E I Addio

That is the point. We have all seen start marshals call riders to the tapes three lor four times and the riders still sits there fiddling with his clutch , adjusting his goggles or whatever, and the referee rarely does anything. I remember a few years ago in an SWCqualifier Chris Gay disqualified Matej Zagar for wasting time at the start after previously having given a warning and the meeting ran like clockwork after that. I would suggest that is what needs to be done more frequently If a rider habitually wastes time he gets one warning then next time he goes out of the race. You are right in that riders will take liberties and the new rule is a step in the right direction in that it cuts down the amount of fiddling around a rider can do because there is obviously less that can be done sitting on the bike than by getting off, so I disagree with those who say it is a stupid rule, but it has to be used as part of a general crackdown on time wasting at the start, but as Bwittcher has already said it would be boring if the riders came out and started straight away so you need a little time for the riders to prepare and to build a bit of pre-race tension. It's all a question of getting the balance right.

Obviously its not going to waste time if they don't get off their bikes and get themselves excluded , which clearly they won't be.

Most people that comment about track prep on social media have little idea what is required to keep a track in raceable condition. Track prep,is a black art rather than a science. There is no hand book and much depends on the experience of the track curator. Some are very good, others not so good. With British weather it is virtually impossible to produce a perfect track every week, and often the fans who criticise the track don't realise that in the prevailing weather the track staff have often done a heroic job in getting the meeting on at all. Shale id another thing. Some of the really good shale pits are finished and decent quality shale which is not cheap is getting hard to come by, not just getting the stuff but transporting it to the track can be expensive if it has to come half the length of the country. The reality is that with clubs facing tough economic times they cannot just go out and buy 30 tons of shale every few weeks. In an ideal world the team captain should have some input. Dave Watt one that is very good in that respect, others are not so good. So that are a whole range of variable factors Some tracks have more proficient and better trained track staff than others. The fact that some rakers appear to pick the dirt off the kick boards and flick it 3 feet in does not necessarily mean they don't know what they are doing . Sometimes they are doing this because the track curator will pick it up with the grader and drag it across, but it also depends where the dirt line is. An good raker will watch out for lumps in the wrong places to try to minimise the risk of picking up unnecessary grip, but generally there needs to be a bit more dirt on bends two and four where the riders are accelerating out of the bend and a bit less on bends one and three where they are still sliding the bikes into the bend. The skills required vary from track to track but a lot depends on good communication between the promoter, the captain, the track curator and the rakers, which doesn't always happen. The main thing that riders want is a smooth consistent surface with no unexpected bumps and no erratic wet and dry patches where unexpected grip is picked up. However as I said different tracks need to be treated a bit differently and different track men have different ideas, but there does seem to be a general lack of expertise at some tracks while others are very good. Times change though. I can remember when Len Silver was probably the best trackman in the country. but these days whenever I go to Rye House, 2 or three times a year it all seems to be gate and go . Not sure if I have just been unlucky or whether Uncle Len has lost the plot but he is not the man he was.

There is no ongoing debate about it as far as this thread is concerned. Everyone who has commented unanimously agrees that the Facebook page is utter tripe, posted by someone who has sawdust for brains, is even less capable than you of constructing a coherent or cogent argument and it is.an indictment of the intelligence of those who "liked" it. There is nothing more to be discussed. Everybody who has posted is in agreement. Perhaps you might take the hint to take your potty ideas to facebook or some (un)social media site frequented by the sort of half wits that are ill informed enough and inarticulate enough to grant you the attention you crave but frankly you are making yourself look an idiot by continually banging away with your irrelevant point. Nobody agrees with you. Nothing more to discuss. Time to move on.

The referee has the power to fine riders or even exclude riders for wasting time at the start, but it rarely happens. A bigger problem than gardening is riders that hang around adjusting there clutches when being called to the line. A bit of balance and common sense is called for. If a rider is programmed to go out twice in three heats, and is given an extra ride between them, then obviously he needs a bit of a break to re-fuel, replace his tear-offs, swap his rear tyre round etc, but some are plainly wasting time, possibly to unsettle their opponents. Ultimately it is a bit like cricket where teams need to maintain an over rate to keep the flow going and the fans interested, and teams can be penalised for not bowling enough overs.

No, the rules say nothing about the start Marshall preparing the gate , let alone track staff. Of course we all know what went on at Eastbourne, there seem to be a number of tracks, such as Coventry and Rye House that don't seem to even have enough marshals to pull the dirt back on the bends, without having to find four more to prepare the gates.

