Vince

It's difficult for me personally to have sympathy for Scunthorpe's position regarding team strengths. My lad was part of a Newport CL team that was full of youngsters at the start of their career that was roundly criticised by Rob Godfrey for not being competitive and therefore bad for the Conference league. I thought he was wrong at the time and still do now, if teams are willing to bring riders on and stick with them long enough for them to develop into a competitive team then they should be allowed to do so. It is hard on the top end teams but there is always the option available for them to try out a couple of youngsters when competing against a weaker team. To my way of thinking tracks like Scunthorpe and Rye House who are running training schools and NL teams should be helped financially by those teams that do neither. At the end of the day without these tracks the others don't survive.

Personally I think calling it the Joker in the World Cup is nearer the truth and the way league points are now awarded is the fair way to account for track differences. I understand the logic behind the rule but detest it, equally I never had any time for the TS either. For me the beauty of Speedway is in it's simplicity, 4 blokes line up then go hell for leather for 4 laps, first over the line wins. As soon as the guy in second wins the whole point of the sport disappears for me. Having said that I believe the impact of the TR on the numbers watching Speedway is minimal. Like most of the suggestions made it is only of significance to current Speedway fans and it will take something far more radical to get new people along to watch. Slowing the decline is one thing but with an ageing fan base it will continue so new blood is the only thing that will make the sport more popular in the long term. That's not going to come from having the top riders because Joe Bloggs doesn't know who they are, it's not going to come from any tinkering with the rules because he doesn't care about them yet. It has to come from his knowing that he will get a good entertaining night out that will be more fun than his Playstaion or the TV. Set in surroundings where he can take his missus / girlfriend or even meet the next one because the facilities are respectable and promoted so that it is the cool place for them to be. Very tall order and with some stadiums probably never possible but on the bright side I would expect the sport to survive in something like it's current form for a long time yet.

Whether they do or not they make enough money to invest in Speedway!

Having seen this feller in action I can well believe that his handiwork ruined the track for the rest of the season. If he trashed it pre season and then it is used as much as Coventry is it was never going to recover fully and I guess that long dry spells followed by some very wet weather would put paid to any improvement that had been made.

Difference being that the Jury and the appeal court judges will have had ALL the facts in front of them. Can't disagree though that if he is maintaining his innocence there can be no reason for remorse or apologies.

Can't disagree with that Dean. Couldn't believe they couldn't get a rider when I saw it on FB, you would think somebody would want to give it a go. Must admit that as much as I want to see young British riders make their way when I go to Rye House for practice days I can't help but wonder why some spend so much time sitting around in the pits. There are British kids out there though with a really good attitude and it would be unfair to tar them all with the same brush.

You only have to go to an amateur meeting at Scunthorpe to see there are plenty of people out there who want to ride Speedway. Give them the opportunity to have plenty of time on the bike and it's worth spending their hard earned money on. Let those thinking about it see that there is a system in place to help them to progress to the higher leagues and you will see more taking it up. The problem then is that for those good enough to progress through the national league into the PL so often get stopped dead by the asset system that makes an untried foreign rider a better option for a promoter. Once they get him over they'll persevere with him because they stand to gain something in the long term if he comes good. The British lad will get a few meetings and if he struggles will be out (not least because the fans will be wanting him gone). It's a big step up and these kids need a fastrack system for the PL that gives them the time to learn their trade. The asset system needs to go in my opinion and be replaced by a fund to help training tracks paid into by those teams that don't run them. Then give a team building points advantage for riders retained year on year by teams and you will maybe get your local heroes back. Don't let foreign riders drop below their assessed average for team building and you'll take away another obstacle for British riders. I would say though that those willing to come over and ride on an ACU licence giving the British leagues priority could be exempt.

Couple of things I have seen on here where riders are criticised perhaps unfairly. Everybody did used to use a car with a bike rack, however had the option been there at the time to run a van that cost no more than a car and was just as fast they all would have been in vans. The Renault Trafic we owned was better on fuel and as practical for everyday use as my wifes Megane. It even went in multi story car parks without problems. With riders required to have two bikes at a meeting these days a van is the only option anyway really and there is no cost cutting to be had by using a car. Sign writing, undoubtedly some riders have it for the ego boost but for my lad and I'm sure many others the van was sign written because a sponsor wanted it to be, it is definitely an attraction to sponsors to have a travelling billboard. For us travelling and time off work was the killer cost not engines. Difficult to see how to get around that when tracks mostly have to run when the landlord allows. The idea of a standard engine seems a good one, however as you never get two engines to run identically those with money to waste will buy several engines, select the best and sell the others on. I doubt GM would survive if Jawa were the sole engine for league racing and how long would it be before the price of the Jawa started to rise if they had a monopoly? I like the idea of engines having to be sold at say 125% of standard cost. Even better if complete bikes had a price put on them, that would really discourage people spending unnecessary money on bikes. The rev limiter is a great idea imo, might be easily fiddled by an electronics wizard but its even easier to check at any time by any bloke with a rev counter. Riders could help the costs for themselves by learning to do basic servicing (and by learning that bikes screaming on the stand are wearing out rapidly!). Clubs owning and maintaining bikes would be OK until the end of the first season when the winning teams would be accused of cheating by the fans of every other team. This would then be killing the sport because the BSPA are useless and it was much better when riders had their own engines and you knew they weren't being stitched up by the promoters!

I have always much preferred individual meetings, afraid I just don't see racing as a team event.

In American Flat track at least the cameras are not allowed to be attached to a helmet but are allowed on the bike which seems sensible.

