Vince

I am not sure if you are fishing or if in your haste to whine about short track you expose your lack of understanding how bikes are ridden. I have seen quite a lot of these F2 bikes and have yet to see them ridden like a shorttrack bike, of course that would be impossible given that one has a brake and the other doesn't. The F2 is most definitely a 'proper' Speedway bike and is ridden as such. In fact those who lament the passing of the 2 valve Jap's and Jawa's will love these bikes as they are ridden in a similar style to which they were rather than the super aggressive style of modern Speedway. However it is 100% Speedway. Shorttrack is a completely different sport as you rightly point out. However as they use the same engines and ancillaries as these F2 bikes in similar circumstances the reliability comparison seems valid to me.

But I bet you were running it on dope so end up with the worst of both worlds! On Sunday we did a flattrack practice at Rye House, it was an open track practice so we could go on and off track as we pleased. I shared my bike with my son and would guess that we put something around 200 laps in between us. We are running a pace that would be about 4 or 5 seconds off PL race times so a decent speed for amateur Speedway. Maintenance consisted of checking the water level a couple of times and topping up with fuel once. Within 90 minutes of arriving home the bike was washed, oil changed and air filter replaced so apart from changing the rear tyre it's ready for the next outing. That is the same number of laps that have Speedway riders sending motors off to be serviced, nobody would dare put that many laps on a Speedway engine in 4 hours. I have a little mechanical knowledge and take about 40 minutes to shim valve clearances (including stripping and replacing the parts needed to get to them), done it twice on my bike in the past 2 years and it only actually needed adjusting once. No more technical than cleaning and adjusting a Blixt which you do every meeting as a Speedway rider. I do think there is a place for these bikes. If there were several in the system somebody new to the sport can turn up and do as many laps as they want without worrying about how much wear they are putting on the engine. They are around Speedway pits and bikes, learning for later without finding out the hard way that forgetting to pull the bike back on TDC can cost you £500. By the time they get on a full blooded Speedway bike they have learned their craft without frightening themselves stupid, Speedway bikes these days are a handful for anybody let alone beginners. They won't be put off by the constant maintenance for little riding time that is the lot of the Speedway rider. Some will move on to mainstream Speedway because they have the will and ability to progress. You could have them at training schools where bikes could be shared between riders and they could have a class at amateur meetings for starters. If you see these bikes being ridden it is Speedway exactly as you know it not something similar but the real thing. It has to be worth a look simply because the way things are currently isn't getting people into the sport.

A 2v Jawa or a JAP is still a very high compression engine with huge flywheels that vibrate, they do so at lower revs which could allow a little more reliability if modern manufacturing was bought into play. They were never anywhere near as reliable as a modern Japanese engine in any case. You would still be cleaning carbs and stripping clutches every meeting as well, the idea is to have something that needs minimal maintenance for newcomers to the sport. The power reduction is because of the way the engine is built to provide reliability not the other way around.

Manufacturing tolerences, water cooling, much lower compression ratios and mainly 50bhp instead of 75bhp. The Japanese are producing hundreds of thousands of these units and their customers would in no way accept engines with the lifespan of a Speedway engine. Neither do they need/ want the outright power so that is the trade off. As far as I am aware the idea is to have a formula that allows a cheaper and easier route into the sport rather than replacing what is already there. Presumably if they were ever to be bought into any of the leagues it would be a long term and gradual change

Availability of engines is a valid point in my opinion although more do come up for sale than seems logical. It would also be quite possible to buy a complete bike and end up paying very little for the engine by the time you sell off the rest. You can buy an older bike for about £1500 and get £600 back for the wheels and suspension alone. If you only get £200 back for the rest of the bike that gives you an engine and ancillaries for £700. Parts aren't much cheaper but their lifespan is huge compared to a Speedway engine, it would be reasonable to easily expect two or even three full seasons of Speedway without touching the motor in my opinion. Most manufacturers suggest 15 to 20 hours before stripping a 450 mx engine. 15 hours is getting toward 900 Speedway races! Nothing happens to the gearbox, you just use 2nd or 3rd gear and change rear sprockets same as any Speedway bike. Running on petrol means less compression which has a big influence on reliability. Radiator damage is always possible but you often see MX bikes take horrendous tumbles without damage. Radiator repairs are about £75 and in two seasons of being a bad shortrack racer who falls over a lot I have had to get one repair and that was only because I was daft enough to try and straighten a twisted rad. One big advantage I can see is that young riders could get into Speedway and ride every chance they get without having to spend anywhere near so much time working on the bike. It would literally be a case of washing down, change the air filter and lube the chain with an oil change every few meetings. No clutch plates or carbs to do and the bikes don't vibrate near as much so frames and engine plates and so on would last forever. It wouldn't be a replacement for current Speedway machines but a sensible route into the sport and well worth consideration. If passion for a project could make it successful you only need to talk to Pete Seaton for 5 minutes and you'll be convinced :-)

I've seen quite a lot of the bikes this year and do believe they could produce some good racing. As a cheaper way to get youngsters into the sport it just has to be worth a go as what has been happening the past 20 years hasn't got them flooding in.

