Vince

Just got home and of course once the decision had been made to postpone the meeting the rain died down. However when we left at about 1.30 it was raining again. I know that Tim is gutted to have to postpone the meeting but felt it was better to do so even at that late stage rather than risking taking everybodys money and issuing rain off tickets. He apologises to everybody who had travelled but hopes they understand that he had the best of intentions when he decided the meeting would be going ahead last night and earlier this morning. Hopefully things will be better next week for the restaging and if anybody is unhappy with the distance they travelled to no purpose spare a thought for Nicki Glanz who made a trip of 1000 miles just to have a 10 minute chat with everybody at the track. The track guys had done a superb job and even when it was raining heavily the track would have been rideable but unfortunately it wouldn't have been so good for the spectators.

Metcheck now give light rain all day, but most of it is very light. However Reuters which is the one we generally use only give scattered showers, see here

Just spoken to Tim and he says the meeting is going ahead. The majority of forecasts are giving light rain or showers and he says that the track will be able to cope and that the riders he has spoken to are raring to go. With the line up they have I reckon they will be giving it their all as well so should be a good meeting.

And if the riders complain about not being able to pass Dixie will do his best to widen the back straight for them

I thought it was quite an enjoyable meeting. There seems to be a larger range of ages and abilities than in previous years but while the gap between the top and bottom is bigger it seems that they break down into groups so that everybody has some competition (not sure that makes sense but I know what I mean!). Plenty of evidence that those starting in Grass track seem to have a better understanding and a head start on the others and that nothing brings the lads on like plenty of time on the bike. Christophers Dad left the 'kennel end' of the stand as if a Ginsters truck had arrived the other side of the pits when he was pointed out to the locals Enjoyed helping young Chris, seems he will listen to anybody except his dad which shows an amazing amount of common sense for one so young

Look on the bright side Pat, he's only 12 now and things will get far, far worse over the next few years before they start to get better

Put me down for the minority vote - I think that Nichols was going a lot faster than Zagar and reasonably expected him to take the wider normal line. Undoubtedly Zagar was hit hard enough to cause him to fall but it is difficult to see how Nichols could have avoided it. The Pederson / Iverson incident was one of those 50/50 jobs that could have gone either way and may be an argument for Refs not being forced to exclude a rider in all cases after the first corner. The race to the line was impossible to call from what I saw on the TV although my first reaction was that Bjarne had got there first I did have my doubts when I saw the replay.

Just spoken to Pat and Chris Bint has knackered his achiles tendon and is in plaster. Sounds a horrible injury but he's young and will heal quickly. Best of luck to Chris, Brendan and Jack and hope you are all racing again soon.

Be interesting to see how they enforce that, a lighter rod is going to require a strip down to check. Or how about honing and polishing standard items? Always very difficult to enforce such rules although the idea is good.

Scroll down this page and you can see that at least one tuner has already started working on them. Pretty good power for a 250 four stroke that has some torque as well.

The SCB handbook states the following (good news for Scatygirl I think) New Youth applications must be supported by an endorsement from an SCB Training Instructor while applications to upgrade must be made by a Parent/Guardian endorsed by an SCB Training Instructor and the GB U-21 Manager. No Youth will be registered to ride a 500cc until they are 14 years of age and successfully undertaken a formal competency test.

I have ridden most of the Motocross 250 four strokes and can't imagine any of them having enough flywheel weight for Speedway. I can imagine they are fine for Grass Track but they are pretty peaky and the fact that they race against 125cc 2 strokes gives some idea of the type of power they produce. I would assume that the use of a homologated engine in competition is to try and create a level playing field for all riders and can see how that would be a good thing. Seems like a good idea but all put into action in too much of a rush.

80cc bikes are only any good on suitable tracks - which we don't have over here. Apparently the parts needed to convert a 500 to 250 are too expensive to make it worthwhile. However a 350 can be converted reasonably easily and there should be a few cheap 350 engines about from the grass track. It means relocating the crankpin - which has also to be stepped and re-sleeving the barrel. Not a 5 minute do it yourself job but I would have thought a whole lot cheaper than a new 250.

I have everything except the result of the final round at Mildenhall. May 3rd Weymouth: J Auty, S Waldron, S Campos May 8th Armadale: S Waldron, S Lambert, K Hughes. June 6th Sittingbourne: S Lambert, J Auty, G Cottham. July 4th Buxton: J Auty, 2nd = S Waldron & S Lambert. Sept 6th Sheffield: J Auty, 2nd = G Cottham & M Bates. Sept 19th Carmarthen: S Waldron,J Auty, 3rd = S Lambert & G Cottham. Oct 3rd Mildenhall: Final top 3 J Auty, S Waldron, S Lambert.

Tim would have started the meeting early if need be but as I say that would take it into the new season which wouldn't be very satisfactory. Brighton might not be the ideal as it is a bit of a novelty track but it does put the lads in front of a good size audience and get the meetings completed. At the end of the day it is a good compromise solution. Couldn't run at a training day as they wanted it run alongside a SCB / BSPA authorised meeting, that's why it didn't run at Newport with the STRA. No problems with charging admission to a training day but you aren't allowed to charge for the U15 meetings.

