Vince

I don't think Honda would be interested in building an engine especially for speedway. I would guess that there are dealerships in the states that sell more Honda mx bikes in a year than speedway engines are sold worldwide. No way are Honda selling off road bikes as loss leaders, the world market is huge.

One lap of the TT course is much the same as the distance between services for a Speedway engine though. Of course engines will blow up sometimes but I can think of exactly none that are anywhere near to the time limits of Speedway engines. You've had Speedway engines apart same as I have and it's not hard to see that reliability could be doubled or trebled with better lubrication and build quality. Just seeing one next to a modern Japanese engine is like a trip back to the 60's. I can't believe that in the past 30 years the life expectations of most engines have increased out of all expectation despite producing more power yet Speedway engines have stayed much the same and can't be improved.

Was it Arne Hendrikson used to ride Grasstrack with one leg,? not sure if he rode Speedway but was a friend of Briggo's.

So from now until the couple of years it takes GoSpeed to get their masterplan in place presumably clubs will be given completely free rein to promote as and how they wish. Including using video clips (excepting from Sky if that is a major issue) and any domain they feel suitable. After all two years in social media is a hell of a long time to waste and surely GoSpeed would have the advantage of seeing what worked best for individual clubs. It could all be tied in to a cohesive plan covering the sport once everything is in place!

Clearly at least 3 of us are interested!

I'd disagree strongly with the idea that MX engines don't run at peak rpm. Villopoto is riding a hard pack track that has obviously seen rain because it is heavily rutted in that video, therefore he won't be screaming the bike. Even so that bike is running pretty hard at times and even hits the limiter now and again in the air and his limiter will be a good chunk higher than on a stock bike. Find a video of somebody like Herlings in the sand or Barcia anywhere and you'll hear a bike scream! Water cooling is a major part of reliability on a mx bike but only because it runs for a long time. A Speedway bike running on methanol for a couple of minutes should be no problem with an efficient oil system. Fuel injection may help performance and emissions but bikes were no less reliable on carbs. To me the difference is the design and build quality, if one of the major Japanese manufacturers built a Speedway engine it would be many times more reliable than the current offerings. Can see Villipoto winning races in the GP but Cairoli getting the better of him simply because he knows the tracks and is used to the GP system. If he stays for a second year I could see Villipoto winning the Championship.

A 450 MX engine will rev to around 13500 rpm before the rev limiter kicks in so pretty similar to a Speedway engine. If you think a Speedway engine takes a beating go to any deep sand track and see what a MX bike goes through. At some of the beach races they will be absolutely flat on a big straight for as long as some entire Speedway races. There are differences such as in the weight of the crankshaft assembly that badly affect reliability but not to the extent that they are so much less reliable. That is down to design and build quality, If I get chance over the weekend I will photograph a Yamaha and Jawa cylinder head together and even in a photo you will see the difference in the quality of the castings. If I can find it I have a drawing of the oil system on a Yamaha as well, it's more complicated than an entire Speedway engine!

While it's true that any type of engine will have blow ups very few engines at any level have between service intervals of less than an hour which is about where Speedway engines are. You don't need new materials from Mars to extend engine longevity just using the best quality bearings and metals that are currently available will do so considerably, stuff like ceramic bearings, high grade alloys and top quality machining will do so to a good extent. Careful design, especially in the area of lubrication and cooling where current Speedway engines are very weak would bring the biggest gains in my opinion. The build quality and design of current Speedway engines is more comparable to a 1960's BSA than a modern Japanese motorcycle engine. Speedway engines are different to others in some ways because of the heavy rotating mass and the way they are ridden. To my way of thinking that alone isn't enough to anywhere near account for the fact that they are so much less reliable than comparable race engines. Modern mx engines have between 25 and 40 hour service intervals depending on the manufacturer and the 450 bikes will often do 3 or 4 times that amount in the hands of amateurs. Even at GP level they do a couple of hours hard use between rebuilds (just because works teams can and like a Speedway GP engine will be rebuilt after less than 15 minutes). I'm not arguing that this new engine is the best way forward for the sport only that I believe it is possible to build a Speedway engine that is many more times reliable than those currently in use.

Even easier to say that once under starters orders any rider moving backwards at all is disqualified with no replacement. Wouldn't take long to sink in!

