Humphrey Appleby

I'd imagine it comes down to having to increase the total prize money if it was done at every round.

But what time did the trains stop running?

Well there’s always the Travelodge and Ibis, and several other chain hotels that showing around £300 for those nights at the moment. At least Manchester has more options than Cardiff, even if you need to travel out a bit.

Visit Wales has had its budget cut by 3.5 million so maybe they want to subsidise events with much better ROI. The Principality Stadium seems to have a cost model based around ROI to the Welsh economy rather than seeking to maximise return on the facility itself, but the financial travails of the WRU and cuts to Welsh Government funding seems to have made more acutely aware of the need to out on money spinning events instead of ‘community events’ - to the point they moved a Welsh rugby international to Twickenham in favour of a pop concert. Which is unfortunately the bottom line.

Not really sure BSI did - think it was consistently around 30-40k in reality, and it seems some cheap ticketing may have been required in later years. Probably not bad given how many people actively follow British speedway, but there’s only so long you can rely on a seemingly unchanging demographic. That pattern was pretty much repeated in the other prestige venues they ran at for a few years.

It is very poor to announce a date and venue for an event and then change that, unless the announcement clearly stated ‘TBC’ or whatever. I think people have every right to be annoyed and possibly even a case for small claims recovery, although this is of course speedway and it’s hardly the first time it’s happened - Gelsenkirchen and Riga come to mind. Non-refundable bookings can save you a fair bit. I tend to do it and just accept there will occasionally be a change of plan. I’m still up on the deal.

Never understood what the big secret is over attendances. The stadium will know anyway, and it’s reasonably easy to estimate if you’re there. The tickets will also only represent a percentage of the revenue.

I stayed near Belle Vue when I watched the Smashing Pumpkins earlier this year. Had to walk to Piccadilly the next day because the trains didn't start running early enough to connect with my Intercity train. I walk pretty quick and it was 35 minutes or so from memory. The city centre must be another 5-10 minutes from there, depending on where you define the city centre.

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.

A co-axial loop will be running under the finish line of the track which is connected back to a decoder (which could be trackside or up in race control). The transponder sends out an magnetic wave with an encoded ID number, which is picked up by the loop through induction as it passes over it, and sent to the decoder which records and timestamps each passing. The decoder passes that to timekeeping software running on a PC, which translates that data into the competitors names, race position and times and can relay that to live timing. In fact, you can have multiple loops around a track (often 3 + pit-in/out in car racing) - each connected to a separate decoder - which all send the data back to the timekeeping computer (via a dedicated server that aggregates the data)

Looking at the SCB website, they look to be using the MyLaps TR2 car/bike transponder which is generally reliable and widely used in motorsport. However, they appear to advise to mount them horizontally on the handlebars when in fact they should mounted in an upright orientation as the magnetic wave travels downwards. The transponders are also detected by a wiring loop in the track, which is normally no more than 2 or 3 cms under the surface. I'd guess with dirt tracks you need to put them a fair bit deeper as the top surface will gradually wear or be graded away over the course of a meeting and expose the loop (which will then get caught on something). For motocross it's recommended to put them in a plastic pipe about a 30 cms down, but the maximum recommended range of a MyLaps bike transponder is about 1.2 metres, so if the transponder is not pointed in an optimal position, then I'd imagine this will be beyond the limit of the transponder range and why they're not working reliably. It's a problem that should be very easy to identify as the timekeeping system should record the number of transponder hits as it crosses the timing loop in the track. If you're seeing little or no hits, then either the transponders are 1) badly positioned or 2) low on charge (or more rarely faulty), 3) there's a break somewhere in the timing loop, 4) excessive noise on the loop (often due to poor shielding), or 5) the timing loop is simply too far below the surface. My money would be on a combination of 1) and 5).