teddy2706

Some riders are notorious for anticipating starts, but that does not mean they are cheating! Referee's do not like to be made fools of, but if the rider is stationary after the marshall has walked, but dumps the clutch and gets a flyer under the rising tape, he isn't breaking the rules. HT and I saw Margaret Vardy pull 'em back because Rob Branford had done exactly that at Buxton, she warned him (but he hadn't broken the rules) then he did exactly the same again unpenalised. Inconsistent, just as HT says. It is a sticky problem to address, that's for sure, but I sneakily admire Sarj and Rob Branford for flying out so quickly, everyone is perfectly at liberty to do the same.

Having read all of the interesting posts on this topic, may I make a few observations, hopefully not too controversial? I stopped spectating at the Isle of Man a few years ago because I was not convinced that riders were in 100% control, 100% of the time and I did not wish to witness a fatal accident resulting from this loss of control. The more often I visited increased that possibility, or so I reasoned? Someone mentioned Zdenek Kudrna's fatal accident, but I believe he was tragically killed at a grass track in the Netherlands, not at a speedway meeting? Speedway has, in my opinion a poor reputation for constructive change, some things are altered on knee jerk reaction, some things take years to alter. Doug Jones campaigned long and hard to make ball ended levers compulsory in motorcycle sport, yet blade ended levers were plainly lethal and a solution was simple. Exposed primary drives were evident for years in motorcycle racing, yet a moron can see the danger that they present, but nothing was done for decades although, again, the solution was simple. Ice racing uses massive rear wheel enclosure to prevent rider/bike/spike contact, now whilst I recognise that dirt has to go somewhere, I believe that getting rid of Briggo deflectors and making rear guards longer with a rubber flap would make contact with the rear wheel less likely and cause less "launching" accidents from running into the back of another bike. Dean Felton unfortunately suffered a start line loop at his last meeting in the sport, he hurt himself too, which was particularly poignant at his last meeting, perhaps Dean might explain to us why this sort of mishap occurs? Air fence construction and the "lifting" phenomenon in particular is certainly not beyond the wit of man to overcome, yet not much seems to be happening about it? Rev limiters are I believe, subject to investigation by Jim McMillan, but I haven't heard any development about this for well over a year (please correct me if you know better). Anything that improves rider safety has to be considered carefully, researched properly and implimented promptly if proven useful, but not every idea is a good idea. It might be better if the riders themselves were, as a body/lobby, initiating investigation into safety issues, it is they who will benefit, not us onlookers?

Interestingly, the Speedway GB site gives two start times for this meeting, 7pm and 7.30 pm.

Looking at that field, I don't think anything is clear cut! The NL Pairs is always a cracking meeting, full of upset, controversy and excitement. If the weather is kind, we know the track will be perfect and we will all be in for a real treat. I don't care who wins, so long as all of the riders go home unhurt, safe and enjoy a great meeting without untoward expense. Hopefully I will get to meet many old friends there too?

I am sure that many people from the Stoke area will be unhappy about Andrew's apparent departure, as all time track record holder at Loomer rd he is held in very high regard there indeed. I saw him at Buxton on sunday and remember thinking that speedway needed lot's of Andrew Silvers to get the sport back where it needed to be. Sadly, it now appears there won't even be one Andrew involved, a dreadful shame and a huge loss, particularly to young riders.

Am I alone in mourning the loss of David Holt at Buxton? Whilst the replacement who is yet to ride is an exciting prospect, the club has never had a reputation for dumping riders like this.

Kings Lynn and Peterborough are both farther north than Wolverhampton or Coventry. The North/South divide is not to be encouraged in my opinion. Berwick are beyond help then?

Fair comment. One thing though, as far as I am aware, Mark brings his own PA and that seems to work ok. There is a BT engineer amongst the Buxton supporters who is on the brink of retirement, maybe he could be coerced or beaten into sorting the track PA system out?

