E I Addio

I only saw him ride at the end of his career , when he was past his best but still a class above most. The thing that stands out in mind is that he was such great stylist. He almost turned riding a motorbike into an are form. We can argue about who was the greatest but very, very, few will be held in the high esteem that everybody who ever saw Ronnie ride will hold him.

Paul Hurry is the son of Graham Hurry, top grass tracker of the 70's.

Eastbourne as well is under threat I hear. As far as Lakeside is concerned the development is probably still some way off because, as I understand it ther3 still has to be risk assessment for environmental impact and pollution. As the was previously a sand pit or quarry it seems quite possible there will need to be clean up of the site which could be expensive, even prohibitive. Things are very much in the air at the moment and could go either way, but Jon Cook seemed very adamant that he wants to keep Speedway alive in the South East.

In summary Cooks comments were ,- The Woodroffe family that owned the site sold it to developers last year but remained as tennants rather than owners, They now want to move out completely. It was disingenuous of them to try to blame falling Speedway attendances in their press releases based on last years National League crowds because since coming up to th e CL attendances have trebled. The site has provisional planning permission for houses but that is conditional on the being a Speedway track as well as schoolsetc incorporate,d on the site. The new owners are interested in retaining motor sport on site and Cook will be talking to them a bout this. If some othe t motor sport development is involved ok will try to strike a deal with them for the continuation of Speedway. Cook cant guarantee Speedway next year but there are avenues still to be explored and he and Stuart Douglas will continue fighting for it. It seems to me the biggest obstacle is probably Rob Godfrey.

It’s horses for courses, surely? There are some riders that perform first/ second bend cut backs at Lakeside that would be difficult at certain other tracks. On the other hand there are riders like Scott Nicholls who has shown in the last couple of days that he is a class act at both tracks at both tracks. That’s what makes the sport so interesting, different riders having different capabilities.

You also have to look at the context of riders. When you get riders of the quality of Schlein and Nichols at this level of league on an 8/9 point average the chances are there are only about two riders in the opposing side capable of beating them. Scott’s gating in particular was superb last night but the downside is that once he got in front he won by a country mile, and there’s few riders in any team in this league that can catch him on that sort of form. There was no passing in heat 13 after bend 2 lap one but it was a cracking race with Nichols and Schlein right up Morris’ exhaust pipe for the whole race, so that still makes for a good meeting. Ippo are a decent side overall and can justify a place in th3 play offs. Quite a bit of dust last night which makes it difficult to pass from the minor placings, but dust unfortunately is inevitable when you have 90 degree temperatures during the day. Overall I think the track curator did a good job in very difficult conditions. Despite the dust the track stood up pretty well and the actually surface was pretty good right to the end, with very few ruts.

If the hijackers will now let us get this thread back in line with its title, it is interesting that Speedway Star have devoted a whole page to an interview with Rob Godfrey and he has simply used it to blame everyone but himself for the trouble he has caused in having fixtures removed from the fixture list. Fixtures, that is, that Godfrey and his (mis) Management Committee, had approved before the season started and the fans relied on. This is the problem with this blinkered shower on the Management Committee (and I use the term "management " in its loosest possible sense) , they are apparently unaware that the sport is on its knees and each time they mess up in this way, more fans walk away. It really is a disgrace and unacceptable for the person whose committee is supposed to be running the sport , to blame other people for the problem he caused. If Scunthorpe hadn't needed guests none of this would have arisen. Still at least we have a member of the (mis) Management Committee acknowledging there is a problem. Until now we have simply had fixtures being pulled out of the list and a month of conspicuous silence from the MC, who have carried on as if nothing had happened, completely ignoring the fans.. I doubt whether Godfrey and his mates could run a stall in a Women's institute jumble say successfully. Incompetent beyond belief

A bad situation made much worse by Rob Godfrey interfering with the fixture list and cancelling meetings.

