THE DEAN MACHINE

after seeing the sad situation with newport my first thought was why dont they enter the NL? , if the NL was a well run league and was seen as a bonified 3rd division instead of an development league maybe they would want to join , like stoke did , i know certain people winthin the stoke set up thought it was a bad idea to join , but they did and those people loved it by the end of the year , i really do belive we can make the 3rd division a shining light in speedway instead of the ugly sister it is at the moment , its a british riders league full of riders who are not in it for the money ,who dont jet off to ride for other teams ( of which i still feel is working against team speedway ) but i understand riders need to make a living , the league needs a leader someone with ideas someone who dosent tow the bspa line and pushes the league for all its worth , where is the publicity for NL meetings ?, there is needle between a couple of teams because of events that went on last year , well make storys out of them , when the 2 teams meet , the week before team A puts in the star " we are going to beat team B cause we beat them last year and they are bad losers so we are going to rub their faces in it and do it again " words like that , create some intrest , then the supporters from team B want to go to the meeting cause the meetings mean something , its basic publicity ,make some heroes and villians from the riders , the riders would be willing to go along with it im sure , stop this development talk , it does nothing to attract supporters to meetings , yes the league is used for riders to learn but supporters of dudley ,mildenhall, isle of wight ,stoke want their teams to win cause after speedway at all levels including 3rd division is about WINNING , maybe newport would want to be a part of that , , (at least i havent got to headbutt their safety fence again) but joking apart push the league , make it proper team speedway and maybe supporters will want to pay to watch it ,

i enjoyed riding at Wimbledon but i do remember everything being vastly over priced as everything is in London and that was for conference league so you could imagine how much it would cost to attend a GP in London , stick with Cardiff , they welcome speedway and really have bent over backwards to embrace the sport although financially its in their interests to do so

is the olympic stadium in the LEZ charge , if so that rules out any fan who owns a diesel car or van over 2ton and 10 years old from attending ,unless they want to pay £200 a day

i dont think it would get a better gate , it would put me off for a start ,i not haviing a go at this new manchester speedway stadium either but looking at the plans ive seen better stadiums used for training by football teams , it hardly looks state of the art and is open to the elements for a start of which manchester is well known for

got to say i share this view , cardiff is a far better venue than wembley or the olympic stadium, have you been in the surrounding areas around wembley and hackney these days ,to think 40,000 fans hanging around acton doesnt fill me with joy , london is only important to the people who live there , the rest of the country are happy for cardiff or any other stadium for that matter , why not have it indoors at the nec or other venues around the country , its a tempory track anyway so laying the track is not an issue

this sounds strange and its not what should happen but the NL should make it self so successful that premier teams should want to drop down , the product is right just the way it is projected into fan base is all wrong , but that is speedways problem in general ,i really dont care what the premier or elite do i am only passionate about the NL and its way forward

i just think we should make the NL as professional as possible , the reality is its a 3rd division with better racing and more unpredictability , just at a slightly slower speed ,

i think for a start drop the development or amateur tag from the title , while it might have the intentions it puts people off straight away , use the word training ,development, amateur and fans think wobblers going round at 5mph and crashing every corner , make it look professional , i know fans who just wont go to watch NL cause they think its a glorified training school,it does not matter what its intentions are it must be seen as a 3rd division, this is not the answer to all the problems but i think its a must as a starting point

now that it looks like less teams in the league unless any new teams come forward, places are more scarce than before and the big money that was paid to some riders a couple of years ago is not so widespread and its about 50/50 that get paid £10 per point and 10p per mile and those who get more , so i think its about time the bspa did their bit and made some efforts to reduce riders costs , standardisation of bikes/engines ?, the price of the licence ? ,new tyres ? .speedway has got to start reducing costs somewhere it might as well be at the bottom and work up

i would be happy to see davey watt as the wild card in cardiff if he is the next in line , i dont think bjarne pedersen is going to do much for the GP but he is there on merit , he has earned that right , if we are going to go down the route of putting riders in to pull the crowd then put jason garrity in at cardiff , the other 15 riders would be a lot more scared of him than he would be of them