Margaret Vardy issued a warning to Rob Branford after he anticipated the tapes and made a monkey of her, she stopped the race and called all four back which is fair enough. Rob repeated the performance on the re-run, yet Margaret Vardy let it go. Now, I don't mind riders like Rob Branford and James Serjeant anticipating starts and making monkeys out of referees, however, consistency is vital, if she warned Rob for doing it once, she should have chucked him out for repeating the offence. Further, consistency was not adhered to regarding Chessell hitting the tapes with the peak of his helmet, although I have no doubt that this was not his fault. As a Buxton supporter, I thought that continuing the meeting after heat 11 was a disaster. However, Robert and Kyle Hughes showed that the track could be ridden, so I cannot grumble about that. I can grumble that Buxton riders chose not to believe the track was rideable. Regarding Mark Northall the centre green announcer, he is informed, informative and doesn't get people's dogs thrown out of the stadium, nor does he make rude comments about opposing supporters, neither does Graham Tagg. Porky however, does not conform to any of the above criteria.

I like everything about Owlerton except them. Good car park, good spectating, good restaurant, great racing, rubbish security! "Ya can't park theere, it's f't Casino", Ya can't stand theere, it's got yellow lines", "Ya can't park thee motabike theere, th's ta goo in't tha area theere". I assume that Sheffield speedway has to be run on a tight budget because I have never seen any other speedway club so top heavy with security and track staff, do the Council insist on such numbers? And how come dogs are perfectly welcome at some tracks, yet verboten at others? That imbecile Porky got someones dog chucked out at Monmore some weeks ago, yet it is a dog racing stadium! Speaking of Monmore, years ago they had two monkeys in the car park (with specially tailored white coats that hid their tails) who delighted in parking visiting fans cars in the bottom of the car park, then boxing them in with home supporters cars who they knew would be late out. They weren't averse to threatening behaviour away from home either....

They are sawing and drilling out the recently installed concrete barrier because of, (according to the Minister of Transport) "lime contamination of the concrete which is resulting in flaking" and re-installing it again. The greatest issue of these roadworks was the decision to grant possession of sixteen miles of motorway to a contractor who appears to have insufficient staff for that length of works. Recently I passed through at 10 am on a weekday and saw 45 operatives in total including delivery lorry drivers working on a sixteen mile stretch of road. Some night working does occur, the southbound stretch was down to one lane some weeks back whilst the temporary barrier was pressure washed! When I returned from Scunny last friday, the northbound stretch between J28-31 had several miles of stationary traffic again. These roadworks are costing the country a great deal of money and not only government money at that, businesses must be suffering and that includes Scunthorpe speedway and Sheffield speedway too. Incidentally Millersfan444, 60mph would be considerably better than the 20-30mph that is the norm at present, particularly at J28. Rant over!

Anyone who has to endure Highways England's chaos at M1 J28-35 would know very well why people are turning up early for a speedway match that commences 7.30. That notorious stretch of motorway has overrun it's schedule by several months and the Transport Minister himself has expressed outrage at those works. If you do not get there before 5pm you will be stuck there for over an hour. The M18/A1 junction can cause delays too, all of which probably causes problems for Mr.Godfrey. I would also respectfully suggest that anyone who attends live speedway would not be surprised to discover supporters lounging around in cars and small groups in the car park at least an hour before the gates open. I have seen it at Scunny, Sheffield, Wolverhampton and Coventry. The best place to do it is Mildenhall because you can go and watch a couple of hours MX for free there before the meeting if you are lucky enough to find the MX lads there.

However, no blame can be attached to the Scunthorpe promotion for it only being pretty good. Rob Godfrey put out a decent team despite so many injury disasters and the Newcastle team simply didn't respond well enough on this occasion. One thing does puzzle me and I assume it is an insurance or rain-off issue? Why do the gates never open at speedway before 6.30 pm on evening meetings? At least twenty people were at Scunny last night before 6pm. If they had gained entry at that time, they might well have been spending within the stadium on food, drink and in the track shop.

