Vince

I think 6 lap races would just lead to the same engines being rebuilt more often and therefore becoming more expensive. Can't see any benefit in bigger engines as I think they would just be adding more speed to the equation. I still think that if you are going to introduce any sort of restriction it has to be simple and easy to police. Restricting manifold sizes or similar will never work as people will just spend a fortune trying to get the same power as before the restriction. One obvious thing that nobody has mentioned is adding weight to the bikes, I don't believe it would be practical as by the time you added enough to make a real difference the bikes might become difficult to ride. It is another option though.

Jim, from what I have seen there are fairly often checks on carbs but as far as I know there has to be a protest in order for the engine to be checked. They are then sealed prior to being checked but I don't know what happens from there (Sam has never gone fast enough to be accused of running an oversize engine ) I suspect that at most tracks the riders have more than enough power and wouldn't need to resort to oversize engines. I do know a very well known Grass Track rider from the 70's who bought an engine off another well known rider and after winning a top meeting commented that the engine he had bought was a flyer to the ex owner who replied that "all those 580's do" I suspect that they have always been more of a myth than fact in Speedway though as the risk of being caught would be pretty great. The R6 cup is a great idea (KTM do a similar thing is Supermoto) in many ways but I do wonder if it stifles talent by only being available to those who can make that sort of investment in one hit. I would think that more people could afford to race with the costs split over the course of a season. Andy M, the last I heard there was a shortage of both GM's and the latest Jawa engines so I don't think there is much chance of getting a substantial discount. There is also the problem that riders tend to buy bikes in bits as many want a GM engine or NEB clutch or Antig frame and so on. Or finances might restrict them to buying an engine now and a new chassis in a few months time. The market is pretty small and secondhand equipment is readily available at very reasonable prices. The problem in the CL is that some are on standard equipment while others are spending several thousand pounds on tuned motors. There are riders in the CL who have 2 or 3 engines each one of which cost more than both of Sam's complete bikes together. Having said that if the rider has the potential to ride that sort of equipment to it's potential he's not going to be in the CL for long, if he is getting beaten by riders on lesser equipment he is the one spending money needlessly. However it is only human nature for riders to think that they are only being beaten because of better equipment and perhaps spend money they can't afford trying to level the playing field. I still think that a 3 grand engine is probably pretty worthless with a £100 carb sat on it.

Been giving this some thought and what might be possible is to police all the ancilaries rather than the engines. If riders (in the CL) had to run standard Jawa frames, forks, clutches and carbs that could represent a substantial saving over some of the aftermarket equipment. It would be easy to see at a glance if a rider was running a different clutch or expensive plates, Jawa frames are considerably cheaper than others although many riders would complain that they don't like them. I would also guess that Antig, NuTrack, Stuha and JHR might not be best pleased with the idea. Then if there was a good supply of the standard Jawa flat slide carb (or maybe the dellorto round slide) there would not be very much point in spending a fortune on tuning engines. It would also mean that a rider could go and buy a competitive bike out of the crate for just over a couple of grand. It has to be said though that a new bike would probably be competitive anyway but riders wouldn't be happy with it. Such a bike could represent a saving of several grand over a bike with all the extras and an engine from a well known tuner.

The mid pack guys run standard motors and the front guys have their engines blueprinted which leaves them as standard in theory but actually uses a large selection of parts and some machining to make the tolerances perfect. Blueprinting can be just as expensive (maybe more so) as what we would call tuning. I have seen 2 identically built car race engines run on a dyno on the same day and with the same carbs etc and one has produced nearly 5% less power than the other. Even Moto GP riders who have 2 supposedly identical bikes that have cost a fortune to put together inevitably find one to be better than the other.

I think that from a riders point of view standardisation would be OK, it would still allow for timing, jetting, compression and cam changes which is all they would ever have to do. The problem woud be to police it, you couldn't logically seal engines because they would still need rebuilding from time to time and to check that an engine was standard would require a complete strip down. There is also the problem that 2 apparently identical engines can perform very differently and if they had to remain as built and you happened to buy the lemon you would be stuck with it. The 2 year time scale might also cause problems as there are a great many riders running around on engines that are 5 or 6 years old. The age isn't usually a problem as you keep replacing the internals anyway. It's a great idea but I doubt that it could ever be enforced.

