Humphrey Appleby

Cricket has its issues, but those issues pale into insignificance when compared with speedway. And despite appearing to be run by a bunch of old f**ts, it's always managed to revitalise itself - first with one day, then one afternoon and more recently T20 cricket - when interest appeared to be declining. And it certainly commands much better television and sponsorship deals than anything speedway can hope for.

I'd have thought the combined danger of bikes potentially hitting a concrete lip at 70 mph as the shale shifted, or falling onto a rock hard surface on the fastest part of the circuit, would have had substantial safety issues.

Supposedly to stop the top riders dominating, but possibly another cost cutting measures as fixed gates tended to reduce the scoring opportunities for the top riders who'd presumably on higher points money.

There was an indoor circuit in Washington DC...?

It's probably a condition of having a race licence, and although I doubt they can actually force you to take a test, you'll then be deemed to have refused one.

I'd rather see guests for heat leaders replaced with some sort of handicap system to balance up the disadvantage.

Well not necessarily. There's far less of a tolerance for drink and drugs in competition testing than what's legally acceptable to drive on the road.

I read Phillipe's comments as it being an idea popular amongst promoters. But frankly, the Premiership is down to its dregs and the Championship is hardly looking that healthy either. A bigger league will at least offer more fixture variety, because repetition, regardless of the number of local derbies you stage, just becomes boring and encourages fans to miss particular teams they've already seen. It doesn't appeal to purists, although they're a dying breed anyway, but you can keep interest alive throughout the season by having half the teams qualify for 'playoffs'. You give teams finishing higher up the table some advantage like byes and second chances and it can still be credible. For me there should be just a couple of leagues - a merged Premiership and Championship run at a cost-effective level with maybe 14-16 teams, and a National League featuring the rest. In terms of riders per team, it really needs to come down to practicalities and what sort of match/meeting format you adopt. 5 rider teams are largely impractical if you're running a 15-heat programme because not you'll not only end-up with riders having to routinely take 6 programmed rides, but it's impossible to devise a heat format where you can avoid some riders getting two programmed rides on the trot. That just induces unnecessary delays, even before you factor in tactical subs, R/R, reserve rides etc... You can devise a reasonable heat format with 6 rider teams, although they become farcical if teams are allowed to turn up with only 5 riders (a la R/R without an additional rider having to nominate). And the savings are not going to be all that great beyond the travel expenses of one rider, because you're still having to pay out money for 15 heats and 4 of the 6 riders will be routinely taking an extra ride compared to now.

So much for the claims it would alternate with the SWC then. So the World Team Championship is now formally reduced to a best pairs competition. Not sure how a joker can work where pairs have only ridden the same number of times at the end of Heats 7, 14 and 21?

It would save a lot of hassle if you actually didn't have the tapes any more. It's hardly beyond the bounds of technology to use a laser or transponders to detect whether riders have moved too early. And also no problems with the tapes going up unevenly either. Just go on the green light being turned off.

My recollection was there was a junior event and then some qualifying races for the Golden Helmet on the Saturday, but in fairness that may have been before 1997!

I think there's certainly a danger it would impact the crowd that normally goes to the Golden Helmet, which is arguably one of the most prestigious non-GP events. But it's probably also because a GP would divert financial and human resources from the organisation of that. As for a double header, doesn't the Golden Helmet get run over a couple of days anyway, so not sure how that would work with a GP in the mix?

Yes, because mainstream soccer in the UK is largely the preserve of Sky and BT who collectively pay GBP 1.15 billion per year for the privilege. The terrestrial channels can't justify the cost. NBC pays about GBP 125 million per year because 'soccer' is nothing like the attraction in the US, and the Premier League knows it can't get away with charging what it charges UK broadcasters. Different market, different valuation, despite there probably being more soccer fans in the US than UK.

