E I Addio

The main object of the exercise was to,put on a good show with a decent crowd in front of the Thurrock MP who was at the meeting for ,I think, the second time to get her support for a new track. To that extent it was successful, judging by her posts on Twitter this morning which suggest she was impressed. So straight away all her Twitter followers , many of whom have may never heard of Speedwáy, now know there is a local track.

Yeah, but that was in Division IV of the Plotz Shipyards Relegation League Seriously I like Davey a lot and Lakeside is his favourite place to be, apart from Poole, but while he has been about the only Lakeside guest, apart from Hans this year to put 100% effort into the job I have noticed for sometime that he has started to fade towards the later stages of the meeting at Lakeside. I think Kim would score more but Davey is about the best guest on the average available so cant complain as long as he doesn't have one of his famous howlers. An almost unpredictable result because none of the major players in the 1-5's except Danny King have shown much consistency of late. There are probably 4 or 5 riders that could either go ,well into double figures or score less than 6. Garraty is the trump card as he has been all season for Cov and will continue to be right though to the play-offs.

What are you on about? It only the second Sky broadcast from Lakeside this year!

A first time for everything I suppose but Roynon has never done much at Lakeside before, but overall Cov look stronger at reserve, especially with Garrity. Not Bombers favourite track but has been much more consistent there last couple of years. Covs trump card is Danny King who has been getting good scores at Lakeside since his Brum days and had four wins in his 13 points in the A fixture. Very close matc,h last time.

I don't think Cook is exactly making it up as he goes along. He said at the fans forum last year that he was in contact with a compny that specialises in these sort of things and seems to have subsequently had meetings with the Council and various others. No doubt he has been in touch with Dave Gordon of Belle Vue for advice, and probably the Swindon promotion as well. We can only wait and see withou.t pre- judging anything. Add to that the fact that Stuart Douglas holds the purse strings and he is no fool in business matters if look where his career has taken him,

I doubt the BV team manager favours Aussies in his choice of guests and I have never heard any BV fans say that is the case I but if it is true that is a local problem for BV to sort out, and it's not what Richie was complaining about in his SS interview . He was complaining though about the fact that Belle Vue fell over themselves to buy him and now don't give him a team place, (and this was before Mark Lemon took over as TM). I can understand his frustration with Belle Vue though. Reading between the lines of the interview it seems Richie is not altogether happy with their lack of support for his career. Personally I don't think Carswels influence at Belle Vue has been a good one, since he became involved on the promotional side.Whatever the ins and outs of the original financial dispute between Richie and Lakeside, going to BV has not been a successful move for Richie especially when you consider how successful his replacement, Richard Lawson has been since coming into the Lakeside side as a 3 point reserve who couldn't ride small tracks.

If you read the tread properly you would know that's not what I am saying

Not sure what point you are making. The amount of time it takes to clean a bike and the amount of time travelling to meetings is exactly the same for UK based Aussies like Justin Sedgmen, Max Fricke and Nick Morris as it is for Brits, the money is pretty much the same for the Aussies as it is for Brits and they have the additional expense of stting up. British base. Getting a team place in Sweden or Poland is just as difficult for Aussies as it is for Brits yet Max Fricke has gone off and done it, as well ans getting a regular EL team spot.so all those spurious points you mention go out the window. I have r,rad the article for a second time, and to be fair to Richie, he is not complaining about the amount of time it takes to clean a bike or travelling to meeting etc. the thrust of his complaints is the lack of opportunity for British riders to progress and he has a point there in view of the protectionism Sweden and Poland have to their home grown riders.. Certainly Richie, and riders of roughly his standard would benefit from a regular EL team slot, and yes they do need a bit more support from the promoters , but as was said before t.hey need to not expect things gifted . There are two sides to the srgument and neither is clear cut.

Just to clarify , I am not saying Lawson does his own engines, because I don't know. I would be very surprised if he does, but he does a lot of his own preparation single handed, and drives himself down in a little van . It must save a lot of money compered to some. I am not suggesting Richie Worral is extravagant because I don't know, merely an observation that in general terms some riders seem to carry a lot of unnecessary overheads. If you look at Josh Auty's van for example it's a huge great thing with "Josh Auty Speedwáy and Grass Track Rider " specially painted all over it one wonders why all that is necessary , considering the 99 .99% of te public have never heard of him .

Ah , ok . Better off getting rid of it and getting yourself lap dancer then !

