martinmauger

Been told the same, also the wrapping itself my brother who works in motor industry says parts deliveries in such packaging is often lost & delayed, no probs with letter size, A5 & A4 envelopes, boxes or jiffy bags / padded envelopes. No Star for me as yet, ish W/E 11-1-25, wanted something to read so tried Asda, Tesco, WH Smith & 2 wee papershops; no joy....

Recall reading at least one other team, coulda bin Poole ?, were rewarded with a holiday by their promotion. The late Len Silver often took his riders on skiing holidays. Getting to the (prob intended) point: give the team finishing top a trophy: League Winners, then play off winners a trophy also: League Champions = everyone happy.😀 "Simples", as a certain meerkat would say😉....

Spreaking as I find: to be fair it was printed in the week afore's ish that current mag, w/e 28-12-24, would be on sale from Friday onwards, 'subbed' issues delivered 24 hours later. Sadly I've had the odd 'Star go missing myself, but whenever I've phoned Dave Fairbrother (a man of few words who gets things done) at Pinegen, 'Star Distibution dept., he has always posted me a replacement asap. During one 'Dude, where's my Star ?' (see what I did) chat he was also frustrated over copies going missing, and revealed the problem is much less prevelant than at one time. Speedway Star remains a top quality publication covering our great sport and, as I've alluded to before, it's important we support the magazine, and our teams / tracks, as without drawing pictures, speedway needs all the support it can get. And, no, Dave didn't ask me to say that, though I promised I would....

Also prob some posters, like me, who read the forum everyday but don't necessarily have time to chime in or new info to contribute....

Joe Owen, early in his career had the nickname 'Tazmanian Devil' the way he twisted all over his bike with plenty of elbows out. His style calmed down quite a bit & he became a well capable rider in 1978 raising his match ave. to above 9pts before his first terrible action at Hull riding in a meaningless 2nd half race....

Indeed, All The Very Best To All In Speedway For 2025. And (don't wanna preach to ya people, no, no, no) but if at all possible: attend your local track, and also others, or subscribe to the BSN or club feed, buy a programme & maybe club merch & also buy the Speedway Star. Discuss, criticise & complain, and also praise, (as we all love to do) by all means but try to support speedway in general. 'East Yorkshire based nutshell': when Hull closed at the Boulevard end of 1981 there were 2 divisions each of 18 teams (36 in total) with prob a few 'inactive but possible to re-open' tracks. End of 2024 we have a total of 16 +/- in the entire country, allbeit with a few 'inactive but possible to re-open', Bradford, Buxton, Coventry (hopefully) & Mildenhall immediately spring to mind. Don't think I need to draw pictures, but try to Support Speedway in 2025....

Similar situation in Hull; plenty of land inside and just outside city boundries, but literally ACRES of it just a couple of miles to the the North and to the West, but it's all owned by someone, just sitting on and it biding their time....

Can reccomend this, when I was way younger my Dad took me fishing to Filey, North Yorkshire, this woulda bin late 1970's / early 1980's ?, & I was delighted to discover sand racing was taking place - who knew ? I had just got into speedway a few previous years ago & recall there were different classes: grass / sand track bikes, Moto-X, sidecars, diff engine capacities, etc. Recall one guy seemed to be in almost every race, we watched him & he just re-fuelled & went straight again. Speaking to him afterwards he told us he rode a 250 so could compete in many more classes (250, 350, 500, unlimited, etc) so more skids for his buck. One last thing: we know how a speedway track changes so rides different as a meet progresses (dries out, dirt moves, etc) well the Filey track actually changed shape as the tide came in, from a big 'Belle Vue shape', towards to the end was a long 'sausage-shaped track', imagine, say, IOW's straights with Lakeside's bends. But, yeh, a good day out, reccomended. FOC too....

(Tis the weekend so I'm in a funny mood) My favourite shovel is the Spear & Jackson no.3, there have been reports of handles breaking off but I still believe it to be a fine shovel. ... Courtesy Ripping Yarns Series 1 Ep2: The Testing Of Eric Olthwaite 😀 https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=Awr.nrDQ2kFnAwIA2t5LBQx.;_ylu=Y29sbwNpcjIEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj/RV=2/RE=1733578705/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fwatch%3fv%3dHlWbcQ0iQiQ/RK=2/RS=YSEvzjteue_6uWW0w.xol098d6w-

Good stuff for Matej, happy to stand corrected, as we need our info to be right. Right ?...

Jumping in quick re: Zagar, think I read in the 'Star a few weeks that Zagar is either 'no longer an active rider' or 'is semi-retired', not been able to find the article again but think that's pretty much what was said, so he's poss out of the picture anyhoo....

Yeah very smart bike, good that it gets ridden too....

Good stuff....

Thanks for that Deano, makes sense now, 'mystery' solved, as with many things in speedway: all just to do 4 laps in (still) 60 secs or so.....

Are the Monarchs & Academy teams both defo good to go for 2025 & beyond ? Not being 'a negative ninny' but seem to recall there was some doubt over the future availability of Armadale & the Edinburgh management were reported to be looking for a new site elsewhere & a new ideal location fell through at the 11th hour recently, speedway can ill afford to lose anymore clubs....