AFCB Wildcat

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!

I've no idea what influences that would bring tbh. All I know is, that if this scenario was back in the pre Internet & tv coverage day's when I regularly attended matches, I'd be pretty certain at this point that I wouldn't be going to Speedway tonight.

Not in this case. I work nights, and it rained all night. On my drive home, there was lots of deep standing water. It's only just stopped now but the forecast for late afternoon & evening is for more solid rain. There was no way this was ever going ahead today.

I've only just gotten to watch it. Seems unfair to single out Vinnie. There were a lot of hard moves by the Poole team as a whole. As Thomsen said, Vinnie was just "sharing the stunts" I think that's what he said anyway 🤔

Quite. Yes, I served my apprenticeship at the factory at the bottom of Sterte Avenue. Our carpark was at the waters edge back then, with the slipway outside the gate by the sea cadets.

That's Holes bay. A back water of Poole harbour. Not the English Channel

Yep. It's a nightmare getting out of Leicester after a match. Every time i've been, it's taken over an hour to get back to the M1. Don't park on the industrial estate unless you want to be there till 7 o'clock trying getting out! I've booked a driveway on the Just Park app, which is on the way out of town this time. I'm hoping this will be better!

I live about 4 miles away and have just driven to within about 2 miles from the track and back. It's been raining steadily the whole time . Lots of standing water around too.

Vitality?? Dean Court please? I hate these bloody corporate sponsor names! Personally, I would have gone if it was Sunday but it would be too much excitement for me in one day to do both. Or too much beer!

I'm late to the party as I'd avoided seeing the result and I only got to watch it in the early hours, after work. Congratulations to Glasgow & their fans. That was an epic title winning performance. Every Glasgow rider contributed by scoring vital points, stopping Poole getting the 5-1's they badly needed and can feel immensely proud. For me, heat 10 summed that up. Was hoping the Pirates could could get the better of Basso for a last chance saloon 5-1, but then Complin pulled out that performance keeping Lawson behind him for 3 laps and scored a vital 2 points. Brilliant

Exactly! It's the same meaning as 'hate'

Calm down Dazee baby. Seriously, I hope you get the appropriate help with your obvious issues. You're getting tedious now, so as you're clearly incapable of any reasonable discussion, I'll leave you to it. Feel free to have the last word.

You've pointed out nothing. You just keep asking me to remind you of things. Do you have Alzheimer's or something?

If you're trying to sound clever, you're failing miserably. Quite the contrary in fact. I didn't predict the 2023 champion, or any other year for that matter. I was saying that Bartosz and other riders worthy of becoming world champion can win the races that matter. Feel free to offer an alternative view point if you can, although I accept that sensible debate might be a bit challenging for you .

Are you for real? My initial point was that accumulating points in qualifying heats when you may have the favoured gates at the right time or be racing against reserves because of exclusions etc. doesn't make you the best rider in the world. The best riders come to the fore at the business end of the meeting in my opinion. The forum is about opinions though, so feel free to have a different one to mine by all means, and express it in an adult manner, but your responses have added nothing to debate and are just confrontational and pathetically childish.

Good grief! What is that even supposed to mean??

I've been reluctant to comment on this because it's been done to death, but if your calculations based on points scored over 20 heats are correct, Lambert would be a major contender for World Champion going in to the last round. Do you honestly think that Robert is the best rider in the series this year when he's been nowhere near in the finals? Bartosz knows how to pull it out of the bag when the chips are down. That to me is the mark of a champion.

It's a tricky one for sure. I've read and reread the regulation, trying to make sense of it and the only thing I can come up with is this. The header starts "SHALL be penalised with a fine or sanction as provided in the FIM disciplinary code. The final sentence that says that the jury MAY sanction any persons breaking the rules as follows. There is a direct contradiction between SHALL and MAY, so is the MAY referring to the offences listed below that give a variable punishment? I.e. different fines depending on severity and state 'UP TO' disqualification. In that case it could be saying that the jury MAY sanction anything between the given parameters for a given offence. For the offence commited here though, there were no parameters given. It clearly states 600 euro fine plus disqualification from the meeting. The Star didn't really elaborate on their interpretation of the rules when they used the word 'CAN'. Phil Morris was adamant though that it was black and white and that they had no choice. I think the whole section needs rewriting for clarity. As with a lot of things, I'm sure it made sense to the person who wrote it at the time but it's a bit ambiguous!

It was the Bournemouth air festival this weekend and the price of hotels was ridiculous. Probably just coincidence though Hopefully they'll hold it in Manchester or London next year

Even then, the covenants seem to disappear when the right palms are greased.

Last night was my first visit to Wimborne Road for 2 years and the track was much, much better than the last time I went. Josh was riding on the edge of the dirt and pulling out big strides, proving it's not a one line track and that passing is possible. A few getting caught out going too far into the deep stuff though. Although the scoreline was a bit one sided, Josh, Kye, & Paco gave it a good go, so it wasn't the bore fest that the scoreline suggests. More Sunday fixtures please! Or Friday

I know it might not have been by choice, but I still think that moving the date away from the traditional June/July fixture to competing with the football season will have had an impact on the attendance. I know the die hards will probably disagree, but many people have lost their local Speedway team while still following the sport, but support their local football team too. The combined support of all the tracks left in the UK isn't going to fill a large stadium these days, so the event relies on the casual fan that might make Cardiff their only meeting of the year. There are circa 850000 sports fans that will be attending football matches on the day of the GP. If only 1% of those would have attended Cardiff if it hadn't clashed with following their football team, it would be a significant amount. It's certainly stopped me and 4 others attending in recent years anyway.

Just watched the highlights myself. As you say, very disappointing. The amount of time taken showing the presentation of the trophies and celebrations on the rostrum at the end could have been used to show another 5 or 6 heats!