old bob at herne bay

Not sure mystic meg operates outside of the UK ........ and the SGP riders seem to be able to ride on mud ankle deep in water if the "Race Director" tells them. Think the novelty of being able to go out again to watch a meeting post Covid Lockdown has worn off.... people have realised what they have been missing (or not) and the attendances have sunk to a plateau now waiting the the p.offs. For my part I have attended 2 local meetings this season, seen enough start gate gardening to completely clear my field of weeds. Nothing that will entice me to attend every week, or even venture to other tracks .

Sings4speedway, agree with you 100% re Brum and Newcastle. Both shaky fixtures at the mo. Thought the cloth had already been cut to small shreds this season, with rising stars, lowered points limits in NDL , but maintained or increased admission charges?

Saw the very early call off - and there were rumours of this call off heard on Tuesday evening at Kent. They must have mystic meg as a weather forecaster, and whilst a contributory factor, the more likely major reason is the clash with the Speedway Circus at Lublin. Really calls into question the wisdom of the fixture planning of Eastbourne running agaisnt the SGP. Coupled with a next to bottom Brummies team not being the most attractive opposition, any dodgy weather will persuade all but the die hard fans to stay at home at watch the SGP on BT Sport. Sundays were/are an alterntive race day for EB and one wonders why they haven't put on meetings on alternative days to avoid the SGP? Lets not forget that EB entertained another near bottom of table team last week with some dodgy weather arround, with allegedly their lowest crowd of the season, who endured a much delayed evening's entertainment with green light starts.... which is unlikely to attract any new fans back. Its ALMOST as boring as supporting English Test cricket in the bad light and rain.

No sign of Troy being unfit......first time he had seen the track, and clearly doesn’t know the passing lines like Scott and Paul. Pretty much finished where he gated on debut - won his race from the hugely advantageous gate 4 in fine style. Rode conservatively getting used to the track would be my assessment. TBH Eastbourne gave Kent a gating lesson last night, making full use of winning the coin toss and having gate4 in the early heats. No hose available at the Kent start line unfortunately!

Never saw this as a home win to be honest, after seeing Heeps get 0 last night at KL . Neither Heeps nor either of the 2 young reserves had a good evening, nothing to back up the 3 heat leaders. Still a crumb of comfort was seeing Kerr passed by both Paul and Scott in heat 15 denying EB an extra point. 2 meetings seen this season, glimmers of some good racing mainly from Scott. Well done Eastbourne, they won without any track doctoring, just landed on gate 4 when it mattered after winning the coin toss.

Looked up this "clean air zone" charge and it's £8 a day. !!!!

Read the match report on the Eagles website, and not a single word of apology offered to the spectators who stood around for “45 minutes” (Trevor Gears timing) , and the dismissive attitude re the tractor hitting the fence. Really exemplifies the poor customer service now being offered to paying customers. We must do better would be nice to have seen written down.

Jaybea sell merch for a number of clubs. see https://jaybeadesigns.co.uk/ Kent do have a club shop - it only recently re opened after the lifting of Covid restrictions. Its Jaybea stuff and all looks of reasonable quality. Seems speedway supporters are much more frugal with spending on merch. Many appear to delight in wearing scarves hats from a bygone era . Also the potential market is pretty small. Other than badge collectors doubt any fan would consider buying another clubs merch, thus limiting the market to a maximum of maybe several hundred.

I’ll not get involved with the discussion about the relative strengths of CL teams versus PL, as I have heard it all before. Surprised Matt and Dan don’t organise an inter league challenge at Wimborne Road......oh hang on they “dropped down” to save money. But amalgamation ain’t gonna work. BSPA ltd have cooked that goose with doubling up down. Where would all the extra riders come from? Even if watering down is accepted, there isn’t a surplus of rabbits in the NDL capable of filling reserve slots in the new SL ( Shovlar League) We already have teams full of guests R/R just to fulfil the current UK leagues set up. Unless of course the SL is proposing 4 man teams like they have in minnow nations speedway?

Whats going on down at Arlington ? never a fan of the track, but the presentation has always been one of the best. This season the track prep has been given to " an inexperienced team" quoted by Trevor Gear one the the team managers. Botched attempts at rigging the start grids have been found out. The " announcer" Kev Coombes who I used to rate highly seems to have become error prone.... and this week I read the starting gate wasn't tested and failed to operate delaying the meeting for an hour , followed by the tractor running into the safety fence. Green Light starts. Amateur Hour. Fixtures appear to be arranged every week to clash with one or more of the much heralded " home grown" Arlington talent riding somewhere else. Coupled with rumours of a "new" promotion taking over next season ... and going premiership (on a midweek race day ??? good luck with that one), one wonders whether Ian Jordan has maybe decided to try something different.... things were never like this under the auspices of the late, great Bob Dugard. Like him or loath him, he could prepare a track surface for the home side, and didn't hit the safety fence in HIS tractor.