The SSarticle does say the directive is still at the draft stage so it will be interesting to see how the final wording and interpretation pan out. Two thoughts spring to my mind;~ 1. The power of modern machinery , especially dropping the clutch at such high revs churns the starting gate up much more than in the past so it is reasonable to give the riders some chance to prepare their gates, otherwise some will be coming onto a badly rutted gate position and have no real chance of a decent start. The real issue I think is not so much preparing the gate position but the fact that some riders take liberties in the amount of time they spend doing it, which in turn causes delays and disrupts the flow of the meeting. 2. I don't see any appreciable difference between a rider sitting on his bike preparing the gate position, as opposed to being allowed to dismount but keeping hold of the handlebars with his bike facing the right way. Again, the crucial thing is that it does't unnecessarily delay the flow of the meeting. I do think the rule is basically a good idea but like so many others it's success depends on a bit of common sense in its application.

Here we go again. There is always someone that will complain about imaginary rules that are not in the rule book. There are no "silly start rules" that handicap fast gaters and there is no rule that says they should enter the first vend together. The rule is that there should be an equal start in other words aimed against riders who try to anticipate the referee and gain an advantage. Unfortunately it is sometimes very difficult for the ref to distinguish between what is a good start as opposed to a rider jumping the start and getting away with it, and of course some refs are a bit over zealous in this but that is a refereeing problem not a rules problem. The other side of the coin is that if riders are allowed to get away with it when they jump the start often means a tapes to flag win and the crowd are deprived of a competitive race.

Getting off on a technicality would not automatically give rise to a court action. Darcy would still have to show that he was under the limit. The fact that the calibration may not have been checked prior to the test does't mean it was wrong. So Darcy's first hurdle would be to prove it was wrong at the time of the test, and that if accurate it would have shown him under the limit. Even if if he gets over the first hurdle he would still have to show that the FIM were negligent or in some way unreasonable in suspeded img him while they investigated, and that would also not be easy. There are also other potential problems depend which country court proceedings were started in. At the moment I would say that any court action is remote and at best long way off.

It would be of even more benefit if you were to apply the old adage that if you have nothing intelligent to say then say nothing.

Ah yes that must be what happened. They probably made an announcement over the PA : "Er...we have suspicions that Darcy Ward has been at the Old Jollop again. If there is anyone in the crowd that happens to have a breathalyser with them would he please come forward and conduct a breath test" Sounds plausible to me.

You missed out Muddlo's Classic: " Darcy knows he did wrong...." I bet Matt and Darcy's lawyers loved that admission being broadcast.

Big balls has still got a bee in his bonnet about Ritchie Worrall and seems to want to keep having a go at Jon Cook about that, which is what Daytripper seems to be on about hence the reference to Worrall. Bigballs was going on about asking Worky fans what they thought of Cook but as between promotions there seems to be no real issue. Worky invoked a buy back clause which they were legally entitled to do after one season, although their early press releases seemed to indicate that they wanted him back there. Lawson is clearly happy at Lakeside though, given his rate of progress and a big hit with the fans. So basically sour grapes by Bigballs still going on about Worralll and trying to speak for Worky fans instead of just expressing his own opinion.

Interestingly, no sign of Sidney either. Do reckon he has got himself yet another ban for threatening another forum member ?

Is "internationally inexperienced " a euphemism for stupid ? To get to the top in modern speedway you have to not only be a good rider, you also have to be a good organiser , knowing before the season starts where you are riding ,what the travel arrangements are , wha t the money is, who is paying it and what bikes you will be riding. It has to run like clockwork. If these two can't even organise an off-season trip to Argentina it does't bode well for a busy international career. Amazingly they both see themselves as serious contenders for a Team GB place. No surprise nobody has even offered them an EL place yet and both are stuck in the PL going backwards.

To be fair to Gavan, this thread only got on to Muddlo because he blurted out a load of incomprehensible nonsense in Speedway Star about Ward so it was reasonable that various members commented on his outburst on this thread. Gavan, quite properly on this occasion confined his initial comments to Muddlo's rantings. If you check the thread it was Sidney , who not for the first time went off at a tangent and brought in Matt Ford and Poole. Quite frankly a lot of Poole threads do get expanded because of the off track antics of the likes of Ward and Muddlo. How often do other team managers or star riders put themselves at the centre of controversy by making inept comments or unruly or questionable behaviour? Hardly ever, I would say in relation to the comments and behaviour that emanates from Wimborrne Road.

To be honest Sid, I read Muddlo's comments in Speedway Star two or three times and I still can't work out his line of reasoning. He says some.thing in one breath then seems to argue against himself in the next breath. It really is most bizarre if you read the article .he is supposed to be a professional person speaking for a professional club but he is talking in a form of gobbledegook that would cause a 16-year old to fail their GCSE. I really wonder whether the bloke is losing his marbles. His public utterances have not been making much sense for at least 2-3 years and when you look at some of the childish things he was putting on Twitter last year, that doeasn't seem to me to be the behaviour of a normal adult. That's not having a go at Poole but read the SS article yourself and see if you can detect a sensible line of reasoning.

