Humphrey Appleby

Yes, I think that's a good insight even with the undoubted pressures of promoting. I'm not sure if anyone can remember the book he wrote about speedway - possibly around 1969. I remember it being quite a decent read and much of what he said then is still more than applicable now!

It was a double grid. As I recall, the 4 lowest scoring qualifiers started at the tapes, with the 4 highest scorers starting further behind (maybe 30 yards). I can't completely remember how the points worked, but I think it was something like 16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2, with the riders starting off the back getting 2 bonus points.

I'd actually disagree somewhat. The ACU/SCB hold a privileged position enshrined in legislation and anyone wishing to run a speedway meeting at any significant level is substantively required to run under their auspices. I appreciate Motorsport UK (formerly the MSA) isn't responsible for motorcycling, but I remember that some years ago they decided to drop the restrictions on non-MSA competition because they were considered liable to legal challenge. And I'd imagine they have a much bigger budget for legal advice than the ACU. However, it's a moot point unless someone actually takes issue with it. Having said this, I'm not sure how anyone can afford to run outside a well established sanctioning body because insurance coverage is prohibitive in my experience. I do wonder whether some of these events are adequately insured.

Having restrictive agreements to prevent track owners from renting out their circuits for non-sanctioned events would, I suspect, be ruled a restraint-of-trade if it were ever legally challenged. Motorsport UK, which deals with 4-wheeled racing, has long since given up trying to prevent unsanctioned events from using MSUK-licensed circuits, or MSUK officials and competitors from taking part in unsanctioned events. As both a competitor and official I'd choose not to compete in unsanctioned events because there are legal ambiguities around the RTA and potential insurance liabilities, but neither do I think sanctioning bodies should have an effective monopoly or be allowed to shut out other sanctioning bodies from circuits.

They can't unless there was some sort of exclusivity contract. Of course, the problem is if the SCB (or whoever) wanted to get heavy over it, it would end up in court where only the lawyers would win.

Don't think the SCB can legally prevent a venue from staging racing under a different sanctioning body or none at all. Would be considered a restraint of trade, and I thought this had been accepted certainly in other motor sport disciplines. There are of course potentially insurance and public liability considerations, but that's a matter for the staging club/promotion and to extent the track owners. So presumably there's more to it than meets the eye.

Not short sighted at all. There only so many fans and their money to go around and a track opening in close proximity could easily cannibalise what little crowds still exist. Of course closer tracks might successfully co-exist in denser urban areas, but can only think of Wolves/Cradley/Birmingham, and the various London tracks where they were all viable over an extended period (and of course Cradley, Birmingham and all the 'London' tracks have variously fallen by the wayside over the years). King's Lynn and Swaffham are located in a fairly sparsely populated area of just over 150k people which hardly seems viable for one let alone a couple of teams.

Women are competitive in lower levels of (mixed) car racing, although there just less of them competing. There are just very few/none at the top levels for whatever reason.

As far as I'm aware, it's just 3 rides however they're taken.

And you're contributing nothing to the discussion whatsover...

I believe this depends on whether the original sentence is less or more than 4 years. If less than 4 years then release on probation is generally automatic, and indeed non-violent offenders are increasingly eligible for home detention for some of the prison time. If more than 4 years, I think you only become eligible for early release on licence after you've served half the time, and that requires Parole Board approval (i.e. demonstrated good behaviour).

Before my time really and don't fully know the details of that particular theft. But whilst I wouldn't equate the gravity of straightforward nicking of bikes with robbing vulnerable people with menaces, I don't think you'd want such people back in the same workplace where there's the opportunity to nick more bikes. I think I previously qualified my views on rehabilitation versus ongoing risk to others involved in the industry. At the end of the day though - with certain obvious exceptions - I think it needs to be up to individual employers whether they want to employ former criminals. I wouldn't employ someone who'd robbed disabled people unless I was absolutely convinced they were a reformed character, but if you get into blanket bans on former criminals resuming their former (honest) trade for unrelated crimes, where does it stop? And unless you mandate the death penalty for every crime, even former criminals need to make a living otherwise we'll continue to have to pay for them.

I didn't see the comment in the light of 'I know something you don't'. I think it's fair for a rider to comment that there's others they'd be more concerned about on track without giving specific names. Are these things not linked though? As others have said, if it was a convicted felon going back into plumbing or mechanicing, no-one would care less. Speedway is neither important enough nor sufficiently in the public eye that there's any sort of reputational issue involved, and as much scumbag behaviour offends and appalls me, I think once you've done your time you should be able to resume a gainful working career unless the crime was related to your original employment (i.e. child abusers should never be allowed to work with children or vulnerable people).

The other aspect is they have to be able to take up gainful employment otherwise society will be end-up paying more for them on dole. There's no aspect of the crime being related to speedway, unlike say a convicted child abuser working in a school, so don't really see the issue with working again in speedway. Pretty unpleasant and nasty criminal I think we can agree, but hopefully some lessons have been learned and is now a reformed character. As the sentence was over 4 years, I think that's not an automatic halving and requires some sort of good behaviour and approval of the Parole Board for release. And of course will still be out on licence.

Transponders should really be supplemented with an optical timing beam which is broken when the front wheel of the bike crosses the line. There will often some slight difference in the positioning and orientation of each transponder, so they're not infallible when it comes to close finishes. Speedway only involves four bikes so you can probably do without the optical beam provided someone is watching the finish line with their own eyes and can overrule the transponder system. Happens all the time and it's perfectly legitimate to adjust transponder times by the odd hundredth of a second where you can clearly judge the result by eye. In fact, we also use a finish line camera so can roll back and review the footage if it's a close finish.