Humphrey Appleby

Quite often, yes. In the 'good old days' some used to be quite prestigious with top-flight line-ups and therefore worth travelling to see, but I'd think rarely the case nowadays. If you're somewhere where limited meetings are staged, or where elite riders rarely ride, then I can see open meetings being of interest. I've even been to 2 or 3 Gouden Helms whilst living in the Netherlands, but I feel meetings ultimately need context if they're not to be more than an occasional novelty.

Why did people think anything different? It was obviously grandiose branding to pull n the necessary funding, and whilst it's good that a fairly decent stadium has been created that can stage international meetings, especially with the impending loss of the de-facto 'national speedway stadium' at Coventry, there's no common ownership. Many 'national stadiums' are nothing of the sort though - Hampden Park is actually owned by Queen's Park FC.

Does it really matter from the perspective of the credibility of the sport? Regardless of who didn't do what, the Belle Vue promotion are ultimately responsible for putting on the show, ensuring the stadium was ready and fit for purpose, and certainly responsible for making the call of whether to proceed with the meeting or not. At the very least, they're guilty of poor project management. All this buck passing in public is absolutely pathetic. The whole thing is a public relations disaster that's undone much of the good work of getting the stadium concept turned into reality, but more importantly how many (new) fans have been alienated possibly never to return? The whole episode sums up why so many have walked away from the sport.

No, demand begets supply. Reduce the opportunities and not only fewer people will bother to become riders, but there will be fewer places where people will even be exposed to the sport let alone be able to take it up. I've certainly heard of non-league players on that a week in the higher echelons. Then again, some non-league teams will be getting somewhat more than 450 fans.

Unfortunately, whilst speedway fans continually apologise for the incompetent organisation of the sport, nothing will ever improve. Getting the 'National Stadium' built was a great accomplishment, one that bucks the trend of running the sport in increasingly dilapidated stadiums, and one that might conceivably have persuaded a new generation of fans (at least in the region) to come and watch. Instead there's yet another organisational fiasco at a high profile speedway event, and yet another nail driven into the coffin of the sport. Many of those who turned out will not be impressed and will likely never attend another speedway event again - and who can blame them? In this day-and-age with the cost and hassle of getting anywhere, combined with alternative and cheaper forms of entertainment being available, people are simply not prepared to put up with farcical service anymore. If the track/stadium/whatever was clearly not ready, and frankly it was likely obvious earlier in the week, then the event should have been postponed or cancelled. In this case, trying to do something was worse than doing nothing because a lot of people will now have been alienated. More generally, given the tight timescales on the construction of the stadium, I'd have probably always planned to have opened as late as possible.

The whole asset system is partly responsible for the mess British speedway has got itself into over the years. Having to pay transfer/loan fees for riders is why so many teams chased after foreign riders they could get for free. In what other industries are employees chattels of their original employers - it's absolutely ridiculous that the system continues to exist, far less the damage it's done to the sport. I've some sympathy with the NL teams that are genuinely providing facilities to develop new riders, but any compensation should be for a limited time.

I did read the article and I thought it was fair enough, but there are still a number of caveats against the prices quoted. As for engines doing several seasons, well I've got a 7 year old race engine that I still use and just about the only original parts are the case and head. It's like the old broom that's had the handle and brush replaced, so that's why I query it.

At a guess, valve springs, piston, bearings, seals, camshaft chain at a minimum. Longer service intervals possibly con rod, valves and crank shaft etc..

Not really sure how a contract mutually agreed between two parties can be considered illegal, but if the team agreed an illegal deal with a rider, then surely the team not rider should be penalised?

He didn't really mention the cost of parts though, or what the markup might be on those. I'd have thought those would add considerably to the bill. 'Using the same engines for 5 years' could also be open to interpretation. It may just be the case that's being used, with the entire internals getting replaced on a regular basis.

The 'top boys' will undoubtedly be replacing their engines every year anyway, and probably even the average professional as well. Provided there's some relaxation at the lower end of the sport where riders haven't got the money to throw at tuners anyway, then the engines will still have resale value.

The whole thing seems a bit pointless. There was an opportunity here to stage some sort of embryonic European Super League over a few meetings, whether using a 4TT or Pairs format, that could have boosted the profile of league racing. Instead we get a 'Champions League' that doesn't include champions and isn't actually a league, and a European Pairs series with made-up teams that no-one identifies with.

I think the issue in the past, and possibly still now, is that local riders attracted transfer and loan fees whereas unsigned foreign riders didn't. That was entirely due to the lack of cooperation between the various leagues, and an old fashioned system of self-interest rather than looking at the bigger picture. That's a somewhat different issue and will not be solved until promoters are willing to change the current points limit system that's not only punitive towards teams finishing merely in the top half of the table, but encourages average manipulation and finding riders to come in on artificially low assessed riders. You can mandate all the British riders you like, but you still won't get any consistency under the current team building system. Of course that would be the case, but it still doesn't stop the howls of outrage and supporters threatening to walk away from the sport. The decision to make of course is whether you'd expect to attract more new fans to replace those lost.