A few posts have quite rightly criticised a lack of marketing in speedway. I follow speedway and occasionally visit grass track events during the year, but do not follow it so closely. Whilst I enjoyed my evening at Scunthorpe last night, I was cross to discover that I had missed an evening of Sidecar Speedway at Brandon last night. I saw no marketing for this event apart from a small piece in the Grasstrack pages SS that I read this morning (which was not helpful). It does not appear in the results from last night on todays Speedway GB, I can ony assume that both Grasstrack and Speedway both decided that this event belonged to the other discipline? Can I take it then that there is no appetite amongst speedway followers for sidecar speedway in the UK? Was Brandon full of Grasstrack fans last night?

Oh dear! I had hoped to see Richard Hall riding tonight at Scunny.

I thought he was lost to speedway, nice to see he is back. Now let's get Gary Irving back!

The talk of amalgamating the EL and PL is exciting, the North/South divide is not for me. Before anyone asks, I do watch live speedway, I was at Buxton last sunday and will be at Scunny tonight, Highways England, weather and Rob Godfrey permitting. I should also be at Stoke every saturday, but as a Narker cannot enter the stadium at Loomer rd. Speedway was best for me in the eighties when I watched National League and British League, super times indeed. I could watch Dave Perks riding against the wonderful Kelvin Mullarkey on wednesdays, then watch Erik Gundersen and Alan Grahame on a saturday riding against the hugely entertaining Dennis Sigalos and Donkey, what more could I ask for? Both products at that time suited me just fine, so too did ther admission cost. Added to that, Test Matches on sundays were just brilliant, even more so if Michael bothered to show up. Mr. Rising has some interesting ideas and cares passionately for speedway, but not every idea is a good one at a given time, it may be at another time though.

Recently I read an article in a Vintage transport magazine that a coach company based near Whitchurch in Shropshire ran weekly coaches to Belle Vue speedway which must be nearly a hundred mile round trip? (This was in the fifties and sixties I believe). It did suprise me. I wonder how much it would cost to charter a coach today to get fifty supporters from fifty miles away into a stadium? Would it be worthwhile for a promoter to subsidise such a coach excursion? Certainly passengers could have a drink at the stadium without worries if they were being collected and dropped off for a short taxi ride home. Could you get fifty people from Leeds or Nottingham on a subsidised coach trip to Scunthorpe? Or fifty people from Liverpool to Belle Vue? Or even fifty people from Guildford to Eastbourne? Or has it all been tried before?

He shouldn't be rubbish at gating, one of the NL best gaters told me he taught him. Perhaps he deliberately taught him badly to keep him back? That lad is brilliant entertainment. That isn't to detract from Buxtons home win at all though, well done Hitmen, but many thanks to the Men of Kent (Kentish Men?) for an entertaining meeting.

A well known speedway sage remarked to me yesterday that the gap between NL and PL is too large for many to make that transition successfully, some make it, but many struggle. It would seem an obvious move to me for PL teams to be using NL riders at 7 and bumping the rest of the team up a place when they are embarrassed for riders due to injuries etc. I know it isn't an ideal situation, but I cannot see how British young riders can ever get anywhere unless they are thrown in the deep end like this, simply scouting around Outer Mongolia for a suitable replacement for Josh Auty seems to be doing nothing for British speedway to me. I will await lunchtime with some anxiety in case I am unable to pronounce the new signing.

The crowd at Buxton yesterday wasn't brilliant, but those that bothered to go were treated to a good meeting. Sadly Couzins collected a finger injury which is a shame. There was a great deal of spirited racing, Ben Morley was excellent, riding the place as though he was a home rider and he practiced there daily. James Shanes the Piddletown Rocket was a revelation, how that lad rides like he does without crashing is a mystery, talk about gravity defying feats, it was worth twice the admission just to watch him passing two riders at a time in two races dodging between them like they were still. A real treat, surely destined for stardom? He didn't get it all his own way though, Old Father Time decided he needed to put youngsters properly in their place and did so with some relish. I think Danny Ayres and Liam Carr did well to survive their encounters, but proper old fashioned speedway from them both, hard riding indeed. Halifax Tiger and I enjoyed Mr. Dowlings shout from the box to the start marshall "Keep 'em apart!" The starter aquiesced by standing between gates 3 and 4 in the re-run, then the little devils did it again! A brilliant meeting, sadly witnessed by too few people.