Given that most seem to agree that the high revs on the start line are responsible for a lot of longevity problems what has happened to the rev limiter? Seemed like the riders that tested it had no issues and there is no doubt in my mind that it would help with reliability and be relatively cheap and easy to bring in and police. An improved oil system and a minimum stroke limit that did away with the extremely high revving engines around now would bring other benefits as well as increased reliability Before anybody says it I do understand about piston speed being increased along with stroke but just about every other component gets an easier life. In addition the longer stroke would do away with the need for very light flywheels giving bikes that handled deep dirt better and future proofing them against problems caused by inevitable decreases in future noise limits. While the idea of a single make engine is good I suspect the reality would be that Jawa (or whoever) would either or both reduce quality to meet a price or once there was no challenge to their monopoly increase prices. You can buy a brand new Chinese built pit bike engine that is reasonably competitive for under £400 but you will spend a lot of time replacing parts over a season. The parts are very cheap so that's fine if you do the work yourself and it's still cheap racing. However if you pay somebody else to work on your engine it would be much more cost effective to buy a more expensive better quality engine in the first place. Perhaps that is where the real savings are to be made by riders learning to do their own basic servicing and paying far less often for a full service. Personally I can't see any reason that a really well designed Speedway engine built with highest quality materials can't be made to run for 10 hours. A claiming rule for either complete bikes or engines would be the way to stop more expensive engines being further tuned. If this engine is £6000 then set a limit at £6500 and any race winner can have his engine claimed at the end of the meeting for that amount, even better if you do it with complete bikes because you could then restrict the amount spent on ancillaries as well.

Gater: Hancock and I would find it difficult to choose between him and Mauger for all time best. Racer: Tai. Sayfutdinov is more spectacular and very close but Tai on form seems to pass from unexpected angles. Ward is very spectacular indeed but fails to pass as often as he makes it at GP level. All time racer: Briggo was brilliant as was Peter Collins but with the rose tinted specs on my early days at Speedway were spent watching Christer Lofqvist pass people for fun at Poole so I'll go with him.

You can get fixed footrests, sure Max at Pegasus would have one. However like the other poster I would stick with the swinging one and get used to it, much safer.

Except the superprestigio wasn't aavailable in Europe on fanschoice. It might appear on the ama site in time

16 year old Brit Oliver Brindlay came 6th in the superfinal after being taken all the way to the fence in the first corner. This against some of the worlds very best motorcycle racers, qualifying for that final is in itself a fantastic achievement but he is on the pace as well. Great ride from the youngster and believe me he has the talent and attitude to become a top motorcycle racer no matter what sport he chooses. Marquez looks like becoming one of the all time greats and appears to be blindingly quick on any sort of bike. Found a video of the final here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7ldNazkMIU

I don't have BT sport and thought as they do it without a contract it would be worth £16 but they also want £30 setup fee and I'm not doing that for this one event.

He is but expect him to get smoked. He rode on of the British rounds earlier in the year and was OK but certainly not on the pace of the top guys. There's a half dozen British Championship regulars and accrding to FB Bradley Smith is doing really well in the Road Race class so far.

No I am really disappointed, seems they are getting it in the USA but we aren't in Europe. Apparently it's live on the red button if you have BT sport or repeated on the tomorrow.

5 British Championship runners taking part in the open class with current British Champion Tim Neaves, brother and title contender until the last race of the season Tom Neaves, 4 times British Champion Aidan Collins, talented youngster Oliver Brindley along with experienced Kawasaki team mate .Alan Birtwhistle. Guy Martin also takes part in the open class having won the restricted class at Kings Lynn earlier this year. These riders have come on leaps and bounds in the past couple of years and while they may not be on a par with the top Americans they are some of if not the best short track riders in Europe. The Americans and European flat track regulars are competing on different wheel sizes and tyres than they are used to so might take a few races to adapt fully although you can still expect the two last American Champions to be a cut above the rest. With more and more top Road Racers using flat track for training and the British Championship being the best in Europe this sport is really starting to find it's feet over here. Record entries for meetings this year and already many more riders getting machinery ready for 2015 it looks like being a great season. Gustix is part right about the tracks although the short track seen here and in the USA isn't as different as the picture he paints they do also have much larger tracks which tend to be at car or horse racing venues. The sport is similar to Speedway over there in that it just isn't getting the spectators or press coverage that it once did but is just a fantastic spectacle.

I can't see how this is any sort of issue, makes perfect sense to me. Andrew runs the training schools so is ideally placed to see and help riders progress. I think having Andrew around for advice will make the Raiders a very good place for youngsters to learn their trade.

I think that maybe if he has to get out and work in some crap job for a year to support his family it could be the best thing he has ever done. I like Lewis and think he has the ability to do even better than he has but possibly doesn't realise how good he's had it so far, just like a lot of talented youngsters. Whatever he does I hope it works out well for him.

I think the figures for F1 for a complete season would average a whole lot more than 69,000 and count as one competition.

69,000 average attendance can't even be close to F1 which had 294,000 over 3 days at Silverstone alone in 2013.

By 1929 Speedway used to be better!

To be honest much as I hate the rule I think it has next to no effect on crowd levels. This discussion has done exactly what the BSPA are accused of on here and is all about minor tinkering with the sport that will make no real difference. It's really drastic change that would be needed to turn the sport around if that is even possible. The trouble is, like promoters, we are all too close to the sport to actually know what will attract new blood.

I think this thread proves that the decline of British Speedway is entirely down to the tactical rules, remove them immediately and see the sport soar to unprecedented heights!