E I Addio

In the last few days the Ferrari F1 team has been fined for a breach of the rules, not for the first time. The West Indies Cricket team was fined earlier this year for a slow over rate against Pakistan, something that happened habitually in cricket these days as does attempted ball tampering. Is boxing a serious sport ? It sometimes (including now) has up to 5 different people claiming to be world champion at a given weight. I don't think any of those sports are not taken seriously.

Its a bit of a circular problem really. Its difficult for a promoter to know how open to be. For example, it seems very bad PR to me for absolutely no information to be given on any punishment or lack of it regarding Pooles cancellation of the Lakeside match. On the other hand their are a number of posters who seem to think they have a God-given right to know every detail of a promoters business. As Bwitcher says, the trick is how to handle it properly.

While I cannot disagree with you on that I also agree with Local Boys's post that there are also a lot of vitriolic posts based half truths, untruths and figments of imagination. It never ceases to amaze me that some quite serious flaws in the running of the sport get minimal comments on here while one might also find a thread based on tittle tattle can run for pages. Of course those running the sport could do a lot more to confirm or deny certain important items ( I am not talking about every insidious piece of gossip that crops up), but even if they did there would still be those who howl disbelief because it suits their purpose.

Who said I don't have an opinion ? I have expressed my opinion if you bother to read it. The opinion expressed is firstly that Michael Lee has paid his debt to society, all £600 of it so I don't want to comment further on him. He has paid his fine, starts again with a clean sheet so there is no point in raking over the coals as far as he is concerned, although he will be an idiot if he goes there again. Secondly, if I am choosing between NHS scientists who say too much of the stuff can send you do-lally and you may finish up in the loony bin, as opposed to the empirical knowledge of yourself and mrlincolncity , based on nothing more than knowing a few mates then I tend to side with the experts. In fact reading mrlincolncity's posts I am not altogether sure that the "rubbish" as he calls it hasn't cost him a few marbles already. Bottom line is that if people want to indulge in the stuff, let them as long as they don't expect the taxpayer to pick up the bill, given there is clear evidence of a link between the carcinogens in spliff's and cancer, amongst other things.

I thought something like that old chestnut would come out. Obviously you can take it to any lengths you like- dangerous sports, smokers, people who eat too much etc, so the question is where do we draw the line. We live in a democracy and the broad will of the people is to make the taking of recreational cannabis illegal, whereas dangerous sports etc are not illegal. I don't see why I should pay for the ailments of someone who by their own choice indulges in the taking of illegal substances likely to cause them harm. Of course the reality is, that in a civilised society no hospital is going to turn away people who are hurt by doing illegal things, whether it be drugs, fights or drunk driving. However the main point being made is that despite those on here who tell us that smoking a bit of pot is harmless the NHS says different. I can't remember what the NHS spends on treating people with drug-related illnesses but it runs into millions and I would rather see that money spent on legitimate illnesses.

Nothing to do with politics. Two wrongs don't make a right. If the NHS is being ripped off in other ways in doesn't justify more waste on people who by their own free will suffer an illness caused by an illegal habit. I felt the same way under the previous governments as well.

http://www.nhs.uk/Li...bisdangers.aspx Michael Lee has paid his debt to society so I don't want to comment on him in particular but it does seem that taking cannabis is not the harmless fun that some on here try to tell us it is, although of course some will always tell us the NHS have got it wrong and they themselves know best.. If some peoples lives are so dull that the only way they think they can relax or get a bit of pleasure is to smoke a bit of weed at home fair enough but I do object to them turning up at hospital with drug related illnesses and expecting the tax-payer to fund it from the over-stretched NHS budget.

Doolan has generally been doing a decent solid job, and certainly better than off-form Rob Mear who he replaced but he has not done anything really special. He flopped very badly in the home match against Swindon. If he had even rode up to his average Lakeside could probably have won the match. In short Doolan is a reasonable reserve but not one to pull something special out of the bag when the pressure is on. That's not a criticism but you need something extra to be serious play-off contenders. On top of that, even Doolan's PL team manager has been hinting that Kev has been taking so many guest bookings he hasn't had time in between to prepare his bikes properly. Whether that is true or not I don't know but certainly his form doesn't seem to be what it was when he was first signed. Nelson is to some extent a bit of a gamble that could backfire or could pay-off. It is really all based on a great tear-up he had with Fast Freddie when he guested for the Hammers against Wolves. A world class rider who was scoring well that night against a PL rider on his first visit do the track and Tyson really gave Fred a run for his money before Fred took control. An exceptional and gutsy performance from the 20-year old. The $64,000 question is whether he can repeat that sort of ride on a fairly regular basis ? I think Lakeside have to give it a try although their early season performances have made the play-offs a difficult task now and on top of that Nelson will be unavailable for one or two key meetings notably Eastbourne away. The fear is that it will be a repeat of Kyle Legault who was signed up after a fantastic win over Scott Nicholls then went backwards. I suppose the other thing is that Tyson is showing promise and there will be other clubs interested in him for 2014 so its as well to give him a try now with a view to next year if he does ok.

