E I Addio

I agree with your penultimate paragraph and yes it seems very unlikely that one rule could have such consequences that many people walk away, BUT it is one of a number of things that cause people to lose interest. No single thing turns people off but put them all together and they become a serious irritation for some. I think you have looked at it TR rule in too much of an analytical way. Most fans do not go on forums and go through the ins and outs of how we got the TR rule. Most fans simply want to see decent racing and see their team win. Its no good arguing that the TR rule is fairer than some previous rule which was itself less than logical. In the perception of many, many fans the TR rule is just a device to give unfair advantage to a failing team.. That's the way they view it, rightly or wrongly. Really is all a matter of perception. At least with the TS rule most people were familiar with the concept that in many sports substitutes of one kind or another are permitted, but I can't think of another sport in which there is an equivalent of the double points rule. The seasoned fan might see the point of the rule but the average punter, especially the children often see it differently. The bottom line is that the logic or otherwise of the rule compared to the TS rule doesn't come into it. It is rightly or wrongly a matter of perception. The fact is that a great number of fans are strongly opposed to it so it needs to be looked at. Lets put it another way round. if you got rid of the TR rule a lot of fans would be happier, but without the TR rule do you think there would me masses of fans protesting that the absence of a TR rule was ruining their enjoyment of the sport ? I doubt it.

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't he have some connection with the RAC or some link wit motor sport generally so he had some background knowledge of the sport ? I have read also that he was director of some big companies so he must have had some business acumen as well, so overall he must have been better qualied and experiencec thnan Tony Steele and some of the other names bandied around. I think it also has to be said that his inquiry was different to today's situation. So that sort of Review is not really what is needed today..

Why should he be listened to if he says he doesn't know the solutions? Typical Speedway Star drivel, a two page article of which almost the whole of the first page consists of Lynch's ugly mug,then a page setting out a string of problems that are blatently obvious to most of us anyway, but like most others he can't come up with a workable and affordable solution, apart from giving the whole thing to Tony Steele to sort out and telling us that Matt Ford should be a role model for every promoter in the country (which presumably would mean even more cheating). It would be nice if just for once SS could come up with some insightful,answers rather than telling the fans about the problems that are obvious anyway.

Yep, she should have replaced Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight.

What a great idea. All we need now is a bank that will lend several million pounds and to find a few plots of land to build these Polish-style stadiums, local councils to give planning permission, local residents who are not going to complain about the noise and extra traffic, and all the sports problems are solved. I don't think so. Its amazing that people who come up with these bright ideas never tell us where the money is coming from.

No, Gem, nothing you don't know already. A load of moans that we can't do anything about, and simply looking for quick fix answers without looking at the sports wider and deeper problems.mfor example moaning about the facilities and toilets at some clubs (he mentioned Coventry by name), but completely missing the point that most clubs don't own their own stadiums so there is not much they can do about that, but at the same time, as sponsor of a foreign rider he mentioned nothing about the problem of excess foreign riders in the league at the expense of investment into development of young Brits. He just basically articulated the problems people have been going on about on here for a long time, but offered no constructive suggestions beyond what has already been canvassed on here many times. We are all getting fed up with it especially things like the cheating and inconsistent application of the rules, but things like cleaning up the toilets at Coventry and giving Swindons stadium a lick of paint (another bright idea he came up with) is just tickling the edge of the problem, which is hardly going to get people flooding back unless something is done to make the racing better and especially keep the momentum of the meetings going, instead of stop start tractor racing. If some of these fundamentals can be sorted people will be more inclined to put up with crappy stadiums which the speedway promoters can't do much about anyway.

Edit

So you reckon that if teams only met once home and away nobody would get injured, and we wouldn't need guests ? Even if teams only met once home and away Poole and Kings Lynn would still need guests or R/R in place of their top two etc. So by your reckoning Princess Diana's Funeral must be the most exciting event ever as it had the biggest audience.

Or perhaps they are trying to find someone to explain to Darcy who he is, where he is and how he got there.

So then what? Do Lakeside race the match against no opposition, or against a team of PL 6 pointers ? Or do Poole withdraw from the Champions league match and honour the commitment to Lakeside on the date they agreed to race?

