Vince

Speedway has supposedly been a dying sport on and off since the 30's yet somehow it's still here. I think it will survive even if at a reduced level for a while and then who knows maybe there will be another revival like in many of the previous decades. Maybe not and it will become a mainly amateur sport with a thriving World Championship like most motor sports but it will still be here. It's easy to have all the answers in theory and to blame the promoters for everything but in the main they are succesful businessmen with an enthusiasm for the sport and therefore far better qualified for the job than the majority of us on here. They are also far better informed than we are about the actual income and expenditure of the sport and as it's their money I find it difficult to argue that they shouldn't spend it as they see fit. I might think that I have some ideas that would help the sport but the fact is that if they are tried and don't work I lose nothing, very easy to be sure of oneself in that situation. I do think that there is a real danger of talking Speedway into it's grave by always emphasising the negative. It is still a great sport, it's still fast, dangerous and very often exciting and perhaps if people were told that rather than how silly some of the rules are they might give it a go. I keep saying it but I have been going to Speedway since either 1967 or 68 and I honestly believe that the racing and the riders are at least as good now as I have ever seen in that time.

That's one of my points, the asset system as it stands actually works against young British riders. The other is that the case of clubs from the north being turned down for places by British riders is often used to claim lack of determination (as it was in this case I think) when there are riders who would willingly do the job if only offered the same deal as their supposedly more dedicated foreign counterparts.

How many times did they offer the young Brit help with digs, workshop and transport like they did the Aussies? A young rider from the south of England would have to average 4 just to pay for getting to and from home meetings before he spent a single penny on his racing equipment let alone actually eat!

The point isn't whether any of those particular riders are able to hold onto a place if given a long enough run (although I believe that if given a long run some could) but if they aren't given the opportunity how many others will see that and walk away from the sport before ever reaching that level? Perhaps some will not even try the sport in the first place. We often see that people want riders to come across from MX or other sports, they will only do so if they can see they are going to get chance to compete on a regular basis, they are used to being able to practice and / or race every weekend and sometimes midweek if they want to. Are they really going to give that up for a few NL meetings knowing that they probably won't be given the opportunity to move up and get frequent racing? get enough British kids on bikes and the chances of finding riders of a good standard increases pro rata.

Because Sam and Billy didn't make a success of moving into the PL doesn't make it wrong for others to try and it didn't do any damage to their careers in all honesty, they didn't make it because they weren't dedicated enough. There were also other things going on that caused problems for Sam at the wrong time so it's not as cut and dried as you think. Ater all there were also more experienced foreign lads tried at Newport that didn't succeed either. In my opinion it's very little to do with 80cc or organised junior racing either (though both could be only good things) and everything to do with kids riding bikes for lots of hours. You only had to talk to Mads or Kristian to understand just how much time they could spend riding round a Speedway track for minimal cost. We once worked out that Kristian could spend more time on track in a month than a British lad was likely to get in 2 years and it was costing him about £8 per day with some proper coaching often available. That is why they are more succesful at an earlier age. I personally don't think that matters so much and we should be comparing British lads at 22 or so with their 16 to 18 year old foreign counterparts. The other problem is that whenever these things come up the talk is about the Ward's and Jensen's. Those riders would come through whatever their nationality because they are exceptionally talented, a British lad with Wards natural ability would be in the same position although maybe a couple of years later. We need to concentrate on getting kids into the PL and keeping them there, the rest will follow in time.

So a foreign rider is being hard done by to get by on £150 a week when they are set up within a few miles of their home track and not scoring while a British lad who lives at the other end of the country is OK to get by on nothing at all if he has a bad spell. Not only that but he will be dropped if he has more than a couple of bad meetings because he will never become a club asset. For my money the British lad who is paying out to travel hundreds of miles every week with very little support is the one showing real dedication. The truth of the matter as far as I see it is that there is little difference between the attitudes of British and foreign riders. Some are very dedicated, some are on a jolly and if anybody thinks that every Aussie, Kiwi , Dane etc is hugely dedicated and spends all their time working on their bikes rather than partying they are mistaken.

Surely if they were in the UK from such a young age they could apply for citizenship and ride in the NL. But it is still more important to safeguard the future of young British riders than to worry about a few possible exceptions in any case.

British riders can and have lived in places such as a caravan by the track, subtle difference that it's not subsidised by the need for promoters to pay toward accomodation by work permit requirements.

I think we need to forget about developing World Champions and concentrate on getting as many British lads into the leagues as possible. Eventually when there are enough of them the odds will be in favour of producing top class riders. As for riders of other nationalities, if you have the talent Darcy Ward yo are going to get all the help you can ever need whether you are Australian or Afghan. For most though it seems they come over with savings and help from family and friends. Once here they do tend to get a good amount of help with lodgings, facilities and work. In my experience on average they are no more motivated or dedicated than the average British rider. You have to remember to compare like with like and you tend to see the better foreign riders come over so you can't compare them with British youngsters doing amateur meetings or second halfs and hoping to go on from there, those who made it here are already way past that stage. Many British youngsters and their families make huge sacrifices to support their racing, no more or less so than the foreign riders and their families. Very different thing for British riders to go to Poland with no guarantee that if their first race is poor they will get another chance. They are also going to be competing against home grown riders who have spent hundreds of hours more riding Speedway bikes in many cases and have systems in place to make sure they can retain their team place. Compare that to somebody coming to the UK who once signed will be given a lot longer in a team to find their way than the home grown rider because of the way our asset system works. Is it taken for granted that a British rider will stand on his own two feet financially? Very much so. Would he be helped with digs, workshop, transport etc? Not as far as I am aware, certainly not at the outset of his PL career.