From the Lakeside website :- The Vortex Lakeside Hammers have moved to bolster their challenge for a place in the Sky Sports Elite League Play Offs with the addition to the team of Rye House’s Tyson Nelson, who will make his debut this Friday, 26th July, in the home clash against King’s Lynn Stars. Nelson, the 20 year old from Australia, joins the team as a Double Up rider replacing fellow Australian Kevin Doolan and will be under the guidance of the all time Hammers legend Andrew Silver. Jon Cook, the Vortex Hammers co Promoter explained: “We feel we have reached the stage of the year where to reach the Play Offs we need a wildcard and Tyson is it. He’s in tremendous form of late and absolutely lit up the Raceway when he appeared for us as a guest in the match against Wolverhampton last month and I know the fans will be very excited about his addition to the team. I would like to thank Len Silver from Rye House for agreeing to the move and also thank Kev (Doolan) for his efforts and his understanding of the situation.” I am not sure what to make of this. Jon Cook does have a habit of signing riders on the basis of one decent meeting. Sometimes it works and sometimes it backfires. It didn't really work with Kyle LeGault and it looks like he is getting his fingers burned again with Seb Ulamek who overall has looked too slow for a third heatleader even when he gates. Still the Lakeside announcement is spot on when it says Tyson lit the Raceway up when he guested against Wolves and I hope he does well. Certainly seems to have talent. Kevin Doolan does seem to have gone off the boil.

That is a good point. Cook, Worrall, and Barker are not even close to the top 20 averages in this country and people are telling them (well Worrall and Cook anyway) that they are the greatest thing since sliced bread and are the future of British Speedway. Cook, at least seems to believe it judging by the way he threw his toys out of the pram on being dropped. This is part of the problem with British Speedway. Riders are not encouraged to develop a hunger for success. As Sam Ermolenko said, they get too used to home comforts instead of standing on there own two feet. Doubling up in the PL is not the answer. Barker said two years ago that sometimes you have to take a step back before you can take two steps forward, but after two years doubling up how much further forward is he ? The harsh truth is that in modern speedway continental experience seems to be crucial and only those who take serious steps to gain extensive experience abroad will succeed on the world stage. Lewis Bridger has this season taken basic steps to get on the first rung of the ladder in Poland and Denmark, and already it is starting to show in his riding. Admittedly he still has a long way to go before he becomes genuine world class but at least he has got himself on first step of the right road. However much talent the others may or may not have, doubling up in the PL is unlikely to turn them into genuine candidates for Team GB. Whoever is GB team manager in future should make it clear that preference will be given to those with good continental experience. If riders want to earn a comfortable living doubling up in PL racing I wouldn't blame them or criticise them but if they have ambitions to ride for their country at the top level then there has to be some commitment on their part.

Auty would need more devil in the first bend because Bridger would already a bike length in front. The first essential for a rider to reach international standard is the ability to gate, and that's something even Auty himself admits he can't do. LBR is a reasonable sometimes good gater, having beaten riders like Kasprak from the gate this year. As usual you lurch into your exaggerations but if you bother to read to previous posts properly you will see that nobody is claiming that LBR is a ,world beater. In fact he is not even riding as a heat leader at the moment, but nor is Kennet for that matter. What we are saying is that while Auty is basically a PL rider in d/u role LBR has not needed to drop down to PL and is good enough to get team places in Poland and Denmark where they wouldn't even think about Auty. LBR still has a long way to go and it remains to be seen whether he will get to be a top rider, even by GB standards but he has got a different attitude this year, working harder on fitness, getting top class machinery, and that is paying off with consistency and heat 15 selections. Still not genuine Team GB standard perhaps (but who is except Bomber and Tai?) but still comes out ahead of Auty on every measurable assessment

Agreed, but the point being made was that although the tac ride is mathematically fairer than the tac sub, it is still perceived as being unfairer because a team appear to make up 7 points (on what would otherwise be a 5-1) rather than 4 points. More important though is the present system of league points which is a far more effective way of maintain interest and , to my mid at least, makes the tac ride/tac sub redundant. The whole t/r t/s thing is an unnecessary complication to what should be a simple sport to follow.

I agree. I accept that mathematically the tactical substitute rule can be shown to be more unfair, but to the average punter who doesn't stand at the trackside with a calculator the perception of a team getting an 8-1 instead of a 5-1 is unfair. I think the point that most people are missing is that the point of the old tac sub rule and also the tac ride in its early days was to maintain interest in a meeting when one team was gaining a big lead. However in those days it was basically a straight win or lose but now we have interest created by a team needing to win by 6 or more to get 3 league points and a team who loses by 6 still get something out of it. This means that effectively a team have to get 13 points ahead (allowing for t/r's) to be sure of getting all three point. With the present system of league points(which I am in favour of, surely the time has come to dump the tac ride/tac sub for once and for all.

Have you ever seen his home tracks in Denmark and Poland ? If not why are you calling them trick tracks ? The fact is that Lewis has got out and got himself jobs in Denmark and Poland so at least it shows he has the ambition. You don't keep a job in Poland in particular, at any level unless you are a good performer home and away. Lewis has been around a long time but people forget he is still only 23. Unlike Worrall and Cooke he his holding down team places on the continent rather than doubling up in the PL. He is I believe younger than Craig Cooke and probably the best under 25 British rider after Tai Woffinden. If the policy is going to be to build for the future and give young riders experience then he has a good claim to a place. Very few speedway riders have peaked by the age of 23 and there is no reason to believe Lewis will not get better.