Does Ward hold an ACU licence? If so that is his route to FIM affiliation. No idea if that makes a difference legally but it is a way that could involve the ACU. Since he admitted on TV that he was likely to be over the limit it seems unlikely that he is going to be able to get off completely on a technicality. My own opinion is that he needs a fairly harsh punishment as a warning that he needs to sort himself out. Speedway may need riders like him but it needs people who behave like he does off the track like a hole in the head. If he continues as he has been doing the sport would be better without him.

I think they weren't so worried about the riders but once the spectators started getting killed it had to stop. Actually evolved into Flat track racing on the horse trotting tracks where the same riders competed on the same bikes. They still do it now with riders on mile tracks doing over 140mph on the straights before sliding through the corners on some big twin cylinder bikes, fantastic spectacle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fQmKWK0Z1o

He's have probably tried to exclude one of the Kings Lynn riders!!!

There are kids out here that have engine's that cost as much as a GP riders, they can't ride them and so aren't World Champion. Riders jumping on others bikes and doing well is still a case of getting on a bike that is set up for them. I bought a bike off Bjarne Pedersen several years ago for my son, we still have the dyno charts here and it made an incredible amount of power. It didn't turn him into a superstar because he didn't have the ability to either set it up perfectly or ride it as it needed to be. Put Tai on that same bike and with a couple of races to set it up he would be winning EL races. He was easily the best rider in the GP series last year and it's nonsense to say his bike was illegal now there is now ay of proving you wrong, it's not something he or Peter Johns would risk though.

His bikes were quicker with him on them, put one of the other top riders on the same bike, set up the same way and they most likely would be slower than on their own bike. Unlike F1 where you have to be in that years best car to win a Championship.

F1 isn't very similar at all to Speedway, the aims and way you get to them aren't in any way comparable. The drivers however will have all been at the top in at least one tightly restricted class on their way to their current seat. Speedway engines are rarely built or set up to make maximum power, it is far more about the rider finding something that works for him. The top riders all have that, the very best are able to make small adjustments that suit the conditions better on the night. I do no believe that Tai won the World Championship because his engines were superior on 16 different track but because he was the rider able to get the best out of his bikes throughout the series, he rarely made the wrong choice of where to go in a race either. As one who didn't think he should have been in the series at the beginning of last year I had to eat my words because he was brilliant at every aspect of his job in the GP's and totally deserved his championship.

Doesn't matter how much money I had, if I buy Tai's engines I would be worse off than on a standard motor because I don't have the skills to make use of them. Everybody in the GP's has the opportunity to build the engines they want and Tai looking like he had a really quick engine at times will be much more down to getting the set up right than the basic engine.

If your son is grown up enough to be riding league Speedway he is old enough to fight his own battles. That said the only battles he should ever have to fight should be against other riders. My opinion always has been that riders will have spats and maybe throw a few punches and the refs shouldn't come down too hard on that but anybody except another rider who hits a rider should be banned from the pits or trackside for ever.

How do you? For sure everybody does make a mistake now and again or does something daft, ride over your head all the time and you won't be around long enough to worry other riders. To my way of thinking if your main concern is whether somebody else might hurt you then you have reached the time to give away racing any sort of motorcycle. The first day I go to a meeting and worry about getting hurt will be my last race meeting.

I'm worrying that Speedway as it stands isn't sustainable on those crowd levels. Either the costs need to be lowered or the crowds increased. If you are going to use comparisons then they need to be genuinely relevant and that means events that happen weekly or more often otherwise expectations of revised marketing strategies are unrealistic.

I think if you pull out of a meeting because you are worried about the way others are riding you need to find a different sport.

To be honest, sat here doing the figures off the top of my head I think my maths might be a bit awry but as I am only guessing numbers anyway and have deliberately stayed on the conservative side I suspect it's not a million miles out and the total figures including NL would be getting toward the half million. No idea whatever on the make up of the crowd and as I was only making a comparison to overall figures for darts and cricket it's irrelevant anyway. No surprise that Speedway is comparable to non league Football for me, suspect most of the riders wish the net pay was as well.

Sounds impressive. lets assume an average of 800 for EL matches and 600 for PL and completely forget NL. Speedway pulls in 466,000 spectators to league matches compared to one of the fastest growing sports 120,000. Speedway sells over 40,000 tickets for just the one day British round of it's World Championship compared to the same sort of figure for 15 days for one of the fastest growing sports. 20/20 cricket pulls in roughly 50% more spectators despite the huge advantage of a mainstream press that thinks there are only 3 sports and a population bought up playing Football and Cricket from an early age. Those of us old enough to remember the late 70's and early 80's will remember when Darts was far bigger than it is now with the likes of Bristow and Lowe being as famous as Briggo and Mauger were in Speedways boom times. I'm not doubting the success that has been made of promoting either Darts or 20/20 Cricket but equally Speedway tracks that run every week cannot ever expect the same success from a marketing strategy. Sidney, we'll just have to disagree on that one, I watched most of my Speedway in the late 60's and all through the 70's and every time I see the lads ride today I am impressed with the speed and commitment. I saw some great Speedway in the good old days but I also saw some terrible meetings, much like now really!

I couldn't disagree more if you look at Speedway without the rosy tint of nostalgia I firmly believe the racing is at least as good and probably better. The atmosphere at 20/20 and darts might well be good, run the same events in the same place every week and see how long that lasts. Again the comparison is with relatively rare events and just how many people pay to watch darts in a season? I've no idea but would suspect Speedway does well in comparison. Rugby and 20/20 are a fairer comparison but with the cricket at least it's done little for gates at ordinary league matches as far as I am aware. Rugby has done a terrific job of re-marketing itself but I think has already passed it's peak since then and it's another sport like Speedway that has peaks and troughs of popularity.

Done and posted on Facebook and other forums, the more the merrier for this one.