You have totally missed the point of what I said. The point was that in days gone by the investment in machinery was a lot less than it is now. One bike pretty much lasting a season, now two bikes needing to be serviced every few meetings, therefore todays costs are bound to be far higher I think everybody understands that. I don't understand the rest of your post. DIDENT...ridding....engins....sence....sick the bike in the dirt. Even Sidney would struggle with that.

True. I have a copy of Classic Speedway which has an interview with Norman Hunter who retired in the 1970' s and he says he retired because he opened up a motor-cycle shop and the intention was that his speedway should subsidise this the motor-cycle business but it ended up being the other way round. However the world has changed a lot since the days of Mick Bell and Norman Hunter. In the past running a small business was alright as a side line but there are so many regulations, now and it so difficult to compete as say a private garage owner against the corporate bodies that it really needs full time attention. Having said that, some riders don't have much idea of finances. I often have a wry smile when I see riders turning up in big vans with a mechanic doing then driving, then Richard Lawson arrives with everything crammed into his little VW Carry, with bikes he has basically prepared himself and then goes out and gets a bigger score. It is difficult though. Richjie Worrall talks about £20, 000 investment in bikes before you even start on vans etc, and that is an expense that riders didn't have in the past. Terry Betts for example used to have one bike and all he basically did , according to him, was change the valve springs when needed, The one engine would last a season then he would buy another one the following year..

Is it a problem with the riders or a problem with the system ? That's a difficult one. Sam Ermolenko says that when he came over he just had to get on with it and succeed or pack up and go home , and his take is that British riders have home comforts that distracts from the absolute determination to succeed. I can see where he is coming from. There are enough overseas riders making a living in the UK without any help from anyone yet are collectively good enough to beat a team of GB riders or at least run them close. I don't. Hear any of the overseas riders complaining about their lot, yet Robert Lambert hardly stops moaning about the BSPA , and now Richie Worrall has put his spoke in, so in many ways the riders themselves could do wi th getting their heads down and getting on with it. However we have to face the fact that the success of British Speedwáy depends on having successful British riders, at all levels. The sport cannot survive on overseas riders alone, so to that extent there needs to be some formula to keep home grown riders in the sport making a decent living, and if you are going to have a system for goodness sake do the job properly. You mention Robert Lambert who is in rather a different situation to Richie Worrall. Lambert, like Tai Woffinden and Scott Nicholls before him and indeed Leigh Adams and others has had parents that funded their sons careers from a young age so by the time they get to 16 they are wound up ready to go. On the other hand riders like Richie Worrall, Craig Cook and Richard Lawson have come over. from moto cross and didn't really start their Speedwáy careers until they were turned 20 so they have a lot of ground to make up. By that age they were no longer able to rely on Mum and Dad but have to earn enough to make it worthwhile Make no mistake about it, British Speedwáy cannot survive purely on riders coming in at 16, there has to be some means of get ting more young men of 20+ into the spor t and to a standard where they can earn a decent living ,not so much for there benefit , but for the benefit of the sport. O I

To be fair he says he doesn't think he would want to ride in the EL at reserve for £50 or £60'a point racing against guys on £130 or £140 a point when he has the same equipment costs. That is a fair comment. He also makes the cogent point that what the promoters are saving in EDL riders wages they possibly are losing to falling crowd numbers. Another good point he makes is that the Fast Track should be for the PL. However the PL promoters have absolutely no interest in anything outside their own little worlds and are more than happy with the current rent-a- foreigner scheme.mtherein lies the problem. The problem of riders like Richie, Ben Barker etc has to addressed because it's clear they are making no progress in the PL and need something better than the EDR scheme to kick start their careers.

The track itself will take a relatively small amount of land. I think the bigger problem is noise near residential areas, whoever you put it. If I have correctly understood what has been said it should not be too difficult to keep noise down by building it with banking all round, much the same as the present track. I don't understand the technicalities of it though. As has been said the local council have been making all the right noises and Jon Cooks programme notes on the subject have been cautiously optimistic but it's early days yet and there are obvious hurdles to be overcome. The more immediate problem, according to JC's latest programme notes is maintaining crowd levels at an acceptable standard during a season where things have been going wrong, resulting in falling attendances, jnot least the unfortinate injury to AJ at a critical time, resulting in four consecutive home losses. The crowd at the last meeting looked a bit better so hopefully the trend can be reversed.