That seems about right to me. I stand to be corrected if anyone knows otherwise but it seems that the FIM Jury now dealing with the case is no longer a speedway -specific jury but one looking at motor-cycle sport as a whole , so that any penalty would be consistent with any drink/drug offences in other branches of the sport. That would explain why the original jury at the GP only had limited jurisdiction.

A lot of scaremongering going on about legal procedures on this thread. No possibility of his British or Swedish clubs being able to claim damages . As for Darcy, any sportsperson in his position is likely to be able to be heard, or submissions made by lawyers on his behalf before the penalty is imposed. That will be the time to raise any questions about faulty equipment or incorrect procedures etc. Providing he has the opportunity to present his case before any penalty is imposed it is very unlikely that there would be further repercussions. Of course it could be that the delay in deciding the penalty is because someone is digging into the technicalities of the breath test so as to make representations on Darcy's behalf but my guess is that its far more likely that there is some political manoeuvring going on to keep him in the GP series. Bottom line is that Darcy, as a famous man once said is box office and the series will be more attractive with him than without him. The advertisers and sponsors who ultimately fund the GP series are only interested in getting the best riders in so as to reach the widest possible audience for their products otherwise they might as well spend their advertising budget elsewhere. Just my cynical opinion.

In one post you say the tariff depends on whether it is premeditated or not then when people point out how stupid that is you start saying it depends on how much you are over the limit and whether anyone is injured. The latter is partly correct but it has nothing to do with being premeditated, which is the point Bwitcher was answering before you changed your ground. As has been said the rules of sport do not necessarilyy reflect criminal law but taking your drink driving analogy the very least punishment is likely to be a fine and a 3 month ban so even on that basis Ward ought to be sat on the Naughty Seat for at least 3 months.

See the Poole 2014 thread in the EL section.

I am just wondering if he might escape a ban on the basis that he didn't actually race in that condition. I was thinking back a few years to when Leon Madsen ( Hmm another Poole rider, pattern emerging here) got caught with an illegal silencer but if I remember correctly he was given a fine but escaped a ban because he was caught when warming the bike up so he hadn't actually raced with it. Anyone remember all the details of Madsens punishment ?

In many parts of the world there is zero tolerance on drink-driving. The UK has one of the more lenient drink /driving laws probably because of the political strength strength of the brewing industry. .. As I said before there is probably not a branch of motor sport anywhere that has anything other than zero tolerance. For example , from the start of 2014 there are mandatory breath tests for all competitors in the British Touring Car Championship. This is a section of the website explaining why :- " As any amount of alcohol in the blood stream can affect a person’s ability to drive and make decisions, a strict ‘zero tolerance’ limit will now be imposed by organisers TOCA to ensure the maximum levels of safety are maintained at all times" One can only hope that speedway is not trailing behind the rest of the world on this Some people obviously take delight in the fact that its Darcy but the reality is there is a breach of the rules and if he gets lenient treatment why shouldn't the next one? Unfortunate for Darcy but the sport has to be seen to be bigger than any one rider.

What a bizarre line of reasoning. Its like saying a burglar didn't take much so he was unlucky to get caught on CCTV. The facts are that even a small amount of alcohol can affect the parts of the brain that control the sense of balance and the ability to process incoming information. These functions a pretty important to someone riding a motor bike without brakes at 80mph on a loose surface. I doubt that there is any form of motor sport in the world that has anything other than zero tolerance of alcohol in competition. This is not an attack on Darcy but ANY rider turning up for any meeting at any level is a danger when the brain functions controlling balance and information are impaired.

Ed Kennett got a six month worldwide ban and a £2500 fine for using an illegal silencer. Should a similar penalty be imposed on Darcy for being over the limit? Taking Kennett's ban as a yardstick should Darcy get more, less or the same ? What do people think ?

Devil Worship, child sacrifice, voodoo, witchcraft, sorcery, poisoning neighbourhood cats and stealing old ladies handbags according to what I have heard.. Oh , and cheating at speedway.