SCB, I was talking about the suggestion that the team that was x amount of points behind went from the gate while the other team went from 15yds. Even with your suggestion there are going to be times when you have riders with 0.X higher average than their opponent having to give them 15 yards (home or away). I honestly believe that would produce the most processional racing ever. It would also still be a fact that the engine tuners would be the ones to benefit the most from any form of handicapping. At the moment a guy on not quite so good equipment can still win races if he gets his nose in front, he certainly won't do that from a handicap. Can you imagine what Boycie would do to Karlis if he held him up for 3 1/2 laps when the team needed the point to win

Yeah I saw that in the Star but I assume they meant the Academy league not the U15's. From the way I understood it the kids won't actually be attached to one team but will be sorted into teams for each match so that they can produce even teams presumably like they did at Newport last year. I could well be wrong though. I think the league will be a big success as that try out at Newport seemed to please everybody from the riders to the spectators.

I believe Briggo's objection was that they were spending a fortune on engines and that the riders they were giving a start were getting better. Much the same argument would apply now I would have thought in that only those riders with the best (most expensive) motors would be succesful from a handicap. I would also expect riders to have to take greater risks to pass quickly and therefore the injury rate to go up. I can see how it would work in the States on smaller tracks where the speeds are lower but can you imagine Boycie having to give 20 yards to Watto on the Island, it would be carnage if he could catch him. Same in reverse at Newport.

As far as I am aware the only rider from last years top 5 in the U15 Championship who is age eligible is Josh Auty. As I remember it the others were Shane Waldron, Simon Lambert, Gary Cottham and Matt Bates all of whom were born in 1989 so won't be eligible. As far as the league goes I know the age criteria is slightly different and allows for riders who were still 15 at the start of the season. Many of these will have CL experience but I would assume that the reasons for their inclusion are that the CL may be a big step up and this league could be a confidence builder when things aren't going too well. This was certainly the case for Sam last year when the U15 rounds gave him the chance to be competitive after spending time riding at 2 or 4 in the CL and really struggling. There is also the need for riders to be competing who have enough experience to entertain the crowds, there won't be too many tracks volunteering to hold rounds in future years if the crowds don't enjoy it. Finally but probably most importantly riders need to be competing against faster opponents in order to improve, for the youngsters this will usually be those with CL experienece and those riders are competing against fater riders all the time in the CL. Otherwise the standard will remain stagnant. If you watched the early U15 rounds last year there were a couple of riders head and shoulders above the rest but during the year the gap closed by a huge amount as the front runners improved less than those who were chasing them.

I quite liked the idea that they used at an U15 meeting at Newport last year where each rider had 3 rides and then the 2 lowest point scorers from each team went into one race, the next 2 lowest in the next and the 2 highest scorers from each team in the final race. I thought at the time that this would make a good format for league racing. It could easily be adapted with 4 rides for each rider as they are already programmed and then all except the lowest scorer for each team taking part in the final 3 races which should all be competitive.

It's also open to anybody who is under 16 on March 1st, so many of last years riders from the U15's and this years grade 2 CL riders will be able to compete.

Is Speedway a minority sport? Compared to football for sure, but then just about every sport is in comparison to football. I would have thought spectator figures hold up pretty well against most other sports though. I think there are about 38 teams in the league and even if you take the average attendance at a pessimistic 500 that still gives 19000 people watching Speedway every week during the season. I know they used to get more than that at individual tracks in the old days but live sport attendances are down in just about every sport. It also has weekly television coverage and the GP's are shown on terrestrial TV. I suspect Speedway is still within the top 5 or 6 of spectator sports. My guess is that Speedway would be behind Horse racing, Rugby, Cricket, maybe Athletics and of course Football but well ahead of genuine minority sports such as Sand Yachting or Table Tennis! That's not to say that anybody should be sitting on their laurels because we all know it could be so much better.

I wouldn't have thought so, there was nothing on offer for the U15 championship.

That can't be quite right as they are able to pay 15 year olds (who are still at school) to ride in the Conference, must be something to with being adults & kids combined as against kids alone. I know in MX they aren't allowed to charge entry for a kids meeting but they are if it is predominantly adult with some kids races. There are also things like child actors being paid so presumably it must be legal to pay kids. I would imagine that last years U15 Championship provided a lot more entertainment than expected so the BSPA will be a bit more likely to get behind the kids now. As for the rest the theory is great but getting the time to attend such things is difficult and expensive, just the racing is hard to fit in. Generally all the advice that they need is available once they are in the pits with experienced riders.

You can't charge to watch kids racing, don't really know why but it's the same in all motor sports. I would think they wil run after the main meetings.

Personally I don't think that smaller engines are the way to go, standard engines, carbs, clutches and ignitions would be good but very difficult to enforce. There would also be the problem of needing extra equipment to step up a league. Assuming that averages are coming in what about allowing one old hand per team on his straight average but then adding 0.5 per full year of any league experience up to a maximum of 6 years for every other rider with no minimum. So newcomers would come in at 0.5 which would make them a good option. Most riders who are still learning could expect to increase their average by more than 0.5 while riders who have come down from the Premier or spent years in the league would struggle to match their average, this would hand the advantage to improving riders where now it is definitly with the experienced rider.

