Hawk127

Ellis has had chances at this level and never makes the grade. Screwed up at the Cardiff GP when was not fit and denied another rider of the chance to perform. Was rather cocky in an interview on Saturday in a Polish meeting. Let Tom have a chance as riders like him are the future. As to why team GB needs two dick heads to run the thing beggars belief. Sums up GB speedway.

He is probably not happy with his investment this year and even though he probably runs a tight ship, the gamble has not paid the dividends he may well have hoped for. A shame really but it is what it is.

It is not a profitable business and anyone capable of producing a business plan and cash flow would recognise the weaknesses in not least for the dependency on income outside the control of the the promoter running the club. It requires wealthy sponsors, a minimum number of punters through the gate and riders who recognise that their contribution to the entertainment will reflect their value to the overall presentation and earn accordingly. At the moment you have riders trying to screw as much as possible out of a bankrupt product and club owners who simply refuse to say no to the demands of riders and fail to recognise the state the sport is in. As has been said in earlier posts at best this is now an amateur sport and if you need confirmation of how dire it has got look at the World Cup and it’s screening. It use to be on Sky or BT and promoted but now it is no longer On a fully accessible t v channel but some app and the final eventually is on Eurosport. Who in the U.K. other than the anoraks knows that team GB are competing and someone explain what home publicity the sport derives from what should a major event. It is dead in the water as a sport and no matter what the annual November get together comes up with, you can be assured they will not know how to deal with the decline. Those in charge need to be dynamic and try something drastic to revive speedways fortunes in the U.K. but it will not happen. Perhaps the sport should take time out in 2024 and abandon league meetings and try something completely different.

Thanks for this.

Are the meetings being shown live and if they are which channel? I cannot see any listing on TNT/Eurosport

Perhaps they could have a mini league play off and invite Mildenhall to compete. East Anglian championship chase. I am sure Mildenhall could draft in a couple of Polish riders to boost the ranks or perhaps Tai and one or two others could be drafted in. Who needs the play offs and BSN could televise it. Then I woke up and realised it really is a nightmare for speedway in this part of the country.

Still not a patch on a Polish league match, a shame that in this country it is run on a make do basis. Watch this and watch a Sunday afternoon meet from Poland and you realise how poor this is. Even in the individual meeting last Sunday all the riders from Poland were giving it everything whereas over here most think they are too igood and deserve their status. In reality few would survive in the second or third tier of Polish racing.

Louis’s interview sums it up. What can you say, home team gets the advantage. Sad but predictable and sums up those overseeing the meetings. None so blind as those who do not want to see.

It was something special seeing eight riders start a race that required bike and rider stamina, standing on the first and second bends at Foxhall watching riders go for it was awesome. Those were the days and I still think that with the right attitude the sport that create those glory days. It just needs every club to pull together and forget trying to attract the GP stars. Bring back good racing and stop looking over your shoulder to see what the rest of the world/Europe are doing. Screw Europe and the rest and start entertaining your home audience

Will the promoter arrange other meetings given the likely early finish to the season or simply call it a day and hopefully come back in 2024. Sad really when you think back a few years and look at how weekly speedway was almost the norm from March to October and we would turn up at Foxhall and be entertained by the likes of Mark Loram, Chris Louis, Scott Nicholls, Robert Miskowiak, etc.. Now all you have is a pale shadow of what was once a good nights entertainment. I am glad I saw the sport through the 60’s to the 2000’s and have witnessed entertainment, memorable moments and some decent on track racing where riders gave it everything notwithstanding the conditions and you appreciated the effort. Now the riders do not give a fig about the supporters and believe the paying punter owes them a living and you have certain people managing teams where you would get more inspiration from paint drying. Hopefully we will get to see a 16 Lapper if nothing else.

I agree in part to the sentiment but with beer and fish and chips you always have options/alternatives but with a sports venue it is slightly different and Ipswich have come near to folding in the past and thanks to the Louis family and some great supporters and sponsors the sport has fought off closure. With a venue like Foxhall, if it Speedway stops it will not come back, not in this day and age notwithstanding the Spedeworth fixtures currently planned, Spedeworth would simply pick up the slack in available dates/weekly meetings permitted by the local council. Plenty who live near to the track would like to see it closed and one or two presenters on BBC Radio Suffolk have been lees than enthusiastic about the Witches and banger racing. Most on here realise change is needed but those with the ability to instigate this are unlikely to rock the boat and try something different. It starts with affordability and stop the nonsense of riders demands. It can not afford most of those who grace the tracks but no one has the balls to say enough is enough, the business model is flawed, the participants think they are owed a living from the sport and the club owners treat the fans with such disdain, is it any wonder the sport is on its knees. No one involved has the balls to do the right thing except one club, who now plough their own furrow. Hopefully a few more will follow and the likes of Vatcher and many other cronies will be out of a job.