I think it has to be run in conjunction with a BSPA regulated meeting. Next chance at Newport would have been the Classic but I guess that would then be 2006.

Seems he won't need another operation. He now has six weeks in plaster and another two in a more flexible support. The Doc reckons 4 to 5 months to be OK but Sam said that actually means two and a half to three months. I won't let him do anything too silly though. Once he is out of the cast I will take him up to Brian Simpson and follow his recomendations. Pictures of his war wounds and x-ray here Thanks Mark and Sam, seems minor compared to your injury from last year. I'm sure I can find enough tape even for a gob that size Stressed! Jamie - you should kick him when you next see him, he's been no help to you whatever in this Academy League

Sam's finally had the op and is now home. They put two screws in the tibia which are fine but they think the screw they put in the fibula might need re-doing but we won't know until Monday. Sam is in good spirits though and still says he will be riding by Christmas.

Operation was postponed last night and is now due later today.

Sam said thanks to everybody for the concern and to Brendan for the offer of the frame but he thinks Nu-Trak will sort him out. He was eventually transferred to Southampton, arriving about midnight last night and is waiting to go down for the operation now. Apparently both tibia and fibula are broken and it is all pretty unstable so will be held together with a mixture of plates, wires and screws. Sam is in good spirits and says he will be riding again before Christmas.

Just popped in home to drop the sponsors off. Sam is in hospital at Stockport and they are planning on operating in the morning to put some screws in a fractured tibia. We tried to bring him home and will try again tomorrow to get him back to a local hospital for the operation. Shouldn't be too bad anyway and Sam is already itching to ride again. The ambulancemen reckon he has an exceptionally high pain threshold, and seeing what he was like at the track today I can believe it.

The price of equipment in standard form just isn't a problem - it's very cheap. However to run at anything above (and for some, including) CL level gets more expensive as you move up the ladder. There is an inevitable need to 'keep up with the Jones' so more money has to be spent on better equipment. To be honest it is exactly the same in any motorsport, I would think that finding a way to fund it would be easier than stopping it. I think a standard Jawa engine is about £1300 but to buy something from a tuner that will be competitive in the PL is double that at least. The standard engine would probably do a whole season in the hands of a wobbler between services but the tuned one about 10 meetings at PL level and a more highly tuned version about 6 meetings at EL standard. So it goes on until GP engines are set up and run for the one meeting. But if you look at any motorsport it is much the same - Formula Ford to F1 the spread is far greater. The difference is how much sponsorship is available to F1 and Speedway has to be a better product than that!

I think there is a bit of a misconception that a smaller/ less powerful engine is better for novices or youngsters. Generally a powerful engine that spins easily is much safer. Ask any of the kids who have made the step from 125 to 500 which is easier to ride fast. For sure lowering the compression ratio can make a bike very difficult to ride as it wants to drive all the time, when an engine is set up like that the throttle has to be kept on which is exactly what novices don't want. It is engines set up the same as professional racers that cause the problems. A quick and easy fix would be to make all kids run 12lb of air in the rear tyre or harder rear tyres. The bike would always want to spin and the kids would have to learn throttle control to make it go forwards. It would do away with bikes lifting and the crashes would mainly be harmless lowsides. Ask any motocross rider whether a 250 four stroke is cheaper to run than a 500. The answer is a definite no, all the parts are much the same price but the engine has to work harder so wears more quickly. Smaller engines are really only good on small tracks. The 250 might have been great at Buxton but it wouldn't be so good at Sheffield. I think the perfect answer would be to have tracks of 150 to 200 yards for kids to work through 80 -125 -250 and then step up to a 500 for full size tracks. However as there is a lack of such tracks available I don't think that the current set up of having riders on a 500 when they are capable is at all bad.

Interesting bit from an interview on the Speadwayplus site: So why is Speedway so successful and well attended in Poland? Easy, they keep it simple. All matches are run on a Sunday afternoon, the teams are allowed one foreign rider amongst their side, have two riders under the age of 21 at reserve and most importantly consistently stick by these rules. At the meeting I attended the riders were introduced individually in order of the team line up and allowed three practice laps. Both teams opposite numbered riders took to the track at the same time, fully kitted up, and evaluated the racing surface. This provided the fans with a proper opportunity to assess the opposition riders and was more importantly a subtle and interesting introduction into the match. It also allowed the opposing team to gauge what set up they needed in order to be competitive from the start of the meeting.

When I said it would be more fragile I meant if it were to be used for adult racing as Cinderfella suggested. The first thing any PL or above standard rider would do is tune the thing to death to make it rev harder as that would be the only way to get more power. That would increase costs because the engine would need more maintenance than a 500. I think a 250 would be excellent for youth racing or beginners and certainly a lot better than the usual 125's which I think are pretty dangerous on full size tracks. Aren't they already using this engine quite a lot in America?