I think it is a good to question the safety of air fences. Obviously we have all seen some spectacular incidents over the past few years where you immediately think that the air fence has saved a rider from serious injury. However while that may often be the case it is also often the case that you see riders walk away from spectacular crashes involving wooden fences, it is wrong to just assume that every rider who goes into the air fence hard would have been seriously injured had it been another type of fence. There is still a major issue with riders going underneath the fences and this has been a known problem for a number of years and has caused some horrible injuries. My opinion would be that air fences are a very good thing when properly installed and with something solid behind them. However that clearly isn't always the case and there are improvements that really need to be made before it can be automatically considered to be the best option. Again only my opinion that there are other fences, Rye House being my favourite, that are as good if not better than many air fences. Opinions, including mine, are all very well but like the original poster I believe that there needs to be facts to back it up. Just assuming that air fences are the best option because running into a bouncy castle is better than running into a wall is not really common sense at all.

Depends how it's used I think. You do read that somebody won't pay to watch a load of 'wobblers' when they are talking about NL racing. Clearly they haven't watched NL. However when referring affectionately to real novice racers it seems fair enough.

That could be the case if there was absolutely no dispute about the safety measure involved, however given some of the injuries to riders that have gone underneath fences there are still issues to be resolved about where they are definitley the best option.

I can understand why you would say that but clearly all safety is a compromise. If we are really going to put safety at the top of Speedway's agenda then we will see riders on mopeds, with brakes, sweep the dirt off the track and put rubber matting down. Clearly that's nonsense but Speedway is a very dangerous sport and there are huge compromises made with rider safety as there are with any dangerous sport. There seems no doubt that air fences help riders when the crash, however has anybody looked into the 'comfort factor' where riders feel safer so take more chances with an air fence? We keep reading that more riders have been injured this season than ever before (I'm not at all sure that's true) and there are more air fences than ever before so how does that stack up? There are still major issues with the installation of air fences and what is behind them if riders go underneath to be resolved. I have Rye House and Kings Lynn left to race at this season, if I go hard into the fence I would much rather it be the wooden one at Rye than the air fence at Lynn, no criticism of Kings Lynn where they have made it as safe as possible but my opinion is that Rye is about the best fence I know. As ever with these things it isn't straight forward and if clubs are faced with closure because of an air fence can the sport just allow that to happen?

Thanks for the explanation, cleared some things up for me. For sure Speedway looks like (and mainly is) a blue collar sport and I can't see that changing. Presumably C2DE people outnumber ABC1 by quite a margin so is that necessarily a bad thing? Clearly I am no expert but as ever when I read about demographics and advertising I can't help but think that media and advertising types use the 'bulls**t baffles brains' approach to make themselves good money out of common sense

Rye practice cancelled Sunday 25th August due to Bank holiday meetings.

Genuine questions because I know jack about advertising. Do Mercedes pay more for the same time slot than DHS? Which sports attract that apparently preferable demographic? You say Football but I don't believe for one minute that percentage wise their demographic is hugely different to Speedway though clearly numbers of each group would be far higher. I am guessing Tennis, Rugby, equestrian sports but then am struggling. Something like F1 would undoubtedly be on the list live but I suspect armchair viewers are little different to Speedway. Darts and Snooker must be the most obvious case of having the less desirable demographic yet both take up incredible amounts of prime time TV how does that fit in? I am with Grand Central as well in that I am not entirely convinced you are right about the current demographic for Speedway.

I used to work for Jimmy Squibb and he told me that when the Jawa came in it was cheaper to run than a JAP because it only needed servicing every 6 meetings. If I remember correctly he used well known 'tuner' of the time, Mike Erskine although he would sometimes take the head off and lap the valves in himself. I can believe that about Phil Crump, presumably his engine would have been built by Neil Street in those days. Neil was an exceptional engineer and if anybody could put an engine together to last a season it would have been him. The most reliable engine that I have heard tale of was the 897 Jawa which was a 4 valve upright. Certainly my 2v Jawa wouldn't have lasted an entire season and it only went at half the speed of Phil Crump's. However it was also serviced by a first year apprentice truck fitter so didn't really have a chance of reliability

I wonder if the demograph of Sky subscribers matches the apparently desirable ABC1's?

