When Plymouth switched from Friday to Tuesday they gave a statement why : Plymouth Gladiators Club Statement - Plymouth Gladiators Speedway (plymouth-speedway.com). As can be seen, it wasn't all about the number of Championship clubs that ride on that night (although that is clearly another factor as to why clubs do not run at weekends). Mike BV has made the point that the sport seems to be run for the benefit of riders (up to a point at least) and I agree. However, what they require cannot simply be completely ignored. Some consideration has to be given to what they need because we can't have speedway without them. I am not saying you are wrong so much as pointing out that putting your solution into practice is anything but easy or guaranteed to be successful.

This afternoon, i went to an excellent British Masters Grasstrack qualifier at the superb Dig Dog Lane circuit in Frittenden Kent. Over 40 races run at breakneck speed with the rain falling throughout. No track inspections, just brave riders doing their stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

I'm sure I've made this point before, but I'll keep on like a broken record anyway. Speedway has to tailor itself for a family day out....it can do that on a Bank Holiday or Weekend afternoon, it simply cannot on a school night....and will end up with the same shrinking ageing hard-core. It has to reach out to a wider demographic...like football, cricket, rugby, horse racing, basketball, netball all do. Imagine a restaurant running its business only on a midweek night because its staff were in Poland, Sweden etc at the weekend?! That's what British speedway does. It's Einstein's definition of insanity. Plymouth is my local track now. It's a 40mins drive. Am I going to take my 8 year old kids on a Tuesday night, rushing there and back for £50 minimum? No chance. The weekend is different, we are time rich and looking for something to do as a family. Are there any matches at the weekend? There's nowt. Quite simply, they won't see me and thousands of other families this year.

And they make it even worse but carrying on with the 4 team play offs, only in speedway could a team finish in the bottom half of a table and still be league champions. If play offs were going to be kept with 7 or less teams, it should have been top two straight to a final

Clearly not fit.

Sheffield need some team changes when the new averages come out. Wright, Sedgmen, Bates (i know hes not riding tonight), leaving us with a long tail.

Thats it have seen enough over and out !

They`ll be dancing on the streets of Berwick tonight.

A wager is a bet you ignoramus... think wage with er on the end... the wagger how you are thinking it is pronounced is the button mushroom that hangs between your legs that you call a dick... and contains your solitary brain cell... What happened to the promise you made yourself the other week about not posting on here anymore... That didn't last long did it... Regards THJ

Jack Smith has been released by Glasgow. I know he's not liked at Kent but could he help strengthen the team somewhere. Don't know how it would fit with averages and team limit?

Saw something from him saying hopefully back next week. Nothing broken but battered and bruised.

Some promotions are in charge, others don't have a voice or vote on the product that they are trying to sell to the public whilst others are pulling the strings and forcing changes onto others. I wish that Speedway was a bloodline sport, that it appealed to the masses and people attended however their team was performing (although lets not cloud facts that football fans are just happy to turn up, they too are looking for a certain standard and complain royally if that is not achieved). The problem is that many of those 'on here' were regular attending fans but have been driven away for a number of reasons and there is almost nothing done to entice them back. Calls of use it or lose it don't matter to those who already think its over priced, strung out, mixed quality racing. They have already made up their minds that they can live without. There is no one size fits all and until the powers that be realise that the sport will keep sinking

scunny is one of the easiest track to ride but the hardest to get the proper set up for as the meeting goes on as it changes so much , in a lot of meetings teams seem to be going really well till ht 8/10ish when the blue groove appears then struggle from then on

Track prep?? The track that has won many award so that’s down to the individual who gets worried about different racing lines and panics and then gets crap scores…hmmm

Yes, guess you are right. I just get frustrated to see tracks standing unused when they should be in the league, so I'll take back what I said, although I do prefer NDL racing myself.

You got that wrong again.

Krosno v Gdansk Monday 14th June https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAZxPxmC9dU