i am not really opposed to the new gaurds except in looks maybe , i just think its a change that will just change the injury rather than eliminate it ,and if you think how many races have been run for years and years with the current style gaurds how many riders have got caught in the mudgaurd? , the bikes are a minefield for getting tangled up with and suffering burns but thats the nature of racing motorcycles and always will be and as for safety at all levels what about rear wheel spoilers , it is now a rule at all levels you have to use them to stop fingers getting caught in the back wheel except in the GPs ? ,why what so special about the GPs that makes them exempt from the rule ,

this is not taking anything away from jason ,jason efforts in New Zealand should be commended and im sure he will give it all , but the point is this is the world championships, to find the best in the world , not a celebrity big brother on bikes , where you can just introduce a person to boost the ratings ,

other 15 riders all over world 45 bikes all over the world another 3 bikes and another couple of seats on a chartered flight surely next in line should be davy watt ? and he is in aus

and going by the crowds , speedway is not going in the right direction for a lot of people

then if your right , dont bother sending any riders half way round the world , iron maiden will be touring there soon just get them to play , the stadium will be packed and bsi will make a fortune , the gp is just turning into xfactor on bikes ,

ive got nothing against jason but the credibility of speedway is a stake here (if it has any left), if its about putting bums on seats then get Justin Bieber to ride , he will get 1000s of screaming girls to attend ,this is selling speedway down the river , this is the world championship ,its a competition to find the best speedway rider in the world, what bsi do about promoting the gps should have no influence on the riders who ride in it

just to let the organizers know I'm available for the Cardiff wildcard, my mom is welsh lol

it does pay some of the costs , it pays travel expenses and it pays points money and nowhere else will you get that racing motorbikes , ,but untill you get to at least a second string in the premier league you shouldn't be thinking about getting anywhere near breaking even and not treating it as a job , it would be wonderful if speedway was raking money in and could afford to pay riders decent money but it cant, i'm not saying riders riders don't deserve getting payed for it ,i'm just saying that with what speedway does pay you should be grateful that you get something that you love doing , and to be honest if you are doing speedway to make a fortune and earn a good living ,then you are in the wrong job , cause unless you get to the top it isn't going to happen ,that does sound a little harsh but its a fact , speedway itself could do something to make it more affordable but it wont , costs will just keep rising and about 80% of British riders wont get past premier league standard in their career and will not have made any sort of money , but 99% will say they had a fantastic time trying

for me it has to be ermolenko/ correy and hamill/hancock and when wolves met cradley somebody had to lose ,those were the days

im going to annoy some with this post but , to be a speedway rider is your own choice nobody is forceing you to do it , it is a fantastic often painfull career/hobby , you have to sacrifice just about everything to do it , no other motorcycle sport pays you anything other than prize money to compete, you dont have a given right to earn money at it ,especially at NL level , it takes a silly amount of money to compete above NL level and although sponsors are great and well recieved why should you expect someone else to pay for your privilage/hobby/passion, as brits yes we do get less backing from our govening body than say Denmark,Sweden or Poland but it will never change , i do sympathize with anybody trying to get started in the sport ,the fact is it costs a stupid amount of time and money and your always going to be on a loser , but the sport dosent do anything to help out with costs , ive been going around in circles for long enough now to know how it works ,and when i think of the money i lost around 1997-2001 trying to compete in the premier league it makes me cringe ,i was traveling to berwick and glasgow for home meetings but i wanted to be a rider and thats what you have to do no matter how much money you lose , i actually didnt lose money last year by doing my own engines and frame straightening and wheel building , im just seeing out my career this year and having fun , hopefully all you young new riders will get to the top and make loads of money from speedway , but what im trying to say is to be a speedway rider is a privalige not a right and to get to the top its going to cost you in money/time/effort/tears/heartache/sweat and blood , enjoy the ride

the new guards will now just chop your fingers straight off instead of burning your skin

the silencers are deffinatly in for all league speedway , as for the mudgaurds ,not heard anything deffinate yet , it did say in last years rules they would be in for this year but you never know with speedway ,personally i hope not ,i think they look rubbish and as you say is just extra expence , but we will find out around march

wolves v cradley , dudley wolves trophey matches , in the ermolenko/correy v hancock/hamill years were imo the best speedway meetings ive ever seen , it wasnt speedway it was war, to a wolves or cradley fan , the league ,koc and any other trophey were irrevelent, it was all about those 2 meetings

sorry to hear karl is retiring , always been a fair and friendly rider, all the best in whatever he does in the future