I guess in reality, the boat has long gone and Ipswich need to look at entertaining the loyal supporters with some different meetings and trying new riders. They need to be inventive by wooing back supporters with a festival of racing disciplines rather than league fixtures which will amount to nothing and lead to an early season finish. Even if the three East Anglian clubs came up with a mini league of pairs or 4TT etc, it is better than seeing an early season finish and why not bring back the 16 Lapper. One can only hope.

What will it take to for the Witches to make the play offs or is that now out of reach ?

Agree but cannot help that something is missing so the edge goes with Poland. Having said that the Mildenhall meeting yesterday was apparently a good advert for the sport. Whatever our thoughts, Speedway U K needs some serious changes to get it back to where it should be. Look at last week’s speedway star and the back page photo of the Bristol meet and today is a mere shadow of what it use to be. Every club would die for a crowd like that.

Unfortunately it does not have the cut and thrust of the live Polish meetings on a Saturday and Sunday and with poor commentary and half empty stadiums, it says it all. Hopefully someone somewhere will wake up and do something dramatic to revitalise the sport. As it stands I would keep U.K. speedway under wraps and not do too much until those in charge find a formula that works and attracts fans and makes it the spectacular that we know it is capable of being.

It depends on what you want from an evenings racing. The purists will only go to league meetings even though team riding is a thing of the past and you effectively have seven gate and go merchants. Others will go for the thrill of simply watching four riders on bikes with no brakes whilst some will be happy with individual meetings, 4TT and pairs etc and look at GP’s as the pinnacle of the sport. Each league and format has its followers and it depends whether an attendee is an anorak or someone with a family who wants a fairly fluid array of racing etc without tractors being part of the entertainment. As it stands, anything new should be given a chance and I would rather go to a meeting that has a mixed format with say short track, NDL competition and perhaps side cars rather than take it or leave it fifteen races over two plus hours and nowt else. You are entitled to your opinion and it is the sort of feedback that promoters should be interested in and I am sure the IOW will not lose sleep over it. They like many are trying to run/provide entertainment so you cannot knock them for what works on their patch but may not work in say Manchester or Birmingham. As an aside your Rockets when run by Len Silver out of Rayleigh did it all and put on meetings even when it rained, he just used tons of saw dust. A legend in speedway if ever you wanted someone who knew how to entertain before the nutters took control of the asylum.

With so many ideas and suggestions on this thread plus many constructive and valid opinions on what might or might not work, the fundamental problem is that no one at club level be they owners, promoters or the fat controllers are reading what is being said, can be bothered to respond and with each club having its own agenda while loosely following the remit of the few whose answer to any dissident is to threaten them expulsion, change is not going to happen. If you are on the end of a threat of suspension and fines with a fairly large bond held by those who have you by the wotsits, how many would go against the grain. It will take a break away group to either join Nora or start their own association before anything will change. The problems have been mounting for too many years, club closures being an example where for many reasons they have gone by the wayside but what happened to all the riders who not so long ago grace so many tracks up and down the land.? Why is the sport so short of riders? Why do meetings get called off based on a weather forecast which might predict a slight chance of rain? Why have the authorities done nothing to control costs so that you are left with rider’s demands keep going up at the same time as sponsorship and attendances fall? Away attendances tend to be a thing of the past unless it is the play offs and the lack of away support can be in part to the geographical spread of teams and the cost of travelling to meetings plus with most tracks operating mid week, it is hardly conducive to a family day out. Possibly speedway could learn from other motor sports when it comes to entertainment, promotion and the day that they that they run a meeting (ideally Thursday through to Sunday and no you will not attract many top names but they currently pick which meetings they are going to appear in so what does it matter). The meeting ought to be an event not just 15 contrived races with riders who will ride for any team who wants to pay them. People want more for the money and this is one of the few sports which gives less and less. Alas most on here can only watch from the sidelines as the sport slowly disappears into oblivion largely due to a few burying their collective heads in the sand and continuing to be in total denial as to how bad it has become in this country. As much as they may aspire to follow in the foot steps of Poland in reality that will never achieve what the Poles have today, so cut your cloth accordingly and get back to grass roots entertainment. However, no one is listening.