That is already the case . If a rider has had one warning to sit still Rule 15.16(b) applies : “ For a second offence by the same rider in the same heat a mandatory disqualification with no replacement permitted” i.e, the rider is out of the race, no replacement no going off 15 metres.

Of the meetings I see, which admittedly tends to be Lakeside these days the correct procedure is invariably followed. The rules require the start marshal to ensure the riders are correctly positioned be fore he hands over to the referee, who then has to put the green light on as soon as the start Marshall is clear, then release the tapes after a minimum delay of 1.5 seconds to allow riders to get their engines spinning. I practical terms that mean from the time the start Marshall hands over to the referee there is less than two seconds before the green light comes on which is not enough time for riders to start faffy about pulling bikes back and forth before concentrating on the green light. Because of the nature of the sport and the heightened state of tension the riders are in at the start it is almost inevitable that once or twice a meeting the merest distraction will cause a twitchy clutch finger to move. But there is another aspect to this that I have only noticed in the last few meetings. Richard Lawson for example is noted as a very good gater but recently I have noticed that he is almost always first up to the tapes allowing himself a full two minutes or more to do his “ gardening, which he is usually quite fussy about, and still allow a bit of time to start getting his head in gear for the race. The result is he more often than not gets either a fist bend lead or positions himself for a second bend cut back. A lot of his points come that way. On the other hand riders that are a bit late to the gate and then start messing around with clutches or goggles or just kicking a bit of dirt around , tend, I think, to be the ones jumping the start. Not always the case, but very often is.

The rules already require the riders to be lined up 75 mm ( 3inches) from the tapes. You can't realistically get any closer than that without touching them. Speedway is a sprint and in any sort of sprint people will at times jump the start. Look at any big athletics meeting. The 100 metres final will often have two or three false starts because the athletes are twitchy. Compare that with the 5000 metres where the start is less important and false starts are virtually unheard of.

Under Rule 15.2.1 each race should start no more than 4 minutes after the finish of the previous one, including the two minute allowance. As soon as the two minute allowance is finished the riders come under the direction of the start Marshall and have to be ready to start. Therefore a rider who gets to the gate say thirty seconds after the two minutes comes on he has a minute and a half to prepare his start but one who gets there as the time expire has no time. Most referees that I see these days seem to keep meetings ticking over at a reasonble pace.

Any chance of this thread getting back on topic ? Still not a dickie bird from the BSPA, treating the fans with absolute contempt as usual. What ever we do to improve tracks , facilities, bikes, training or anything else, it will all be a waste of time while Chapman and Co operate under a veil of secrecy.

You just make yourself look more and more ridiculous with every post. . You claim that Lakeside -v-Scunthorpe was "mostly" FTG's . In fact 7 out of 15 were, yet this afternoon 8 out of 15 at Peterborough were FTG's. . Bottom line is that you have some sort of long standing grudge against Jon Cook that you are always hinting at but for some reason you cant let go of and move on. For goodness sake grow up. If you don't like Cook or Lakeside don't go there and don't sit stewing about it. Get a life. . You'll be much happier. Its that simple.

No point in targeting new audiences, or even trying to hold on to your existing ones if you don't first of all give them a speedway meeting to attend. As has been said before, what those dullards Chapman and Godfrey have done is to unliterally wipe three clubs fixtures from the already sparse fixture list , which cannot fail to hit the attendances of the clubs concerned even further. They then compound that display of mismanagement by telling the fans absolutely nothing, not even the briefest of announcements and merrily carrying on as if nothing has happened, and hope the fans wont notice. The more I think about this utter, crass stupidity, the lack of communication, and the abject short sightedness of those at the helm, the angrier I get. They are worse than useless.

