E I Addio

Why doesn't Buster Chapman set the example in anything he does ? It's in his power as BSPA Chairman, more than any other promoter , to set a good standard , but instead the sport goes fro bad to worse under his stewardship.

All of the above is true, but the plain fact is that for most of us the team we grew up with is th one that gets in our DNA.

I agree on all points. NL racing has never worked for me either. Each to his own I suppose, but to my mind the difference between the top heatleaders and reserves at NL level is too great to be conducive to good racing. I have enjoyed seeing the young riders coming on, especially riders like Jack Parkinson Blackburn and Tom Bacon but overall the standard is not good enough to keep me going. A team built round Kim Nilsson would be ideal. I don't think the current Premiership could be described as top,flight any more. The wage bills must be considerably less without riders like AJ on the payroll. The problem now though, is that having lost fans by dropping down a couple of divisions, whether they can attract them back.

There were in total 5 meetings last season where the gate was hugely affected by traffic and a lot of money was lost, according to Jon Cook, speaking at the last fans forum. However they were. All due to the A13 Dartford Tunnel road works which are now finished. Last Fridays problem was due to Bank Holiday Traffic coupled with two accidents. Last Friday's jams were exceptional, and were compounded by two accidents. I have only once seen anything like it, and that was a Saturday about 5 years ago when I was trying to get to a friends house in Kent to see the GP but I got to within a mile or sr of the Tunnel tunnel and had to turn back as it was gridlocked. That is the problem. Unexpected jams can cause problems on the M25 any day if the week but yo be honest I can't remember any serious problems of Friday's this year, apart from last week

He didn't state that was the reason. The initial press release stated that the club could not commit to EL /PL racing (as it was then) because the AGM had been brought forward to an earlier date and no agreement coukd bad reached with the stadium owners until the 2017 stock car fixtures were arranged when the 2016 stock car season finished in November. In fact it was not announced that the clubs future for 2017 had been secured until December 2016, shortly before the NL AGM which was held after the other two.mAt that stage Cook said it would allow the opportunity to address the problem of moving "some " fixtures to Sat/Sun, and "some " have been moved but people seem to forget stock car fixtures take priority.

Bacon was, for me, the best rider on show. He looks absolutely professional in his general set up. Was gating superbly, looked very stylish on the bike and paid 11 for only the second time he has ridden the track was an excellent performance. For the first time, I quite enjoyed an NL match. Well done to both teams. ,

It used to be £10,000 but it went up. I think it's about £30,000 now.

Exactly. Most fans would probably tolerate a scoring system based on logarithms as long as they had a competitive team that wasn't packed out with guests every week, and a fixture list that wasn't constantly chopping and changing.

How did they know? Unless there is some specific way of counting simply guessing on what the crowd appears to be is a hopelessly inaccurate way of assessing it. Also a lot of tracks have higher crowd levels early in the season, then the crowds drop back a big until the summer holidays.

That's easy to answer . After the teams were selected on one set of rules the BSPA changed the rules to give the higher league team preference even though the rider is an asset of the NL club. One can only assume that the BSPA are determined to destroy the sport in this country. They just don't get if that nothing turns the crowd away quicker than a team full of guests

....and how many have we won in the last 40 years ? The fact is that Polish Speedwáy has got itself organised in that time, especially training wise, and British Speedwáy hasnt. In fact it's gone backwards. It's a different world these days. You also have to factor in that up to the early70's a lot of international events that "we" won were won with the help of certain New Zealanders. The period when British riders as a national side were dominant in World Speedwáy was actually very short.

We need decent British riders to plug the gap left as a result of top foreign riders leaving British Speedwáy, especially as Bluster Chapman seems to have unleashed a torrent of antipathy towards all the Aussies who are supposedly using British Speedwáy for their own ends The reality is that while we have riders like Bomber earning a decent living in two leagues over here, there is no reason to be messed around trying to get into Poland , and without top foreign riders over here the quality of the competition will inevitably get weaker with more easy wins for those with talent and less and less quality opposition to bring the best out of them. I agree with Sidney that the futures bright in terms of young Britsh talent coming through, but if the test is whether they succeed at SWC level, then the way British Speedwáy is being set up there just won't be enough class opposition over here to bring them up to a world class sharpness.

If the test is genuine SWC level then we don't have any British born riders at all except Tai that have "made it" , although we can arguably say Scott and Bomber were there at their peaks. I think setting the bar ar SWC level is setting it very high though. With the increasingly watered down leagues and absence of quality foreign riders it is going to be very difficult indeed for young riders to find the level of competition that brings the best out of them.