I would disagree with just about everything you say :-) A 2 valve engine is very little, if any, different to maintain than a 4 valve. There is a perception that 2 valve engines ran on forever but in my experience that just isn't true. If you took a 60's Jawa 2 valve and tuned it to the levels that riders want/ need these days it wouldn't last half as long as the current engines. If they were still run at 9000rpm then they would last longer but a 4v would last longer still. Riders could maintain a 4 valve engine in the same way many used to (many used to use tuners then as well) but as I said in a previous post expectations of equipment are very much higher from riders, promoters and fans alike. Racers in any motor sport are subject to feeling the need for the very best equipment and Speedway is no different. If rider A has the latest all singing all dancing parts then rider B feels he needs the same to be competitive. Whether he actually does or not may be a different matter but the fans will never forgive him if he loses them a trophy because he didn't have the best equipment. Increased wage demands? I think that in real terms riders of the past earned more from Speedway than they do today. However promoters could afford more and whether the demands of todays top riders can be met might be a different story. I have followed Speedway since 1967 or 1968 and believe that the racing I see today is better than any I saw in my youth. The atmosphere has gone with the crowds but the racing and the skill level of todays riders is brilliant imo. Is a Speedway engine today really more expensive than it was in the 60's? Just from memory I would say that there were less injuries in the 70's but more were very serious. Riders today seem to be on the edge the whole time and need to be to win so there do appear to be a lot more crashes. However that is just an opinion and I have no facts to support it.

The tracks where their survival is in doubt, if the rumours are true. If those tracks were to break away would others follow if it made their financial position more sustainable? So much depends on what changes are or have been agreed for next season but it is something I have thought a possibility for a while.

Probably not but that very likely means the sport is going to lose some tracks. I'm not so certain as you they will just accept that.

If you bought in a rule tomorrow stating that everybody had to use 2 valve uprights and ignored the redundant equipment and need for a completely new set up for every rider it still wouldn't save a penny. Speedway is an expensive sport but that's because of a combination of things and little to do with the basic engines. Compared to years ago travelling is far more expensive. The job market has changed significantly so it is harder to find a job that fits in with Speedway commitments, the chances of having an employer who is a Speedway fan so willing to allow time off for the sport has more or less disappeared. Plenty of riders hold down a job as well, many need to in order to subsidise their Speedway. The standard of equipment expected by promotions, fans and riders has increased greatly. We often see comments on here about how great it was that riders turned up with a bike on a rack on the back of their car. See how fans react these days when a rider turns up with scruffy equipment or even worse if mechanical problems cost their team a win and you'll realise those days are long gone. Just read through any team thread and you are likely to come across somebody saying that rider a would be ok but he has really slow bikes and needs to invest in his equipment! That's just rider costs, when it comes to stadiums and tracks H&S, utility bills, cost of transporting track materials, medical cover and a never ending list of other essentials that are getting ever more expensive all take their toll. Cost cutting isn't as easy as it might seem. I would suggest a standardisation of carburrettors, ignitions and clutches along with a rev limiter to increase reliability to cut equipment costs for riders. The saving from that in terms of reduced admission would probably be pennies rather than pounds. In reality the operating costs of Speedway are probably already pretty near the bone.

I can imagine that the BSPA might bring in a 'gentlemans agreement' not to use riders from a non affiliated league. However like most such agreements they make it wouldn't be too long before somebody desperately needed a rider or a really promising rider came through the new set up and a reason was found to use them. There might be a spell where young riders find it difficult to make the break through but it wouldn't be very long before the supply of new riders dried up for the higher level clubs. I'm not suggesting that this is the way forward for the sport but just wondering if it might happen given the rumour that the requirement for air fences will see tracks closing.

Insurance wouldn't be an issue, any of the current motorcycle federations are already set up to provide cover. International meetings not a problem either. It was decided in court many years ago that riders could hold licences in different affiliations so they could take out an ACU licence in addition to whatever licence any breakaway league required if they wanted to compete internationally. I really can imagine something along the lines of the current NL being run without the involvement of the ACU/ BSPA.

It would seem that there are more than a couple of tracks who are going to really struggle to be able to install air fences in time for next season. Given that will be a condition of entry to league racing under the FIM, ACU, BSPA are we likely to see a group of tracks running under a different authorising body next year?

Because they have found a place to 'grind their axe' anonymously and if they do so repeatedly it gives them a voice out of all proportion to their numbers?

Rye House practice cancelled this Sunday - 11/8/13

Closest to you are Rye House, Sittingbourne and Lydd. I have no idea about Lydd as never been there, Sittingbourne is a nice little set up, I think contacting clutchplate on here will get you all the info for that one or they have a website. Rye House is the one I have most experience of and I have seen that Andrew Silver is keen and willing to help young kids. You can get Andrew or Mia on 07821660695 for more information. Be worth a trip to Rye at the end of the month when they have the kids there, saw a couple of them practicing last week and they looked very promising. The final round of the youth championship is at Sittingbourne on 22nd September as well so another local meeting worth a look and I am sure the people at these meetings can fill you in on the finer details if you decide to get into Speedway properly.