AFCB Wildcat

Absolutely... I wasn't disappointed and would definitely do the Prague GP again. Same as you, I got very cheap flights from my local airport and a good value hotel. I can't remember what year we went, but the flight had lots of speedway fans on it. I think Ryanair must have noticed the interest in that weekend and cottoned on that there was something going on, because the following year the flights for that weekend were silly money, so I didn't bother. Unfortunately, there are no flights from Bournemouth to Prague anymore.😕 At the end of the day, a holiday abroad including a GP, for the same price as 2 nights in a Premier Inn is a no brainer!

Just for clarity, are you referring to temporary bars at the fan zone when you say 15-20 minute walk? If you quoting 15-20minures for 0.7 miles to the fan zone in Cardiff, then it's over an hour to walk into Manchester for the city's bars and restaurants. I think the point being missed here is that it's not just that people want to get beered up. In Cardiff, the Speedway had a presence throughout the city on GP day. All the bars & restaurants full of fans from all over, street vendors selling merchandise on street corners etc. Speedway took over the City for the day and people enjoyed that celebration of Speedway with fellow fans. With the limited capacity and distance to the stadium, I can't see that being recreated in Manchester city centre. I've only been to one other GP venue other than Cardiff. We went to Prague, and yes, there were bars and restaurants galore, in a beautiful city, which we loved, but apart from one advertising poster & seeing Kelvin Tatum in an Irish bar, I would have had no idea that that Speedway was happening. At least the metro system made it easier to get to the stadium though. It lacked the atmosphere created in Cardiff and both myself & my wife (who isn't a fan, but always wanted to come to Cardiff) felt that it fell a bit flat compared to the Cardiff experience.

Listen sport... AceBelle is considerably richer than yow! 😄

After the way that people have been messed around with the Cardiff cancellation, this situation is very poor and is showing total contempt for the fans. I understand the logistical problems in arranging 2 GP's at relatively short notice and working out the costing etc. But a statement explaining the reasons for the delay would go a long way, rather than the wall of silence.

It's a bit away, as you said, but not a bad shout to save money on hotels. We've used Preston South Premier inn a few times for football in Lancashire as its always cheap, is close to the motorway junction & has ample free parking. The restaurant isn't great, but there's a big pub opposite which is better & does a good breakfast too. You have to take a 10 minute train ride from Bamber bridge to Preston in order to get the Manchester train though.

It's very poor isn't it? Especially with the other event in Manchester at the same time. People want to secure accommodation, but currently have no guarantee that they will get tickets 😕 They've already messed people about with the Cardiff cancellation. A bit of clarity on this one wouldn't hurt.

It's difficult keeping up with it all isn't it? I swapped from Sky go Virgin media, when it moved to BT sport. Virgin kept hiking prices, so I then swapped to BT (now EE) for my internet, phone & TV, with a sports package add on, including TNT & Discovery plus premium for £18 per month. The total package was £75. My contract lasts till October this year, so hopefully I'm good for this season at least.

Obviously, and I'm not disputing any of that, but that doesn't address the actual reasons for the declining crowd levels which made it unviable though, does it? I imagine that the cost of providing all the temporary seating required at the NSS will have a big impact on the viability of the event too.

I'm not forgetting that at all. I said in my post that the number of people who regularly attend Speedway in the UK doesn't come close to filling a large stadium. My point was, that I dont think that hotel prices or availability in Cardiff were the reason for the lower attendance in recent years.

I don't think hotel availability & cost are going to be a factor for any GP at the NSS. It's unfortunate for anyone who wanted to stay in the centre of Manchester this year that Park life (whatever that is??) Is on at the same time, but with the limited capacity of the stadium, hotels aren't going to be as in demand by Speedway fans as they were in Cardiff. I don't know what the capacity will be exactly, but Wiki says 6500 with temporary seating. I would have thought that Belle Vue fans alone and northern fans within an hours drive, or train journey of Manchester would take most of that, without the need for hotels. In Cardiff there were probably 5000 hotel rooms for an attendance of 40000 in it's heyday at the Principality. Manchester's hotel capacity far exceeds the stadium capacity. I'm not having a dig, but the GP at the NSS will be no more significant to Manchester than Stockport County playing at home. It's an unfortunate fact, but the number of people who regularly attend Speedway in the UK doesn't come close to filling a large stadium, so Cardiff relied on attracting a larger audience, outside of the hardcore fans, and initially, it did. In Cardiff, Speedway took over the City for the day and the atmosphere and vibe of the day was significant to anyone who was not a regular fan. In Manchester city centre, nobody will even know it's happening. Again, that's not a dig at Manchester, it's the same in Prague, great city but the Speedway is lost in it. I simply don't accept that hotel prices, costs, Covid or any of the other reasons stated in the Star, lamenting the loss of Cardiff were the reason for the declining attendances. Rugby & other major events still prosper there. For me, the significant factor was moving the date into the holiday season & pitching it against the opening day of the Premier League season and a full football league programme.

There were always cheaper options for Cardiff too. I used Premier inn as a comparison to the rates in Cardiff, because it's like for like. I was making the point that it's standard practice for hotels to hike prices around events. Manchester is no exception as the prices I stated show. 'Travelling out a bit' was an option at Cardiff too. There were plenty of cheaper options along the valley lines, with easy access to the stadium or city. We always stayed in Caerphilly and took the train. I accept that the GP alone, won't impact prices in Manchester in the same way as Cardiff, but that's because it's not a big stadium event in the city centre.