Getting back to the point of the thread I used to go to grasstracks back in the day when motorcycling was the major part of my life, and yes. it is a good day out IMO but speedway is a different ball game with its teams, points and leagues. Its not a question of one being better than the other they are just different and each have their own attractive qualities. The point that I think needs to be made is that grass-track, like speedway, is struggling, and they are not the only outdoor spectator sports in that situation. That indicates to me that some of speedways problems (and I am not saying all) are outside the control of the BSPA and are indicative of a changing society. So in answer to the point of the thread, yes, grass-track is goes value for money for those who enjoy it, but reducing speedways admission to £10 or any of those puerile suggestions we keep getting on threads here is not going to transform speedway. The problems are much deeper than that and there is no easy answer.

I would agree with all of that except I think that Kennet rather than Worrall is the right choice out of an average bunch. If you put Worrall, Barker or anyone else in place of Kennet its not going to make the difference between second and third, unless someone else has some terrible luck on the night so almost certainly we will go into the race-off. If Kennett, the most logical choice performs reasonably well, then ok he keeps his place for the race-off, but if he flops then replace him with Bridger, Barker or whoever. I suppose you could also say replace Harris or Cook for the race-off if they are out of their depth. Kennett is about 26 now so he deserves this chance and if he flops then that's the end of the road for him, I know SCB says he will flop anyway but I am giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Ironically it probably means that Poole will be gifted a point or two they didn't expect when they come to Wolves on 8th July. Probably enough to hike them into the play-offs. Can't see you getting many guests that will perform as well as Fred around MG. Best wishes to Freddie for speedy recovery.

In the last 5years VAT has gone up to 20%, things like insurance has rocketed for everybody, fuel costs have increased, the cost of first aiders has increased but the cost of admission to speedway has only increased by £2 in that period so a lot of costs have been absorbed by the clubs. So the picture you are trying to paint is no quite accurate.

In fairness to Tsunami, I was looking through a Hackney website recently and I found a section with some of Len Silver's programme notes from 1968 in Len which was complaining about guest riders. In the 45 years since those notes were written nobody seems to have come up with a solution so it might be an idea if the "you couldn't make it up" brigade apply there minds to it and let us know what the answer is. I'd love to see an alternative to the guest rider problem but I can't think of one so I await others suggestions with interest.

A good start would be regular meetings so fans get the speedway habit. This is probably the worst season ever for a spasmodic fixture list. Most EL clubs only have 14 home league matches now, so if someone goes to say 10 of them that's only £170 admission over the course of a season which is not a lot of money for most people to spend on entertainment, but when the fixture list is hit and miss and matches cancelled on a whim and at a moments notice people get used to spending their money on other things. So if we could get some consistency of the fixture list and if the rules were applied transparently and fairly so all teams had a fair crack of the whip, that wouldn't solve all the sports problems but it would be a big step in the right direction.

Their average wage is less than a third of ours so in relation to average income its like spending three times as much to get in (£36), so be careful what you wish for.

Jack Parker, Split Waterman, Peter Craven, Ove Fundin, Barry Briggs, Ivan Mauger, Ole Olsen, Peter Collins Malcolm Simmons, Bruce Penhall, Hans Nielson,car mechanics by day ? News to me. If we apply your logic and remove names like those and other top riders from speedway history the sport would be in a worse state than it is now. In any sport its the top stars that draw the crowds. People moan about a watered down league as it is. If you got rid of the all the top stars people are not going to flock to see second strings because its only 10quid. More to the point the big names bring in the sponsors and in many ways that is just as important in terms of cash flow as punters through the turnstiles. Of course costs are spiralling to a ridiculous degree, everybody accepts that, but getting rid of highly paid riders is not going to solve the problem.

That's correct. I only mentioned costs because many people overlook the basics which are quite a lot of money before you even think about paying the riders. As you say you would have to more or less double the crowd to break even.

If the admission cost is £10 then almost £2 of that is V.A.T. It costs around £2000 to hire the stadium and roughly £600 for first aid, then you have the cost of shale, repairs to air fences, insurances and other overheads, losses due to rain-offs, accountancy and book-keeping. printing plus all the other overheads of running a business before you start paying riders I would love some of those who reckon the sport could be run on what is effectively an £8 admission after VAT to tell us how they work the sums out and their basis for saying the crowd increase would be sufficient to break even let alone show a profit.

Which clubs were packed to the rafters ? Len Silver at least never made much money from promoting speedway and in the 60's and 70's was selling cars to subsidise his speedway promotions, then in later years Rye House was kept going by subsidies from his winter sports company. The concluding paragraph of chapter 13 of Len's book, dealing with what some imagine to be the golden era of the 1970's states;- "Every year it became tougher and tougher to earn a living from promoting speedway and I found myself having to work harder at selling cars in order to subsidise both Hackney and Rye House"