A friend of mine would love to locate any videos of Reading during the 1988 season, home or away. If you can help please contact me on vince@samsspeedway.co.uk

Don't sit on the fence Tim - say what you mean Seriously though something needs to be done about this Ref, she really is dangerous. You can just about live with some of her very strange decisions about who is at fault but when she is putting riders at risk of being hurt or worse she needs to be sorted out before the new season starts.

I think we should also add our thanks to the Ref Steve! Thanks for managing to bumble her way through a meeting without actually managing to kill anybody that is, somebody needs to revoke her licence in a hurry. There was one incident where Andy Braithwaite locked up badly and both the following riders layed their bikes down to miss him but when he stayed on she just allowed the race to continue. Far more worrying is the incident that my wife saw where Tim Websters bike was laid in the middle of the start straight and she failed to see it and only switched the red light on when Lewis Bridger was a few yards from the bike, by all accounts Lewis was very lucky not to have been seriously injured. I don't generally complain too much about Referees as they have a very difficult job (and I would be useless at it) but this woman whose name I can never remember is a danger to the riders at every meeting she attends. You can always tell when she is the Ref as she loves the sound of the bell so much that she rings it as often and as long as possible.

Weymouth 17 Matt Bates - engine failure in first race unable to take further part. George Piper 7 Sam Hurst 9 Tim Webster 1 Fell in second race. Wolverhampton 16 Lewis Bridger 8 Adam Lowe 4 Dan Kirkman 1 (1 exclusion) Andy Braithwaite 3 (1 exclusion) Meeting only run over 6 races due to curfew. I was only able to watch the races Sam was in, the final race was good with Weymouth only having 1 rider out so Sam needed to win for Weymouth to get the match. Lewis rode very well on a borrowed bike and pushed Sam hard for the first lap before he seemed to have some sort of problem. It was a shame as I would think Sam and Lewis could have had a real battle had Lewis been on his own bike as they are both happy to race hard.

Don Smith was better known as a Trials rider but was also pretty good on the Speedway (with Hackney I think?) and Scrambles as well. Unfortunately he passed away last week.

Are you sure that's the same Glen Phillips? as far as I know Glen rode schoolboy Grass Track, he has never mentioned riding MX. There is a Glen Phillips who is a good MX rider, I think from the West Country somewhere. Briggo wasn't bad on a scrambler and rode in several meetings here and in the US.

We considered the red carnation but unfortunately there is no clock tower to stand under!

You missed out old Steve We ought to all meet up after the kids meeting next week.

The problem with splitting the current Conference league is that many riders just won't be able to get enough meetings to improve. In an ideal world these youngsters need to be racing at least once a week or they just don't progress, although the training schools allow them to ride and are great in the off-season racing is the quickest way for them to get better. I think you will find that is as much a reason for riders to go to certain teams as the money, if the team is riding league and trophy the riders get more meetings under their belt. It is the same with having second half meetings, who is going to travel from say Newport to Armadale for 2 or at best 3 rides? It could take the whole meeting to find a gear that worked. At least in the Conference (with the sensible teams) he will usually get 4 rides. If you split the stand alone clubs from the others by running trophy for one and league for the other all you will do is reduce the number of riders needed and make it more difficult for the inexperienced riders to get into a team and more appealing for the teams to use Premier standard riders. If you want to make the racing closer a half hour practice before the meeting for the away team would help as the inexperienced riders would have the opportunity to learn the tracks well enough and get their bikes set up to allow them to be competetive when the meeting started. It's OK for riders who have plenty of experience to turn up even to a new track and race but it is very difficult for the youngsters, I think Speedway is the only motor sport where practice isn't compulsory. One thing I don't think many realise is just how many young riders there are looking for team places, obviously some aren't up to the job yet but there are also many who are decent riders but have signed for strong teams and not been used. These riders will be lost to the sport if they don't get to ride as nobody is going to invest the time and money needed for this sport if they can't get to ride. An amateur league would be a non-starter. Unlike Grass Track or Motocross which are run in a local farmers field for Speedway you need an expensive, purpose built track. A mx or Grass Track can also attract 100 - 200 riders to help cover costs, they then have to run the meeting over a whole day, most Speedway tracks would be unable to do that. Then if riders are competing in leagues there are very high mileages that need them (and their parents/ mechanics) to take time off work. You could only run as an amateur league if you ran individual meetings and then riders would tend to compete on their most local tracks and never get the experience needed to make the step up.