PHILIPRISING

I DO listen to Sky and, of course, the SGPs. Fantastic commentary from KT and NP. Very highly rated within the TV industry. What's wrong with a bit of passion for races that last less than a minute?

DID I say I didn't appreciate the coverage as such ...

COMMENTRY all over the place ... mistook Holder for Masters in the A Final and never bothered to correct their error when announcing the result.

THANKS for the positive comments.

I'M confused ... subscription copies are sent by post

FROM last week? Call Dave on 020-83351113

IT is ...

TOMORROW (Tues) I think

SUBS copies were posted first class last Wednesday and should have been in shops on Thursday.

EVERYONE knows ...that quite an assumption especially for something that isn't true. And I thought this was about Postlethwaite and Reading and I would at least agree that JP's decisions were simply hard cold business. He would never deny that and he didn't gamble massive sums on taking the British GP from Coventry to Cardiff without some expectation of making it pay.

AND those several unsuccessful businesses were? SOMEWHAT jaundiced view of the reality. Gaming International were at one stage hoping to jump on the casino bandwagon and would have welcomed a speedway tenant but when that prospect failed to materialise their enthusiasm waned to the point where we are now.

THE prime reason why he bought into Reading was on the premise that they would have a new stadium and one that would be available throughout the week and offer modern corporate facilities. Didn't always agree with John and had plenty of disagreements with him but was very surprised that he went in without being 100 per cent sure that the new Smallmead would rise from the ashes of the old. He was also bitterly upset at losing the championship play-off to Peterborough the previous season. JP is passionate about everything he gets involved with and always wants to be a winner.

POSTLERWAITE was commercial director at Benetton when Michael Schumacher was their lead driver and also had an executive position at Pepsi-Cola before setting up BSI under the umbrella of Benfield Greig, the blue chip company that Humphrey alludes to. The reasons why JP became disillusioned with British speedway and sold Reading were not exactly as speedibee appears to suggest.

DID the Ochiltrees ever own the stadium? Wasn't it a Mr Sanderson who owned it but guaranteed speedway's existence there under the stewardship of the Ochiltrees?

TRUE but that doesn't mean we stop trying

GREAT summary which I will be passing on to Buster Chapman in the hope that he and his colleagues will at least take a serious look at it ... which in the case of Buster at least I am sure he will.

ALWAYS dangerous to compare speedway with any other sport but I found this piece by former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan, writing in The Telegraph, interesting: Test cricket has a problem and we have to accept it has to change to suit modern life. I am a traditionalist. I was a player suited to Test match cricket and I loved the long form of the game in the way it challenged every aspect of your technique and character. But as a father of three kids would I take my children to a day of Test cricket? Probably not. A night out at the Twenty20 is where they want to go. We’ve had some cracking nights out at Yorkshire v Lancashire in the Natwest Blast. There are fours and sixes, music blaring out, big crowds with a good atmosphere and plenty of things going on behind the stands to entertain you away from the cricket. It is an occasion built around fun and having a good time.

ARE you sure about that?

THE following is part of a pice I wrote for Speedway Star this week. Comments? THE biggest conundrum facing the current crop of British promoters is how to attract more people through their turnstiles and especially those of a younger generation. Speedway Star has a vested interest in this. More people attending domestic speedway in the UK increases our potential market as well. BSI, too, looking to increase their annual attendance at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium for the British Grand Prix. It is the BSPA who hold the keys to a new audience. Schemes such as free admission for under 16-year-olds attending with at least one adult, for example, have merit. But the question that needs to be asked is this: why would teenagers want to go to speedway in the first place? What’s in it for them? Kelvin Tatum, newly appointed to the Lakeside management team, and I were chewing this over during a protracted lunch last week. We agreed that speedway tracks have to be more imaginative in providing ways in which young boys, and girls for that matter, can inter-act with speedway. How can they get to experience what riding a speedway bike is all about without actually doing so? This has always been a root problem for speedway, which even in the wider world of motorsport exists in its own little bubble. You cannot buy a speedway bike and ride it down the road, it’s a unique piece of equipment. But that shouldn’t necessarily mean that it is of no interest to potential young fans. Make its inherent weirdness an attraction rather than a deterrent. Would it be feasible for tracks to allow a limited number of young fans prior to each meeting to discover what it is actually like to sit on a bike, to learn first hand what the idiosyncrasies of it are? Learning how a speedway bike performs, its unique nature, how it could outgun an F1 car off the grid could be used to add to its allure. Better still if they could test their reactions at a simulated starting gate. There was one at GPs in Gothenburg for a while and it was a massive attraction. Kelvin says he would be happy to do that at Lakeside and to walk a group round the track so that they get a further idea of what is involved. At a recent SGP in Torun he took four fans (not youngsters) onto the track, stood them at the starting gate and walked them through a race. They were quite entranced by the experience because previously they had only looked on from the outside and could now envisage what riders were thinking during the course of a race. Simple and at no cost. It is also being suggested that promoters and/or riders should be encouraged to visit local schools to talk about speedway and encourage pupils to become engrossed with the mathematical aspect, scoring, averages, etc, as part of their curriculum. At the SGP rounds we can use tablets and smartphones rather than a pen and programme to register riders scores and the simple app automatically calculates the final numbers and positions. Is it not time that collectively the promoters commissioned something similar for league matches so that kids can attend with their iPads, fill in the names and follow the meeting in a manner that would appeal to them much more? It might minimally detract from programme sales – although not if the editorial content of the programme is good enough to still warrant purchasing – but this progression to the digital age is long overdue. It doesn’t require any wi-fi connection and would appeal to those youngsters who are joined at the hip to their smartphones. We are only scratching the surfacing here but the bottom line is that speedway bosses need to up their game when they go fishing for a new speedway audience that can provide the core attendance for years to come.

KELVIN wasn't the first, nor the last, to experience how ruthless Hans could be even to his friends while still racing within the rules. I can recall walking round a golf course one Saturday morning before a GP with Hans and Tony Rickardsson, who were good mates. Later that evening Hans gave Tony the full treatment and you could picture the look on Rickardsson's face even under his helmet. Once the tapes went up Hans had no friends and that was a trait characterised by many former World Champions as well. Briggs had it, Ronnie Moore did not. If Leigh Adams had possessed that ruthless streak he would more likely have won a World title but it didn't make him a lesser rider or person. Think Tommy Knudson was in that mold as well.

HE'S my mate but I don't think I'm being biased when I suggest that Briggo would have won more World titles under a GP system. He qualified for 18 consecutive finals, a remarkable achievement, and often only lost out on the day because he couldn't resist tinkering with his machinery. He would certainly have had many more good meetings than bad over the course of a GP season.

HAD lunch with Kelvin yesterday. Has already heard from Bjarne Pedersen who feels he has a new lease of life and is really geared up for the Elite League in 2016. Kelvin is excited about his new role and feels that it will dovetail nicely with his role with Sky Sports. Already has a good rapport with Andreas Jonsson who, he says, had offers from almost every other Elite League team but turned out better financial deals be cause he wanted to ride for Lakeside. Kelvin's mechanical expertise could be of particular value in the Lakeside pits but he is also looking to working closely with the Hagon academy.

MULLER was possibly the greatest longtrack rider of his or any generation. Never really took speedway seriously other than at Norden in his home country for obvious reasons. It was a strong field at Norden and no one handed him the title, he had to win it and did so. It was no fluke.

NOT sure that's true. Believe BSI hold the rights. I am not alone in thinking that they should alternate a pairs and team competition each year. But they have yet to be convinced.