Exactly. Often it's much cheaper to pay up front, with the no ammendments,no refunds option. Obviously it's a gamble and if something goes wrong in your life, meaning that you can't go, or a natural phenomena makes travel impossible, that's the chance you're prepared to take when you choose that option and you suck it up. With the Cardiff GP though, it's not going to be a rain off, so I think someone would have a legitimate complaint when the rug has been pulled by the organiser in this fashion after they had announced the date when they must have known it wasn't certain to happen.

New broadcasting house? That was still 2.5 miles from NSS

Help me out here, because I've seen this stated a few times. I've been to, & stayed in Manchester many times and I will be there again on Sunday for football, so I'm familiar with the geography. Manchester Piccadilly is pretty much as south of the city cente within the ring road as you get. Google maps says its a 2.4 mile walk and 57 minutes from there to the Speedway stadium. I walk pretty quickly (for my age) but I reckon that's a 45 minute walk for me, so where in the city centre is it a 20 minute walk from?

Deal with what? Sorry if you missed the point. I'll try and explain once more, then I'll give up... Cardiff was criticised for being 'rip off' because hotel prices were hiked on GP weekends. Whether it be Oasis, The Wombles, or Speedway is irrelevant. Manchester hotels have hiked their prices because of demand in the same way, so is no different to Cardiff or anywhere else & I accept that's how it works. If you can't understand that, I'll send you my tissues, as you probably need them for something else 😉

Perhaps there are. I was talking about Premier inn. The prices on Booking.com aren't much different to Cardiff on a gp weekend. All I was saying is that Cardiff is no different to Manchester.

So that makes it okay?

I wasn't suggesting it was entirely to do with speedway. My point was that all major cities hike prices at weekends and when there are events on. Cardiff wasn't unique in that.

For those that bitched about 'rip off Cardiff' , I see that Premier inns in Manchester are all around £400 or more for those 2 nights. Bargain! 👍

I'm not sure what they're trying to achieve with this change. On the one hand, I suppose it guarantees that the top scorer in the qualifying heats is in the final, with the first gate pick, which is fairer than having to qualify through the semis. On the other hand, going through 20 heats, just to eliminate 6 riders, seems a step too far for me. If they want to award GP points based on finishing position, rather than points scored in the heats, perhaps they could go back to the old 'A' final, 'B' final system. Top 4 qualify for the 'A' final, 4 to 8 for the 'B' final etc. At least that would prevent anyone outside the top 4 point scorers from the heats winning the GP.

Can I ask if your original intention was to convert the whole engine to upright? If so, could you advise me on what alterations would be required in order to mount it in an upright frame? I ask because I have a Jawa 898 engine which had been converted from upright to laydown, I believe by Lew Coffin. Now that its been redundant for a good few years, I want to mount it in a PJ upright framed chassis that I have. I've got all the external components required, but am unsure what changes would be required to the engine itself.

I agree that overall times over 4 laps haven't changed significantly since the 2 valve era, so what lead to riders going in this direction to where we are now? It must be factored in though, that the 2 valves were un-silenced, so was the move to higher revving engines a way to combat the restriction of the silencer when they were introduced? It seems that every time a new silencer is introduced, that engines have to change to adapt. Or are there other factors that have led us here?

That's interesting. 1972 was my first season too, but I can't remember how much it was. I was looking at speedway programmes on Ebay, and 1977 covers were showing prices of 10 to 12p. That's half as much again as your 8p, so if admission rose by the same, a child admission would have been 45p by 1977. Child admissions are currently around 30% of the full adult price, so as a rule of thumb, that would make a 1977 adult admission £1.50 There is a 1977 White City Intercontinental final ticket on Ebay, showing a face value of £1.50, so I can't imagine that Gulf BL admission was more than that.

Exactly that. In relation to the other things that us working class peasants spend their disposable income on, speedway has faired quite well. For example, take a night at the pub. Checking historic prices, the average price of a pint of beer in 1977 was 27p. Sounds right because I remember buying my first pint (underage!) at 29p in a local pub about a year or so later. If speedway was £2 back then and you do the comparison in today's money, speedway would be nearer £40. Compared to a packet of ciggies it would be £60. I know that that the cigarette comparison is not really valid because they've been taxed heavily for health reasons now. They must have been healthy back in the 70's though because I used to enjoy the scantily clad women handing out free sample cowboy killers to us kids at the Marlboro Grand prix. Happy days!

It should be about the racing, but unfortunately, as with most things today,the branding is more important than the quality of the product. There aren't enough speedway fans left in the UK to make a dent in the capacity of a large stadium, so it needs to appeal to a wider audience. I used to attend Cardiff every year, with family members who weren't particularly interested in speedway, but loved the big stadium experience and as you say, "the day part" Manchester won't recreate that unfortunately. In Cardiff, speedway takes over the city centre in an almost party atmosphere. In Manchester city centre most people won't even be aware that anything is happening. The proximity of the stadium to city centre won't help either. I've not been to the NSS, but google maps has it as between 2 and half and 3 miles, depending on which area of the centre, so the 20 minute walk or under 5 minutes in an Uber that's being stated on here sounds optimistic to me. It feels like a trek to the Etihad which is nearer. I'm sure it will sell out though, and the racing will be great viewing, so I'm really happy to have it as a 2nd British GP. I just wish they could reverse the dates. Pitching Cardiff against a full football league programme & the opening day of the Premier League season must affect attendance from the wider audience. I can only assume that it's down to stadium availability, otherwise, it's madness!