On the one hand people say they want more British riders. On the other hand they want to see more of the 'top boys'. How many of the 'top boys' are British?

I think you have to ask what's to stop the British born riders being employed now? I actually agree that British speedway would benefit from employers riders wholeheartedly committed to racing in British meetings, but you only have to read the howls of 'watering the product down' that greets any suggestion, far less attempt at doing this. And over on another thread, there's a discussion about bending over backwards to change race nights in some vainglorious attempt to bring the 'top boys' back.

What's the point of having a fixed race day on Fridays where it'll still clash with GPs and all sorts of other events staged on Saturdays?

What was the logic behind the 'not looking back' rule?

It's not question of being opposed to change, but asking whether competitions between made-up commercial teams are actually going to advance the sport in the long-term. We were also told the SGP would usher in a new era that would take speedway to new markets, but the sport has not moved forward in the past 15 years, and very arguably has regressed. Now it might possibly have regressed even more without the SGP, but equally had similar effort and investment been put into league racing then the story might be different as well. This European Pairs competition offers three meetings for about 21 riders. Without league racing providing regular fixtures for the other 30 weeks of the season, what else are they going to be doing for the rest of the year, not to mention the other 400 or so professional riders? Now I fully accept that staging some competitions for elite riders generates interest and a certain showcase for the sport, but the right balance has to be struck between these events and needs and requirements of the bread-and-butter of the sport. What certainly should not be happening is elite competitions competing with each other for riders and revenue, and what certainly should be happening is some of the profits from elite competitions accruing directly back to the underlying sport that sustains them. If people prefer one-off meetings organised by private promoters between made-up commercial teams then fine, but let's see how the sport progresses in the next few years.

It's not just that, but also whether fans will turn up at midweek meetings. Some tracks in more urban areas do okay, but for others it's traditionally not worked well. For the likes of Coventry, it's just been a downward spiral ever since they moved away from Saturdays.

Yes, but this forms part of the world circuit of events and I daresay elite cross country skiers tend to compete exclusively at that level. Conversely, football has alternating World Cups and European Championships that (usually) take place outside of the normal playing seasons of the main leagues. European club competitions have defined midweek dates and don't take away prime weekends from national leagues (although they're arguably more prestigious nowadays), whilst even the World Club Cup has a defined week in which it takes place. And the revenues from these competitions for better or worse, accrue to FIFA and UEFA even though where it goes after that is anyone's guess. North American sports have never really played well with the rest of the world, not least because the major leagues there are so financially dominant. Motor sports is a bit notorious for having rival series, but it usually comes down to disagreements over formulas and running costs. It'll usually be argued that series X differs from series Y in some subtle manner, although rarely is it ultimately good for the sport. As far as I know though, the riders in the SGP ride the same bikes as in SEC, so that can't be an argument.

In fairness though, this seems to be organised by an actual ice hockey club that plays in an established competition. The wider issue is running parallel series. As speedway is primarily European based, it makes no sense to run World and European Championships which are essentially competing for the same riders and market. If there's an issue with how BSI run the SGP then deal with that, if certain countries/tracks feel left out then address that issue too, but it's absurd for the FIM and its mickey mouse offshoot FIM Europe to be sanctioning competing competitions in the same space. The pairs is slightly different in that there's not an existing FIM version of that, but that could have been a proper World Championship instead of the cobbled together nonsense it is now. Even if Britain did have a sufficient pool of riders, taking part in European competitions would still require riders to be disappearing off almost every weekend. Aside from the duality of functions mentioned above, I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that these European competitions shouldn't be run to provide fixtures for continental tracks and riders, but neither should British speedway be criticised for not participating because it wants to run its own programme of meetings at the weekends (which it has done for the past 80 years).

It's probably logistically possible for the EL to run on 1 or 2 nights, but whether it's economically feasible is another matter.

Scattering ashes is just a symbolic thing - they'll pretty quickly be subsumed by the surrounding elements. It's not like burying someone on the centre green and having to re-interr the body when the builders move in. Perhaps the best thing to do with ashes is put them in an old perfume jar with a corny poem attached, and award them to the winners of an England vs Australia test series... or has that already been done?

You think groups of private promoters muscling in on an established competition structure is a good thing? In how many other major sports are there privately sanctioned tournaments in the middle of the established competition season?

The top riders used to ride regularly in open meetings, but they were still open meetings. This pairs thing is likely financed out of television deals, but the question remains who does it actually benefit? I actually like pairs competitions and wouldn't mind a proper World Paris returning, whether between national teams or league teams, but it has to have proper context.