I see Bernie Eccleston has just paid £60,million to have bribery charges against him dropped . https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/formula-1-bernie-ecclestone-offers-80m-settle-bribery-074733152--f1.html SIXTY MILLION QUID ! ! ! That's probably far more than British Speedway has cost to run in the whole of this century. Although the bribery charges don't relate to the actual racing side of F1 , with all that money swilling around and dodgy deals going on one can only speculate on what other dodgy things go on away from the public gaze. Its only about 3 years or so since the Ferrarri F1 team were convicted of industrial espionage, Spying on a rival. The fact of the matter is that most professional sport is mainly about money and politics and speedway is no different. Most high level sports involve dodgy dealings, . I don't like it but it's the way of the world I am afraid. I remember Jason Crump's famous comments after Gollob had completely outpaced him in GP final . The interviewer said to Crumpie " Gollob was fast to-night" and Crump replied with a twinkle in his eye "Yeah, Polish fast ".

Of course stadium availability need to be looked at but unless and until it is and we know what availability there might be and at what cost, none of these other ideas get of the ground. What we do know is that most stadiums have other things going on which they may not be prepared to move. Tai's interview was a typical piece of slap-dash Speedway Star journalism, merely reporting someone's comment's to create potential controversy. It is a pity that SS couldn't be bothered to develop the them and investigate stadium availability and let us know why and how things are different in Sweden and Poland, such as whether speedway competes with other sports in the same stadiums and a whole range of things that would be informative to the readers but as always they just went for the easy headline at minimum effort. As for Tsunami asking how much it would cost, well cost is a pretty important factor, and orion's post quite surprised me actually because he normally is quite astute on the money side of things. Most of the posts on this thread are more of a wish list rather than a reasoned analysis of how it could be made to work..

Timbo was one of those who "liked " Frigbo's post which, if you bother to read post 4 on the thread stated that Woofy's comments were a typical riders selfish point of view and as most clubs don't own their own stadia its not up to them. Unless the question of stadium availability is addressed all these other ideas go out the window.

The quoted post was the third post on the thread. It had 14 "likes" . Post No 4 was an almost identical post by Frigbo and that had another 13 "likes", so a lot of people clearly thought they were sensible posts. 18 pages of pie-in-the sky ideas later and nobody has yet been able to deal with the fundamental point that stevehone makes. If stadium owners don't go along with the idea the whole thing falls flat. Plus the fact that fixed costs of running the stadium will be the same whether they run a speedway meeting or not so if there are then less meetings there will be less income from rent so unless the rent per meeting goes up speedway becomes an even less attractive source of income. Then there is the point that Mick the muppet mentioned that if it was all on the same night what happens if your number one is injured and you can't get a guest because everyone else is racing that night ? If people are going to say we need a squad system where is the money for that coming from ? Increased admission charges ? Or do we assume that a single race night will bring in such an increase in crowds that there will somehow be enough money to pay for a 10 man squad ? The idea of a single race night might be alright in theory but these fundamental things have to be addressed first. Go back to posts 3 and 4 from stevehone and Frogbo and tell me why they are wrong because at the moment I can't see it.

Fair comment but neither that nor any other plan will work unless there is serious programme for training youngsters and that in turn depends to some extent on the popularity of the sport. In the short term I don't see how we can manage without a reasonable number of foreign riders until we get a good supply of British youngsters coming through. As I understand the situation at the moment the problem is not lack of training facilities (although there are not many) it is the lack of young riders to fill them . Until we get sufficient numbers of good riders of our own coming through the system we will need foreign riders. But if we do get good riders of our own coming through they will want to earn a decent living or they will be off to pastures new so its very much a circular problem.

It costs £13 to get into a stock car meeting at Arena and with no prize money to payand nobody to fly in from abroad the meetings are infinitely cheaper to run than speedway meetings. They have no shortage of people forking out £13 to watch a load of old wrecks from the scrapyard chugging into each other, Plenty of people fork out £40 to watch a football (yawn ) match, so clearly people can afford the price. If the admission is £12 the promoter gets £10 after taking off the VAT. Do the sums. It costs around £20,000 to stage an EL meeting . Work out how many it needs through the gate to break even at whatever price you want to charge. The shortfall has to be made up by the sponsors and anything else comes out of the owners pocket. its all very well pontificating over admission costs when you are not the one whose pocket get hit if the books don't balance. 4.25 pm and I am just off the M25 a few miles North of the track and it is pouring down in torrents. No doubt the sun will be out at 8 o'clock but to be honest I would be surprised if the track could take much of this kind of rain. , especially after the heavy shower we had earlier. p.s. It's just starting to thunder as well now.