Perhaps the answer is revert to 13 heats and then have the second half where the second strings compete against the second strings/heat leaders in a rider of the night competition. It is probably fair to say that the majority of heat leaders have much better equipment etc, and unless a real gem comes along who has the skill a track craft to stop a rider passing it is better that they not thrown in at the deep end. Alternatively have six or five man teams in the top league and NDL riders excluded until they reach at least a second string status or a particularly average in one of the two other leagues which then gives them something to aim for without the same pressures. Just a thought and in no way is any criticism be made.

They would not know the truth if it slapped them in the face. They are a deceitful bunch who think it is OK to mislead all and sundry. Why don’t they just stop wasting everyone’s time by closing down the tracks that have no chance of surviving and let those left plough there own furrow. Some clubs are run/managed by decent folk but far too many are run by renegades who have no morals and literally take the p.. out of every punter who passes through the turnstiles. The sooner the punter makes a stand the sooner the mess will be sorted. As long as you keep turning up those in charge will do nothing but take your cash. Time to make a stand.

If I was a promoter/ owner of a club not caught up in this latest farce, I would be deeply concerned about my clubs future, the credibility of the sport and what the options are going forward. No way would the current set up allow a club to drop down a league so it would almost be a choice between closure or Nora. It beggars belief that those in charge trot out the same garbage and still think that they are professional business people yet they regularly fail to understand the market they operate in,the interest of the paying public but believe that the right thing to placate one and all is to trot out the same deceit which a few conspire to promote week in week out. Not one of those in charge has the balls to come on this or any other forum to defend the decisions or worse still accept reasonable criticism and debate the issues. If as seems likely some clubs are doomed, then protesting when the TV cameras are in town will do no harm as it has reached the point where the punters have nothing to lose apart from the entrance fee. It would be surprising if the likes of Belle Vue and Ipswich are part of this shambolic situation but I guess it depends whether they are under threat or worse if they do not follow the party line. How on earth did we get from regular weekly meetings in a semi competitive league to the as and when meeting arrangements you have today. Rather than give clubs the freedom to promote the sport, all those in charge who are empire builders want to do is, restrict, impede and frustrate the hell out of the decent clubs and the punters.

Support through the turnstiles continues to fall and the cloth cap brigade have all but gone with no new blood coming through and with the financial demands from the riders, how much gate money really makes a difference these days. So much is now wrong with the sport from costs to riders, clubs and punters to intermittently run league meetings with gaps in the calendar throughout the summer months that makes it a joke to call it a summer sport added to which the poor tv coverage via Eurosport (BSN are the exception) through to the lunatics who run the sport and are the same idiots who are doing their utmost to stop the likes of the IOW running with Vacther and co being the cancer of the sport. Cut out these people and it may have a chance but it will probably take some clubs to break away and without knowing all the rules, I would suggest that come the end of season, clubs close, get the bonds refunded and then start up again under the governance of another body who are interested in making the sport a success but more importantly, a form of genuine entertainment for the punter.

Sad to see such a decline in what was four or five years ago a passable sport. The top league should be abandoned. Two leagues only with riders who are prepared to ride u k speedway as a their main league and any overseas clubs who they join are aware that the British fixtures take precedent. If it means you end up with part time riders who have jobs outside the sport so be it, it was not that bad last time it was run on this basis. It has no future as it is currently run. Once great teams/tracks like KL and Peterborough have been sacrificed by promoters who fail to operate in the interest of the entire sport. I really hope that someone with some vision can drag this out of the mess and make a successful before it is consigned to history. We cannot compete with overseas clubs/ leagues so stop pretending we can.

Sad state of affairs where the three teams in East Anglia who now have four or five world class riders worth watching are supported by riders Who in each case are average to poor. Perhaps the teams should pool the riders and have a squad system. It also looks as though none of the three will make the play offs. Perhaps they can have their own championship. The coverage on TV is poor and comes nowhere near that which is streamed from Poland. Anyone who has not tried it, watch one Sunday afternoon/evening to see how it can/should be done. Finally, where do the Witches go from here? Is a wholesale clear out required and get in some up and coming talent with a view to next season (assuming they have one at this level)

Processional sadly and having watched the Polish meeting this afternoon, the quality of racing was far better and this sort of presentation leaves you wondering why anyone bothers. Gate and go.

Good meeting and Brady Kurtz was Mr Entertainment weaving his way through from the back. Not sure why Timo left gaps big enough to allow a whole team to pass him. Zagar also got his act together eventually.