piston197

I remember at Newport, Scott Smith ( the other one) doing a victory lap, the tractor was out, he laid the bike down before hitting the tractor, and the bike stood perfectly upright and continued around the track standing up on the rake behind the tractor

Kim Nilsson joins Jason Doyle and Nils K Iversen as a GP rider, 3 out of 7 from Newport Wasp's superside which broke the bank and won the KO cup strangest memory of Kim was him and Frankie Smart racing the wrong way round Hayley meadows in just their boots and underpants !

I organise 3 events per year ( autojumbles) https://en-gb.facebook.com/South-Midlands-Autojumble-454079101421891/ while some stall holders choose to take the option of payment in advance at a discount, the majority turn up on the day, cash is the only means of payment on the 3 entrance gates for the public , it has been going 32 years now Using these methods the stall prices have remained the same for 32 years and public admission has crept up from £2.50p to £4.00 in the same period, we looked at on line ticketing and basically it just meant some financial body was dipping into our cash as there would be a fee for their services/card readers/percentage charges, and if the system failed you were basically b*****ed Ok it is a fairly small event relatively, with approx 100 stall holders and around 900 plus paying attendees, but as the majority of customers are in the same ( or older) group as Speedway audiences, it still works, although last year we had some bearded hipster turn up without any cash and said he never carried any and we should take cards, he got instructions to the nearest cash point as strangely enough he did not have any mates who could lend him a fiver, what he thought he was going to buy off the traders with his plastic was anybodies guess as most would suggest a convenient slot for his credit card !

James Sargent Tapes

Not a speedway rider, but my mate had a guy on his butchers round Maurice Plunkett-upham

Chris Harris Nicki P Frank Smart Mark loram Phil Crump 5 triers/entertainers

Still not as bad as the 65-25 KO cup thrashing the Tigers got in the first leg of the final in 2011 against the sadly departed Newport Wasps, there was no coming back from that !

Ledburys Flyer unfortunately a casualty of the weather , but here was a list of riders who were scheduled to ride tomorrow, couple of current/past speedway riders in the line up https://en-gb.facebook.com/LedburyMotorCycleClub/posts/2876582799132806?__tn__=K-R

Scott Smith on a victory lap at Newport came across the tractor raking the track, dropped his bike and baled off, tractor continued with his bike travelling on the rake for 1/4 lap while Scotty sat on his Ar8e watching .

Yes Anders was a joy to watch at Newport and should have gone on to better things, but for pure entertainment Frank Smart paired with Craig Watson

Was anybody from the Newport area seen in the vicinity ?

Obviousy the rider would not be watching the LED display when ready to go ? set the revs required to the limit required for maximum traction i.e. 10,000 RPM, hold throttle in that position move forward to starting position and then look at the tape release mechanism, obviously i am not advocating sitting over the back wheel as you suggest and watching the display as you do a back flip

I have often thought ,how difficult would it be to rig up a handlebar mounted LED revcounter strip, with say 12 LED's lighting up at 1000 RPM intervals, then as different tracks have different grip levels at the start gate, a sweet spot could be found to give maximum acceleration /traction ? If say 9000RPM had you rocketing away from the opposition, the same rev setting could be utilised next time, and if it had you left behind try more or less revs the next time ? You don't need to be looking at the revcounter once your desired rev range has been reached then maximum attention could be on the start gate

When you have 2 teams built to 38 points ( 76 for the meeting) and 90 points available total, there will be a lot of riders put a point on their average, whether it is of any significance is of doubt this year, if every meeting was drawn 45 /45 and both teams are built to 38 points there are 7 extra points per team to be doled out somewhere ?

There is not a lot new in the world, this was being done many years ago particularly in scooters, but rather than having offset cranks, they were doing it simpler by having the gugeon pin off centre ( de-saxe) to minimise the side thrust of the piston, just had to be careful that you fitted the piston in the correct way round

Last sounds to be coming out of Newport speedway was Billy Joel's " I didn't start the fire" but it wasn't Billy singing it !

I seem to remember one of the motorcycle papers ( motorcycle or MCN) testing a speedway bike, possibly Simon Wigg on board? on a beach somewhere to actually see how fast it would go , remember that they ran out of gearing before they explored the limits of the top speed, but it was something in excess of 100MPH and 120MPH comes to mind. Not relevant to a speedway track, but quite obvious why speedway engines are ideal for sprinting

Local library ?

Maybe the Newport wasps would be welcomed too, another travesty of selling off a Speedway site for commercial purposes

Well at the moment it is dead !, but come March it will be given the "kiss of life" and dragged kicking and screaming back to existence, maybe not "life as we know it Jim", maybe not as healthy as previous years, but definitely alive

I expect there to still be no Newport speedway sadly !, well you did ask what I was expecting from MY team

Wake up and smell the kaffir ?

Just google the Wiki entry for "Plastic Brit" and you will see just how rife this procedure is especially in Athletics, it does not seem to matter where you are from, or where your parents ,grand parents are from as long as you have a GB passport you are British in the eyes of the governing bodies , and if you have not got one, then the process for obtaining one can be circumvented in the interests of "sport"

Had a look at the pictures above, and definately cannot see the point ( or points)

Another really good idea, and 5 tickets @ £50 to use at any home meetings would be reasonably priced Xmas present to someone who would not normally attend, and you never know they might get to like it ? An excellent loss-leader to get new people through the gate