Mentioning Brady Kurz is interesting as success obviously breeds success. Brady is guesting frequently because he is successful and in demand. Therefore he is getting more track time than some others. Practice I assume makes perfect and it is ironic that the people who want to improve are probably getting less track time than those who are more successful, a conundrum or dichotomy (I don't know which it is). My understanding of speedway in Sweden (I have only visited two tracks there) is that some venues are surrounded by trees, so no Nimbys, unlimited practice time weather permitting? My knowledge of Australia is limited to a failed O level in Geography, but I would think that practice opportunities are considerably better than the UK, indeed I was told that the Kurz family have a track in their back yard. I also believe that practice opportunities in Poland are considerably better than the UK? Five minutes riding per week, as Richie points out, will not lead to perfection in anything useful in my opinion.

Not EWR last friday then?

I thought Chris Durno did very well, even making announcement of the riders in heat fifteen! I think the milk float/water cart needs some attention, the pipe had fallen from the tank and it had a flat tyre, so apart from leaving a single very wet stripe it didn't do much good. Jake Knight was a revelation and it was nice to see Richard buzzing around too. Whether 12 points will be enough remains to be seen, but it was a nice meeting, yet another where I missed HT!

I do wonder how many people read Richie's article properly? One of his aspirations was for more track time in an effort to improve, this is not easy to acheive if working full time or even part time. Doug Wyer practiced his starting down the tip for hours, try that in todays Nimby whining Britain. I have seen both twins and Kyle Howarth at Stoke training sessions, putting in laps and they are all doing ok in my opinion, a direct result of that commitment and time investment, but recent events might make me ponder about club promotion's commitments to young British riders? What many spectators do not understand is that travelling to and from meetings, given the state of Britains roads and roadworks is a major issue, time and fuel consuming. Cleaning a bike thoroughly will take at least four hours and is best done asap after a meeting. Add three hours travelling each way and we have ten hours investment for fifteen minutes riding without any mechanical work at all. Machinery is far more fragile than in Terry Betts or Simmo's day, a season with just replacing valve springs is unheard of today, hence Gerhard's aspirations. Dean made speedway pay because he was prudent, was good enough to build his own engines and is a practical man, not everyone is mechanically gifted. I was interested to read the praise for Lawson's little van and single handed approach, because I seem to remember reading in SS a few weeks back that he said couldn't carry on any longer without out part or full time help as the travelling and bike prep was killing him. Stefan Neilsen was lucky not to get killed a few weeks ago travelling back from a meeting when they hit a deer and rolled the van late at night, one wonders how many hours Stefan had been awake when this happened? MXers ride at the weekend, prep the bike during the week and will easily get a season out of an engine, just rebuilding supension during the season, most also wash their bikes with engine driven or genset driven pressure washers at the track at 4.00 pm on a sunday, leaving the dirt where it belongs, getting home for six and a chinese meal. Who wants to wash a bike at 10.00pm for four hours on a thursday, even if the stadium allowed it (and I cannot see the stadium owner at Sheffield going along with that) even if the curfew did? However, recently I watched the four hour cleaning ritual and was astonished to discover the cleanest bike in the PL was running with a broken spoke cable tied to another and a seized clutch release bearing, not what I had expected at all from a professional, mind you it was chock full of bling, so that's alright then! The ritual was being carried out by a sometime NL rider who had been up for over twenty seven hours and then had to drive another two hundred miles, his family and I were so worried about him that we agreed to phone him every twenty minutes or so to keep him alert and on the carriageway. How many MXers are doing this?