The US is not the biggest global market for speedway though, and in fact, the sport is probably hardly known to the wider public there. BSI are not going to risk the substantial costs that a US-based GP would entail off their own bat, and certainly not a few years ago when they had other serious issues with other GPs. The Melbourne GP seems to have been a mates rates sort of arrangement, and the AFL didn't keep it around after they took ownership of the venue. IMG largely, although not exclusively, seems to build its business model around minor sports which don't have high overheads, where the commercial rights can be acquired cheaply, and which can be easily sold to television as filler content. Speedway is a bit of an oddity in that it has quite high overheads for a minor sport, but maybe the existing business arrangements whereby local promoters took much of the risk, and the FIM covered the prize money, were attractive. However, IMG is not much interested in improving the lot of the spectator, because their revenue primarily comes from television and sponsorship. They need one or two prestige events to impress sponsors, but why would they want to improve the wider portfolio of venues when it offers little benefit to them? That's undoubtedly one of the reasons why they're disinterested in how individual GPs are promoted.

Difference is they're the club, presumably know what it would cost to host a GP, and don't think it's worthwhile to risk the future of the club for. Maybe the local municipality is also not interested in supporting for the same reasons.

You know as well as I do that they don’t have to rubber stamp a local nomination, and as Bavarian as just pointed out, have done otherwise in the past.

Quoting from Article 3.5 of the Speedway GP regulations... In each SGP Meeting, 1 Wild Card Rider will be nominated to take part. All FMNs may propose riders. Proposals must be made in writing to the FIM not later than 1 month prior to the meeting. The SGP Commission will make the final approval and nominations. But I'm sure you already know this.

Test matches variously had 7 or 8 rider teams. 6 riders had programmed heats, and there were one or two non-programmed reserves who could be used as required. I'd say the reserves were part of the team. However, I also seem to recall 'tests' between National League teams and the likes of Russia that ran with 7-rider teams under the 16-heat format that was used at the time.

So it actually had little to do with the cost of the bridge and everything to do with Copenhagen being an expensive venue?

I think towards the end, crowds were down to well under 20,000 in Copenhagen, which given the size and presumably cost of the stadium were pretty low. Phillippe blamed the cost of the bridge over from Jutland for putting off fans, but the bridge was there before the GP and crowds were initially quite reasonable.

I think it's well documented that promoters increasingly cut back on points/prize money for second-half races down the years, which contributed to riders increasingly taking them less seriously. And the likes of the Golden Sash also lacked meaningful context, and eventually morphed into the nominated heat if I remember correctly. A junior match interspersed within the main match would in principle allow things to run more quickly, as there would be less likelihood of riders having two rides on the trot. But there's still the added cost of having to pay for 6-8 extra riders, and more importantly have the costs of sending 3-4 extra riders around the country for away matches.

I doubt the Cardiff GP loses money as it's subsidised by the Welsh government. The British GP is probably one of BSI's bigger cash cows. BSI would only be interested in running another at Belle Vue if the local tourist board was willing to throw some money at it, or a local promoter was willing to front up a significant staging fee. Neither is likely to happen because the small capacity of the stadium means it's unlikely either scenario would be financially viable. BSI is in the game to maximise their profits - they're not interested in using the profits from one GP to subsidise another. They do have to put on a certain number of GPs for television purposes though, and there's obviously not enough cost effective big venues, or suckers who'll throw money at them to go around. Hence why they still have to find venues in the middle of fields that only cost a few bob and won't lose too much money. It's possible that a Belle Vue GP might make its debut if BSI desperately needed to find a cheap venue to make up the numbers, but as it would potentially pull some fans away from Cardiff, far more likely that they'll find somewhere in the likes of Germany, Italy, Finland or Croatia first, whilst claiming to support 'minor nations'. I'm sure though, they'd prefer to have ten Polish GPs if they could actually find ten Polish cities willing to pay over the odds, and thought they could get away with it...

You could have 1100 online programmes on a smart phone, and look back at them during the long gaps between heats to fill the time. I'm not actually unsympathetic as I still like filling in traditional programmes, but there comes a point when it's no longer economically viable to produce them for the number of patrons who'd purchase them.

And the 1966 World Cup!

A major contributor - not the major contributor. But you've inadvertently just pointed out the benefits of supporting the development of foreign infrastructure - allowing British speedway fans to get to GPs in a timely fashion to help enrich a British company, who in turn order programmes from a certain other British company.