If I were under threat of redundancy from my employer, who announces they might not last the season, not sure I would be feeling like giving it 100% ????

...not to mention any fallen away riders laying on the track being attended to by the St John’s medics. Graded to within inches of where they laid.

Waco, agreed, will be good to see how young Mulford copes. Hope he keeps his head and doesn’t try TOO hard.

Excellent. If well enough, will make the effort to see this Tuesday with league points at stake. Kent look competitive for the first time this season.

You can add pull down the tapes before each heat and at some tracks remove a bit of hardware used to steady the tapes after the race has started.

I am sure Edwards will find a reserve berth in another CL club to give hime more meetings that this year amateur NDL which runs so erratically. Good to see Ablitt getting a chance after Edwards sacking. I remember seeing Nathan Surprised that the stadium owners (C. Dugard & Sons Ltd) ?? wont allow double headers. Seems they don't like speedway anymore ? Or maybe complints from their neighbour a mile down the lane. ?

THJ ..... sounds good to me ....... Gilkesey left at reserve to carry JPB in the reserve races would work, and Morley has been doing OK this season. Just needs Heepsey to get fit and scoring some points.

So Bacon and Hurry's points to play with now for the new mystery replacments.

Sad to hear of any club in difficulties, but running speedway and attracting crowds in city centres is a challenge. Not sure Birmingham has ever attracted decent crowds in the modern era. Surprising really as Cradley, Wolves and formerly Coventry all run successfully. First meeting of the season set the tone , with an un prepared track, punters kept waiting for hours ……

Even with 2 poor guests (2 points between them ) Poole win away by 14 points. Heeps is clearly still injured. Hurry really has had his day and if he wants to race should consider an NDL team. Morley doing as well as you can reasonably expect, and far too much pressure on young Gilkes every week . That wooden spoon should be in the trophy cabinet at Sittingbourne very shortly.

Don't we have enought problems with bike tyres at the moment without considering changing everyone over to a petrol engine ? Such a move would have to come from theFIM I guess to ensure ALL speedway ran on petrol engines , or we would have even higher costs for riders havign to have 2 sets of engines ! Dont see any savings for riders only increased costs. Don't see anything but negatives for changing to petrol when the world is heding towards electric powered engines ........ mmm now there's a thought (only joking)

Have to say Mike.Butler, I always expect to pay to watch 2 teams of 7 riders racing. With the exception of the lad Lawrence last Saturday , seems that absences from taking part are rife. Which led to my comment about the league being "Mickey Mouse" The sort of behaviour you would expect in an Amateur speedway meeting at Lydd or Iwade. Glad you found the meeting entertaining, and you clearly enjoy cheaper admission charges to your NDL racing than I am able to watch here in Kent.

Met Office forecast doesn’t look too promising .....heavy rain 1500-1600 ☹️. Hope they are wrong . Kent will be up against it with a rider short and no satisfactory cover for R/R. Heeps needs to score some points and prove his fitness......

You could start by looking at offering some alternative formats for meetings...... do we have to have every race of 4 laps ? do we have to have a standing start ? Does every meeting have to have 500cc only bikes? Would the TV companies be happy to show a speedway meeting of say 45 minutes with 3 laps per race and say 4 man teams 8 heat meetings and get the riders out for the next race as soon as the previous race was finished? Open up the bars and snack bars ... put up a big screen somewhere showing action replays of all the incidents ...... Go ahead topsoil and do some blue sky thinking..... everyone thought the original 40 overs one day Sunday cricket was a joke at first. Until it appeared on the TV every week and filled the grounds. First 500 tickets sold online at the T20 get a free beer at Canterbury ...... seems to be a popular idea. Stadium owners would be happy to see more punters enjoying their facilities and eating at the tracks food outlets.

Got to agree with Uk_martin on his point re quality of product. As an example T20 cricket down here in Kent - all the remaining matches have sold out ....... its £25 a ticket and £7 for 5-15 year olds. Party atmosphere, flames leap int othe air every time someone hits a boundary. Day night games add to the atmosphere. Cricket officianados scoff at the crash, bang, wallop, limited overs white ball game , but it has saved cricket from the abyss. Watching a 3 or 4 day county match is not everyones cup of tea . Someone has gone in and sorted out Cricket with choices of format, whilst speedway is stuck with 15 heats every match 4 riders 4 laps per race .............. yawn. IF the product was moved into the 21st century, interst woudl be increased , crowds would increase , and maybe prices would reflect better value for money?