When I started going there were plenty of old timers telling me the sport was much better in the pre- war and immediate post war period periods when there was a variety of bikes and riding styles with leg trailers and foot forward mixed in the same races, and were of the opinion that it was boring seeing everyone on bikes that looked the same. The point is that like many experiences in life speedway usually seems best when you are young and it is new, and that is what skews our recollection of the past . It's not necessarily riders of the past that were great, it's our memory of them.

It's entirely personal preference of course but for myself I much prefer the 15 heat formula. I like to see the top men race each other more than once, but more importantly it gives a side more of a chance to get back into the match if they have a bit of bad luck midway, especially with the present scoring formula for league points. I find it keeps the interest if a side have a comfortable lead hat heat 12 but you know you still have to face the other sides big guns in heats 13 and 15 . Again speaking personally , I don't necessarily share Sidney's view of the past . I am probably enjoying the sport as much now as I have ever done. I think what has destroyed the aura surrounding top riders is so much televised speedway, in fact I haven't bothered watching the SWC for a couple of years and I probably only watch about a third of the GP's.and half the Sky meetings these days. For me, speedwáy is a sport you have to see live. The noise and smell creates atmosphere and the is not the same sensation of speed on the telly. Most importantly I don't think one sees the motorcycle skills the same through the lens of a camera. I know I keep banging on about Petr Karlsson but quite honestly I could enjoy watching him ride round on his own. I tend to look for details like the way he blips his throttle to find traction and the lines he rides. Matej Zagar and Mikkel Bech are others that have great control over their bikes that one doesn't appreciate on TV . Bomber is another one. People complain about him but I watch him a Lakeside where he always gets a bad start then he can ride inch perfect to get inside someone. To me these are all the signs of great riders in any generation but they are skills that don't really come across in TV broadcasts. So for me good riders are good riders whatever, their era. They all have two arms two legs and a head, plus a certain amount of talent. What I don't believe is that in the 70's we had a league of supermen who had an abundance of talent that modern riders don't have. To my mind though, the biggest threat to the future of the sport is the over exposure on TV which means that people can sit in their armchairs and watch a match almost every night of the week without ever going through the turnstiles.

I was talking about pre-1980 So where does that take the discussion ? It seems to support your argument that the 70's BL was ,very competitive at the top end but weak in the lower regions hence a fair number of riders were on high averages and that would only be possible if others were on an particularly low average. That's what I would say from memory and apparently from statistics.

I think they were referring to the way modern tuners anre getting more and more power from the engines resullting in an increasingly narrower power band. The new silencers undoubtedly make the situation worse because of the way the power comes in suddenly,but I am pretty sure modern chassis ride better , especially if set up properly. Undoubtedly modern engines are more difficult to set up and, even the smallest adjustment can make a big difference to performance either better or worse, and that was at the root of a lot of Peter Karlsson's problems last season. He changed engines even chaged tuners but nothing worked. The other side of that coin though is that if an inferior rider gets his set up right he can beat much better riders. A classic example of that was Ben Morely at Lakeside who, once he got his home track set up sorted was beating some decent riders at Lakeside but he never really cracked it on away tracks needing different set ups. I think modern tuning is one reason why it's very difficult to seriously compare riders. Greg for example has a terrific pit crew around him and does very well on it but I am not convinced he would ever be world champion in a previous era. Fascinating discussion but nothing's provable so one can only say a rider was good in a particular era and enjoy them while they last.

Is that a fact? I stand to be corrected but I am sure I have heard a number of riders say the uprights were harder. I think modern engines are a problem because these days they have a very narrow power band, but the chassis surely have to give a better ride with lay down engines giving a lower centre of gravity and modern leading link forks being less prone to twisting.

Track preparation is not better today. Apart from the fact that it was not as critical then as it is with modern machinery, the quality lol shale was much better then, but so many of the pits producing good shale have closed over the years. Decent shale is very hard to come by today a nd very expensive. Modern bikes also churn the trades up much more which adds to the problem of decent track preparation.

Difficult to disagree with that Sidney, except that Briggo could, also be on hell of a gater when the mood took him. One of my most outstanding early memories is when I saw Briggo win the last of his British Championships at West Ham. In a field that included Mauger, who was to go on to win the World title that year Briggo was completely dominant and not even Mauger could get near him off the gate. Briggo was absolutely stunning that night. When we talk about racers I wish I had been around to see the great Jack Parker. He contested the British Match Race Championshiip 21times and won, I think, 18 or 19 of them . Must have been some racer.

Same places that Jason Crump, Chris Holder, Darcy Ward, Troy Batchelor and Jason Doyle gained their international experience. Nobody gave them a free lunch or a FTDR place or an easy pass into the GP!s. They had to drag themselves up by they bootlaces.