Jon Cook was on the mic about it last night. He was obviously constrained in what he could say as he was talking about being fined by the BSPA if he said too much but talking about Lakeside , Peterborough and Worky having their race nights taken away , the gist of what he said was that certain clubs have to accept they cant win everything and they'll soon finish up racing against themselves. Its interesting that the clubs under attack, Lakeside, Peterborough and Workington are they main play off contenders at the moment. Draw your own conclusions.Of course the BSPA could clear up any speculation immediately by issuing a statement but we still have deafening silence from the Chapman/.Godfrey Mafia. So much for Chapmans empty promises of being open with the fans. They cannot see that it is them that is bringing the sport into disrepute and driving the fans away.

Excellent post. As the Americans would say, "Straight in the Pickle Barrel" . Chapman and co just won't get it though.. They'll just wonder why the turnstiles get quieter and quieter.

The ACU (Auto Cycle Union) is the internationally recognised ruling body of all motorcycle sport in Great Britain and it is affiliate to the F.I. M which is the International ruling body for motorcycle sport. The ACU has delegated the Speedway Control Bureau to control the sport of motorcycle Speedway in this country. The SCB has in turn delegated the BSPA manage the day to day running of the sport. Details of the SCB and its officials can be found on the SCB website and in the Speedway regulations which are available on line . The BSPA is a bit more secretive and doesn't say much about itself on it website, and generally acts under a cloak of semi secrecy. A lot of its disciplinary decisions for example as well as results of protests and complaints handling never seem to be made public.

The idea of a rider sticking to one team is a thing of the past. You only have to look at the threads on this forum to see that as soon as a rider has a few below par meetings and people want him replaced . The growing change over the years is that an increasing number of fans are only interested in supporting a winning team. As soon as a team stars losing so called fans stop coming.

I think they have about a £30,000 bond which a promotion forfeits if they pull out. I understand there is at least one other PL club. Looking seriously at CL next year .

It's still there. Still basically the same old echo chamber with the same old three or four moaners making the same old blah-de- blah complaints about meetings they never go and see. Still moaning because it's not like Hackney where the team was full of "characters" , and every race was packed with excitement, every match went down to the wire, and everyone went home poisoned by fumes from the Boake Roberts chemical works next door.

Roughly an hour later than normal. Around 10.40 ish . Normally finish around 9.35- 9.40

In fairness , I think both the incidents involving Gappmier were pure racing incidents. Emotions run high when a rider gets hurt, but as I saw it both Alfie and Dany were going hell for leather for the same piece of track, they may or may not have touched, I couldn't be sure , but Gappmier lost control and T-boned Kyle who was just ahead of them. Didn't look deliberate to me, but he have got carried away and been riding above himself.

To be fair , only the referee can dictate the pace of the meeting. All the team manager , pit Marshall and clerk of the course can do is make sure the riders are on notice when they are out for the next race. Almost all the delay can be accounted for by repairs to the air fence when Lawson went under it , and more significantly waiting for the track doctor to return after treating Kyle. Those are delays that are unavoidable in this sport. Persnally, I can't remember the last time a Lakeside meeting over ran by this amount or anything like it . It must be at least 10 years. It's not ans if it's happening every meeting.

That is a very fair post and IMO a very fair assessment. I grew up watching speedway at a big track and it took me some time to adjust to Arena but as you say its in the eye of the beholder. According to Stuart Robson, it was the most physically demanding track in what was then the Elite League, and according to Kelvin Tatum and Neil Middleditch it is a very mentally demanding track . Of course that gives it both plusses and minuses as a spectacle but unfortunately some want to dismiss it without looking for the finer points. However to see someone like Peter Karlsson performing his famous cut backs at Lakeside or Wolves is really a special aspect of the sport that you don't see at many tracks. One thing Kelvin said, is that many riders are beaten in their minds before the racing even starts. They convince themselves they cant ride certain tracks so don't overcome the mental challenge, especially if they know they have a track the next night that gives them a big payday. Of course there are the narrow minded armchair experts who never will get there minds round the fact that different tracks have different qualities, but personally I think we are very lucky in this country to have such a variety of tracks to enjoy. Its just a pity that most of them are in such dilapidated stadiums