It's probably more accurate to say it gave a start to a lot riders that became good, and probably fair to say the whole standard of the Provincisl League was raised immeasurably in the five years of its existence. Len Silver for example was only ever a 4/5 point second string in the then National League in several years with Ipswich , but when he dropped to the Provincial League with Exeter he became PL Champion in 1962 which was the pinnacle of his career but by the time the old PL combined with the NL a lot of young riders were coming through who were to go on to much greater things than Len Silver ever achieved. Not just Msuger but a number of top riders of the late 60's and 70's like Ray Wilson Malcolm Simmons , Norman Hunter Colin Pratt Trevor Hedge and Eric Boocock, all came through the ranks of the Provincial League.

Do you know. If Bill Posters will be banned ?

I think you might find Jon Cook is out of the frame for a while. The reason he gave for resigning was that he needs more time to devote to his own club which primarily includes trying to get a new home up and running. He also needs to spend some time getting the team back to winning ways. Personally I have felt for a long time the MC duties have been too much of a distraction from running Lakeside. He is now in the programme as joint team manager which I think is one thing he does do well. I think also the sooner Harkess steps down the better.

My goodness you really are struggling to dig your way out of that hole. Having been totally unable to explain why Lakeside, the club have been any mor e responsible than anyone else for falling attendances you now move the goalposts to focus on an individual who is not the club, merely one member o f the promotional team. Just as Swindon fans have had to explain to the intellectually challenged at Rosco the Swindon manager is not the same as Rosco the Team GB manager, Cooks role on the MC is not the same as his position as on the Lakeside promotional team. The principle of collective responsibily on the MC or any other committee means all committee members bear equal resposibility for the committees decisions. Notwithstanding that point the MC of the BSPA are not the body with overall responsibility for the sport , that is the Speedwáy Contriol Bureau ( the clue is in the i ) and the buck ultimately stops with them. They, above all else must carry can for weak leadership. So once again despite your persistent trolling of Lakeside threads you have once again failed to back up your original claim that Lakeside bear major responsibility for the state the sport is in .. You might as well either quit while you are behind or go off and start a Jon Cook thread because your spurious claims are misplaced on an Arena Essex thread, which started off as a perfectly reasonable enquiry about the clubs future before you jumped in.

Well that post hardly squares up with your original post that said Lakeside are a major part of the problem.. I agree that for years the EL has been crying out for leadership but by definition leadership can only come from the governing body. As long as the tail continues to wag the dog various shenanigans will always be going on

It all depends on which rumour monger you listen to. The bigger issue is which clubs will be running at all next year. At least one PL club looks like going under according to Speedwáy Star .

Yes you did and some of us knew you were right at the time As ever, the keyboard warriors are not interested in the facts. If you are going to forget the dictionary, then words mean whatever you want them to mean and we won't get anywhere.. In answer to your specific question the answer is no it was not an easy bread and butter league. Speedwáy is a tough sport and it's never easy in any sport when you are competing against competitors of similar ability.. It's just as difficult for say Rohan Tungste to win a race in the PL as it is for tai Woffinden to win a race in a GP , it's just that the PL has riders of less ability than the GP's but that doesn't mean it's easier for those competing at that level.. thsts no criticism of the riders riding at Pl level though. They ride to the best of their ability, which is obviously a lower standard than. GPs. Same with thme old NL.

Did, get your dictionary out. A journeyman is literally a qualified tradesman who has served his a apprenticeship but is not a Master craftsman in Speedwáy terms that clearly means a decent rider who is not ready for the top league. Bwitchervwas spot on with that description. Mediocre simply means medium, average, middle of the road etc . Clearly to describe riders as journeymen or mediocre is in no sense of the word an insult or a put down,it simply means competent without being the best . If they were the best they obviously wouldn't be in the lower league.

I think Mauger was also a master of faffing around at the gate to unsettle the opposition. I have heard that whenever Colin Pratt was out against Mauger he would just sit at the pit gate with his engine stopped until Mauger finished all his messing around and eventually settled down, then Colin would get his mechanic to push him off and line up with a relatively cool clutch. Pratts laconic comment nwas apparently on the line s of " That (blank blank) can p**s around burning his clutch out if he wants to but I'm not going to". Not everyone was a laid back as Pratty though. I think a lot of Maugers skill was that a lot of riders were psyched out by him before they even came to the tapes.

Funny the things you hear from people who think they are in the know. I heard Richie Worral was valued at £90,000 but Belle Vue got him for the knock down price of £45,000. That wasn't true either. It's amazing the number of people who have been around Speeedway for years still believe the. same old gossip. The latest one I heard (last Friday ) was that Lakeside will be running next year but Jon Cook won't be there. No chance of that either. The golden rule in Speedwáy is believe it when it happens but I guess you know that already !!