THE DEAN MACHINE

At Carmarthen in 2002 we had shale from the GP at Cardiff and it wouldn’t bind so me and Gordon meakins went at midnight to roll waste oil drums all over the track and then prep the track, next morning it rained hard and the track was a nice rainbow colour but it did bind the shale

Speedway is full of BS, half the riders haven’t a clue why they use something they just see a top rider use it and think they have to as well, the riders at the top understand that speedway is very rider specific, what works for 1 rider won’t work for another and around 50% of riders throw money at something that doesn’t work, I remember when I worked for Adam skornicki him telling me at a meeting his bike packed up and Jason crump lent him a bike, he said it was the worst bike he had ever raced, it didn’t want to turn but obviously it worked for Jason

Because speedway is run by the riders, F1 isn’t run by the drivers, the solid block tyre was an attempt to slow the sport down and was met with dummies out the pram from all concerned, the sport will continue to run away cost and speed wise because there is no Bernie eccleston type character at the helm dictating the sport, there are various examples of expensive parts that have had no beneficial impact for the sport, tubeless tyres and the wheels needed,, karger ignition boxes, blixt carbs,hydraulic valves being some examples

My point to your point was you could make the bikes like they used to be and make the racing closer/better with the modern bike, the number of valves isn’t the problem, it’s the way they are set up,flywheels, cam’s everything on the modern engine is there to make it rev, I’m not sure of exact weight but a modern GM is probably 1/2 the weight of a jap. I raced a jap at the weekend and you really have to man handle the bike into the turns, the modern bike pretty much goes in to the turns on its own but so did weslake’s and other uprights

It’s the basic principle of the more they rev the louder they are and the original silencers were straight through ones till about 10 years ago, then they put a metal block half way along the silencer which caused extra back pressure and heat so engines had to be altered to suit the back pressure and heat shields were introduced because the silencers were getting so hot, this was the cause of the cheating when riders were drilling holes in the block and then the current silencers have the same hole in them that the cheaters were doing, it’s writing stuff like this and reading it back you realise how stupid speedway really is

The limiter was introduced and the limit is set higher than the actual revs achieved during a race, I brought a new anlas tyre last year for the upright championship on the Isle of Wight and used it again this year, so it can do 10 races when the limit is lowered to around 10,000, as bad as the tyre is it is being expected to do a burn out for 5 mins at 11,000+revs, that’s asking a lot of any tyre

The 2valve/4 valve argument is largely redundant, it’s has no real bearing on the current state of the sport, bikes are no faster now in real time speed than they were 40 years ago, what has changed dramatically is the speed of the back wheel, engine revs now are ridiculously and unnecessarily high, japs revved up to around 6000, 2valve Jawa revved up 7500 revs, 4 valve weslake were up to around 9500 and upright GMs to around 11500, the modern GM can max out at around 13500 revs although during a race you would be lucky to hit 12,000 revs but as I said earlier overall times over 4 laps haven’t really changed, the increase in revs is causing the tyres to disintegrate and it’s causing the tracks to disintegrate and it’s also made the bikes flat out power rather than throttle control, the modern silencer has reduced the usual power down to about 2000 revs, anything out side that usable rev range and you will not go anywhere, imo the introduction of a 10,500 rev limit via the rev limiter, a better tyre and a better silencer would make the bikes easier to control, you could also do things like smaller cam lift or heavier flywheels or softer compression to reduce the overall revs of the engine, it’s not too hard to implement these measures but unfortunately the sport is run by the riders for the riders via the tuners so don’t expect anything to change anytime soon

I don’t think the track is his problem, I just think it will magnify it but if he can overcome his issue KL will have a match winner in their ranks

It might, if he can get over his confidence issue then you could have a match winner, Anyone can practice and be good at any track, racing with 3 others is another matter all together, kings Lynn is a good track with good home track advantage because of its clay base it’s 100% grip all the time and it can be an intimidating place if you’re not fully on it and as it’s clear to see boughen isn’t that guy at the moment

Because clearly boughen is lacking confidence and as I’ve said kings Lynn is a confidence track

Did the riders get a say in where they went ? Or was it just like rider allocation like back in the day, if I was a rider lacking in confidence the last place I’d want to go is a track like kings Lynn, nothing wrong with kings Lynn but you have to be on it to ride there

Oxford’s head have dropped now, you can see it in the body language of the riders, only heeps and gilkes looks like it matters

Brennen’s start then was interesting

Boughen Shutting off again going into first corner

He says speedway cannot be turned into a circus, moaning about everything from the ref, the fans, Vinnie foord and his dad and how hostile it is at Poole, he doesn’t talk about his own incompetence

last weeks meeting was everything speedway needs, Peter shroeck’s comments in the star is everything speedway doesn’t need

As I said before, it could have something to do with his ex working for a GP sponsor, interesting that both his ex and his current girlfriend were both at the gala the other night, bet that was an interesting few hours

That’s fair enough

In every match I’ve seen on BSN this year he has done it

I’m not making this assumption after 1 meeting I’ve seen it in a few meeting now and im not the only one who is seeing it

I’m not questioning him if he wants to ride,he should be asking himself these questions, what I’m seeing and I know other in the sport are see it too isn’t a rider who lacks ability or speed, it’s a rider who clearly has some sort of mental block in certain races and it seems to be when he hasn’t got fresh air infront of him, because of the shortness of a speedway race and most of it happens in the first 15 seconds speedway is a massive mental sport and it is bloody hard to commit to a first corner but not only is he not committing in some races he is visibly shutting off, maybe he can sort this problem in time but anyone will tell you in any motorsport, when you ride not committed is when it comes to bite you and you get hurt, I don’t know if he has had any big crashes so far and he is carrying an injury but strangely when I carried an injury I seem to ride better but I also know a big crash can take a while to get over, I had a big one at Sheffield in 96 and that stayed with me for the next 16 years, I was always weary when I went back there but I had my biggest crash at Newport and it never bothered me going back there

You need balls ride a bike you need confidence to race it, crashes do make you weary and the longer your career the more that weariness grows but pretty much you are over it when you get your next race win, nobody wants to crash but if this is in your mind especially in your early years of your career then you need to ask yourself should I be doing this ?

A rider lacking confidence does not pin it round the air fence for 4 laps infront of the opposite no1, there is more to it than confidence or age, you can tell by the way he rides the bike he has the ability and the speed and is pretty natural on any bike

That is correct he can and he doesn’t do anything wrong but the fact remains he was the one who turned into foord

Definitely faking his EFs, wouldn’t really talk to anyone, kept himself to himself, not what you would call one of the lads ,after a EF when I asked what was the problem was he would just say sorted it but he never did anything to the bike, you couldn’t depend on him to win a meeting for you as you never knew when his EFs would strike but when he was good he was really good, I often thought why is he doing it but as I’ve learnt the mind is a strange thing and maybe he didn’t know he was doing it