At the end of the day if you say, for arguments sake, 1 rider in every 20 makes the grade in the PL or above then you need as many British riders on bikes as you can get. If,as I believe, that difficulty getting enough racing is one of the reasons riders walk away from the sport before they hardly get going then it doesn't make sense to be giving places to foreign lads. Especially as in many cases the main reason the foreign lad is better than his British counterpart of the same age is because he has 10 times the amount of riding hours.

I wonder how many of the posters on this topic (including myself) have ever written something along the lines of "Speedway should be a simple sport, 4 riders, 4 laps" while blaming the powers that be for making it complicated? I think that has happened more than a little here, some people think the sport is as good as it's ever been while some think it was better in the old days. No right or wrong, just an opinion. Obviously those who think the latter are mistaken though

I favour the idea of the losing team getting the pick of 1 & 3 or 2 & 4 gate. If the scores are even then positions are swapped each heat but as soon as one team is ahead the other gets gate choice. No massive advantage but maybe just enough to keep things closer for away teams without looking like 'it's a knockout'

A curtain on a truck is exactly the sort of thing you would need for a permanent track cover that could be fixed behind the fence and then pulled over and attached to points inside the track. It is heavy duty with webbing reinforcement and has brackets and straps attached. For one to fit a double deck trailer which is approx 45' x 12' you will pay in excess of £1000, so to have them custom made to fit the track you would have to estimate at least £15000. Then you need to make something outside the fence strong enough to attach it to but that also retracts below the top of the fence and put fixings on the centre green so I would have thought that would double the cost of the sheet so my guess would be in the region of £30k for something long term.

Like Horse racing, Cricket, Football, Tennis for example where events are never postponed because of surface problems caused by the weather despite being far less susceptible!!!

Do you really think that things haven't changed in the employment market or that there are a lot less employers who are Speedway fans these days and willing to give riders the time off they need? Do you really believe that riders (and parents when they are young) are not going from one end of the country to the other and then straight into work? If so you are wrong, there are plenty of riders working every hour they can and then working on their bikes or travelling to and from meetings. The very first weekend my son rode team Speedway we left Newcastle at 11pm and I was supposed to be at work in Southampton by 3am so started late and rushed around to get finished while he cleaned and serviced the bikes so he could be in Weymouth for a Bank Holiday afternoon meeting. Even so it is very much harder to find work that is flexible enough to allow time off for Speedway these days, don't forget that for postponed meetings that can be at very short notice as well so no chance of booking holiday. There are more than enough applicants for every job without needing to consider somebody who needs to finish early, take days off and probably need considerable sick leave every 2 or 3 years.

You can't seriously believe that the worlds top 20 riders from the 70's in their prime would beat today's top 20? One statement is no more able to be proven than the other. I really don't think you are right and the top riders today are at least as as good as they have ever been. More than that I think the standard of riders in the British leagues is very much higher than they are given credit for. Personally I believe that there are riders who have never really progressed past the NL who could have been 2nd strings in the old division 2. Don't forget I am one of the old gits who remember as far back as the 60's as well! As for more dirt on the tracks, a few years ago I would have been the first in line to agree and for the GP's I think that there is certainly a case for more dirt. However my opinion has changed these days and now I think it is more important that the surface suits the track and more dirt will very often kill any chance of decent racing.

But the Chapmans aren't running a Speedway business they are running a stadium in the same way that the landlords who collect rent from Speedway promotions are.

My point was that some forum members thought they had the answers to Newports survival saying it needed to 'speculate to accumulate' and ridiculed any suggestion that the speculation might not ever get a return in terms of increased spectators. However it would now seem that the only man with the true facts and figures might have had more business sense than they gave him credit for. It is very easy to spend large sums of somebody else's money.

I always swap sports for movies in the Speedway off season. Will now just be cancelling the movies as I think the sky sports subscription is too high for just EL coverage and there are so many repeats on the movie channel that it makes more sense to use the on demand service for any particular movie we want to watch. For me personally the GP's are far more enjoyable than the majority of league meetings. I will miss the EL coverage but not enough to justify the outlay and Eurosport and Motors already show the majority of the sports I want to watch.

What I remember about Newport is that there were some very vociferous fans who said, among other things, that the track and promoter needed to change and the crowds would return in their 1000's. The new promotion came in and changed just about everything the forum 'experts' wanted before finding out that the crowds didn't increase and it was money down the drain that hastened the end of the stadium.

Same old story, people only remember the good second half races not the majority which were meaningless to the riders and fans. It was well known (even to me as a kid) that the money for the second half was often agreed to be shared before the racing started so that nobody had to take any chances. Riders would still race, sometimes hard, but mostly their earnings didn't depend on results. How anybody thinks current crowd levels can support paying riders for several more races when the current format is losing money the majority of the time I have no idea. Introduce a less costly second half of meaningful junior meetings and half the crowd leave anyway and it won't be long before people are on here complaining about paying to watch 'wobblers' (although they are nothing of the sort).

You can hardly blame people for not taking your opinion of the track changes as an unbiased view can you? Just perhaps the moving of the white line has little impact on the racing line unless changes in surface and/or way the track is graded are planned as well. It all has to work in combination. I think it would be wise to wait and see how things are after a few meetings when everybody has had chance to work out the best way to make the track work under racing conditions.

Apparently the first 2v Jawa's were like the JAP's. As long as you made your usual 15 overtaking moves during the meeting you could chuck the bike in the shed (no posh workshop's in them days tha knows) with your black leathers and they would clean and prepare each other for the next meeting.

Makes you wonder why they stopped the clubs and riders having a bit of an earner at others expense then doesn't it? Will be interesting to see if this is the end of the matter or if anybody challenges the monopoly.