topsoil

I guess I started this off by commenting how good I thought the semi and final of the Pairs were. Heats 18 and 21 were crackers as well with Vaculik and Zmarzlik, then Kolodziej, Protasiewicz and Zmarlik changing lines, colliding, breaking up team riding. Good things come to those who wait. But then again Torun has a habit of producing great racing.

You obviously never watched the semi-final or final, two brilliant races.

Track covers, it's the future, who would have thought? The promotion were rewarded for their hard work and planning tonight with the meeting going ahead on a perfect track surface, despite rain falling from about 5 o'clock. A lot of things to be impressed by tonight, the covers, up to date music on the tannoy, hospitality box full, promotional giveaways for the kids, a lot of new advertisers in the programme, riders mixing with the fans afterwards (I know they have always done this), the win was the icing on the cake, a lot of enthusiasm around the place just now, the promotion deserve a lot of credit.

Cheers for the history lesson, always interesting learning about the sport in decades gone by, especially the late 70s / early 80s when I was a speedway daft little boy. You would think it would be in the interests of the BSPA to try and get Tai to the final, his being there might put another couple of hundred on the gate. I suppose trying to put a positive slant on this now, it makes it a more open field.

What were the reasons for Mark Loram and Peter Collins missing the final? Genuine question, I am old enough that I should remember, I just can't.

Normally yes, but last night Pijper took ill during the meeting, otherwise he would have have covered heat 13, Alden picked up an injury during the meeting, which may have restricted his performance and Mellgren went into the meeting not fully fit so same applies. But top and bottom of it, this was a pre-season friendly, so more important to get match fitness and equipment ready for the proper stuff.

Brilliant news for both the club and the sport in the North East and Southern Scotland, especially after the farcical events at Belle Vue. It would be great to think that in ten years time the Berwick team will be made up from entirely local lads.

What incident does this relate to?

Maybe your promotion should put a complaint in to the BSPA and have them change the meeting to a Friday night? ;-)

Good interview on facebook from last night with Dick Barrie and Kelvin Tatum. Really liking what the club are doing with twitter and facebook recently with the interviews, videos, photos etc. good way of free promotion and keeping the fans involved while there is no racing going on.

Well the future seems bright for these teams eh? Edinburgh and Glasgow the top two teams in the PL last year but unfortunately too far north.

I'm very much an advocate of this theory, but it will be a long term project and do clubs have the luxury of time on their side? I would like to see a countrywide scheme to encourage each club to develop their own riders, to the extent where one day all clubs would be made up from local lads. There would be a lot of benefits to this. You look at any successful league and you will see clubs which have a conveyor belt of talent. But to do this speedway needs to develop training facilities, sufficient coaches, equipment, this won't be cheap, but in the long term cheaper than flying in riders from all over Europe on a weekly basis.

Chances are there will be a couple of promotions who put out a statement saying that unless crowds improve they will close down, somewhere along the line there will be a fixture backlog because of the weather. Probably an injury crisis and a shortage of riders causing the usual complaints about guests. Much like every other season really.

Haha whoops didn't see my typo. Try Emily, she might be a bit cheaper than Emil.

The club have been very active in social media lately, a lot of it trivial stuff, but it follows the example of other professional teams in other sports, keeping the club in the public eye. I like the latest developments where they are going into partnership with three local good causes. All good p.r. For the club. The more publicity for the club the more sponsors / fans / investors are encouraged to get involved.

Sometimes riders are attracted to riding part of a season later on in the year, look at Greg Hancock at Poole and Emily Sajfutdinov at Coventry. One of the biggest faults of the sport is doubling up and even riders competing in several countries. I would love to see the sport get to the situation where it had enough riders to go round so that each team had its own seven. For that to happen the sport must make a concerted effort to get more riders involved. If each club was forced / encouraged to have its own youth set up would be a start. Then you might eventually get to the stage of having teams full of local riders and not relying on the cost of flying riders everywhere. Pie in the sky stuff but I can dream.

Could cycle speedway be the grass roots for youngsters to get involved? And do you think Barry Hearn (or anybody similar) would touch speedway with a bargepole considering some of the stadiums teams currently race in? And what about track facilities? You think he would put up with meeting being highly promoted then rained off because of a lack of covering of the tracks? The sport needs to sort out a hell of a lot before any top flight promoter would be attracted to it.

Or how about a transfer window where teams can strengthen up to a team average equal to that of the league leaders? At the moment teams can only go up to 45 or whatever the limit is, so if a team at the top is riding to an average of 50 or 55, a team at the bottom still cannot in theory match them.

Like you say it is encouraging. I would imagine they will get a lot of knock backs, it's just the nature of the business, not everybody will see the advantage of advertising, but full marks to the club for being pro-active and seeking sponsorship and advertising. Hopefully it will bring benefits.

This is an area which could be very lucrative to the club, bringing in a lot of revenue. Couldn't help but notice the number of times last year the "box" was empty. Hopefully the club will make a big effort in this regard this year and certainly offering the different levels of hospitality is a good start. I've been there a few times and it's a good night out, especially going on to the centre green, seeing and hearing the action much closer than usual.

I like what the club has done lately on social media, the quizzes on the newsletters, asking for fans input on race jackets, asking for fans memories of the riders who were recently inducted to the club hall of fame, basically interacting a lot more with the fans, especially in the off season, to keep interest alive. Just expand this a little more as the season approaches, then go into overdrive when the season starts. Keep the club in the public eye the whole time, raise the profile of the club, all positive.

If a young rider wants to make a career and living out of it, all the more power to him, but it can't be from wages alone. I would think it would have to go down the line of personal sponsorship. In that regard I am very impressed by the way Nicki Pedersen has created a professional careers for himself and the way he actively goes out to seek sponsorship and the way he looks after theses sponsors. If they reach a "certain standard" and are lured away by the attraction of high wages then good for them, it happens all the time in other sports. The secret is to have enough of a conveyor belt to replace these riders who move on. That is where the sport needs to concentrate a lot of effort into, continually producing young riders

Time for British clubs to start looking after themselves, by developing far more British riders, local to each track. This wont be an overnight success, but in the long term will pay a lot of dividends. Then Sweden and Poland can ride on whatever nights they want and the Elite and Premier Leagues will not be affected. Speedway as a sport needs to get to the position where a rider can only ride for one club. If that means they go semi-professional, then so be it. The sport can't support full time professional riders as it is.

This is why I like what the Glasgow promotion, they seem to understand that by embracing modern technology they can use it to promote the club and sport effectively. They are willing to try new stuff and seem to be way ahead of a lot of other promotions in this regard.

Remember the days when John Perrin wanted to ban TV cameras from Belle Vue? Several promoters wanted to ban "live speedway updates". Speedway promoters, I get the impression, are frightened of technology, when it could be used massively to promote the sport. You only need to follow professional teams from other sports on social media, especially American franchises, to see how they keep fans and media up to date with any news. And as for the argument that TV or streaming or the equivalent could affect attendances a) I've never understood the mentality of people, who have the chance to see live events, would rather watch it through a small screen and if the atmosphere and entertainment was better at speedway meetings, fans would come no matter what the alternatives were, because they would want to be part of the experience.