I totally agree about Laurence and Couzins. Couzins was arguably worth a punt but Laurence should never have been in the team in the first place. I can't remember the last time, if ever, I saw a rider in the 1-5 of any team that was so unsuited to the sport. I don't know what goes through Jon Cooks mind these days. In the past he has invariably managed to put together a team that was at least competitive and entertaining but he seems to have totally lost the plot these days.

I read the SS article as well. Quite apart from the rights or wrongs of what Holder did of didn't do, it reinforces the fact that Chapman is not the person to be chairman of the body responsible for the day to day running of the sport in this country. He will continue to divide not unite.

The trouble is that their averages are so low that Laurence can only be replaced by a 3.38 rider and the other two by a 3.00 so that doesn't give much scope unless their is some undiscovered hidden talent lurking away somewhere. At this end of the season It's probably better the devil you know than start messing around with unknowns . Connor Locke is improving and at least the other two can more or less stay on their bikes to collect any points being gifted but I can't see Laurence or Couzins ever progressing beyond being 3 pointers.

Good idea in theory but one of the problems is that as British speedway staggers from financial crisis to financial crisis a lot of clubs don't know until the season ends whether they will be running the following year, an often never do know until they know what sponsorship they can get. Sometimes it even means getting new owners. The BSPA however do have a pre AGM meeting well before November when a lot of things are ironed out. The other problem is signing riders on 5 year contracts when this season has shown more than any other that contracts are meaningless with riders in and out of clubs through a revolving door.

That is in the nature of the sport. It's not nice but it's a tough sport. Promoters re-juggle teams all the team to try to strengthen up. Rye House have had riders in and out like a revolving door. Ellis Perks for example did everything that was asked of him but was still sacked . Justin Sedgemen has been in and out of three teams this year. That is a problem to be laid at the door of promoters disloyalty.

Well O.K., but it boils down to the same thing. Holder suffered the penalty provided under the rules, fair enough. He shouldn't have an extra one.

If a rider presents himself to the medics there first job is to examine and diagnose the injury. Batchelor had been off his bike and he claims there was swelling. I haven't seen anybody, including Chapman,deny that there was swelling, so it's reasonable to assume there was an injury of some kind. Yes I know there are riders riding with dodgy shoulders and all the rest of it, and I have seen for example Adam Roynon come out with a dislocated shoulder and tootle round at the back to claim a match winning point but that was on a good track.The fact is that once a rider has suffered a discernible injury it becomes a matter of judgement whether he should ride. The point is any sport must be properly regulated. To suspend Holder for 28 days was within Chapmans reasonable range of options under the rules. To stitch them up in this way is underhand and not a good example for the Chairman to set. Whatever the rights and wrongs of all this it is Chapmans position on BSPA Chairman that comes under the spot light and this matter will hang round his neck like an albatross for long time to come. Just like his behaviour when Petef Karlsson. broke his back

I said if the track was done right in the first place. That means before heat one. Chapman prepared a track for a sidecar meeting the next night. That doesn't justify what the riders did but there appears to have been complaints from several riders before remedial action was taken. As far as Batcheor is concerned he says his wrist was swollen and the doctor had put an ice pack on it. Assuming that is true there must have been some visible sign of injury, and it was not a case of Batch making it up as some have claimed. Batch had already scored 3,2, so he was making money. If he had scored something like 0,1, I can see why people woukd say he was moaning for no reason. The punishment should fit the crime. Holder was suspended for 28 days which Chapman was entitled to do under the rules and Holder could appeal if he didn't like it, but to stitch the riders up so they couldn't get jobs and possbily lose their visas was bang out of order for a promoter who is supposed to set an example as BSPA chairman.

If the track was done properly in the first place, why was remedial action necessary ?

I have tried explaining it to a new fan and he got and its significance in straightaway, no,problem. Speedwáy has enough genuine problems without people making up imaginary ones.

The point is, we are the host club but can only get dates that are not already booked stock cars, bangers, drifting, etc. On top of that we already have Zak injured and as the rules stand at the moment Rye House have first call on Ben and Newcastle have first call on Alfie. It would be disastrous if we had to go into a meeting with a guest for Zak, and r/r for Alfie and Ben.

Absolutely spot on. Every word of it. If Chapman had done his job properly in the first place, none of this would have happened.