The Dog

Jack Thomas on the injury list too and misses tonight, Joe Thompson standing in for Jack and RR for Shanesie

Brilliant post!!

I'm sure your clubs promotor has better things to do on race day than count the clouds in the sky, but put your idea to them, they might put a weather update on the website leading up to the start of the meeting. Let's hope there's no downpour at 7.25pm tho....

You can find out a weather forecast by the time you've typed your question out...

Difficult to pinpoint why fans are leaving, it's just a collaboration of lots of things and probably just personal opinion for most. My beef is the amount of messing about that goes on at each and every meeting, whether it be riders at the tapes, adjustments at the Pit gate or tractor racing. That all combines to me eventually walking away. As we're using Harris as an example, it doesn't bother me that he rides for Peterborough in a different league because I'm only interested in what he does for Birmingham as well as the other Birmingham riders. Your affiliation is with whoever rides for your team. We'll always agree to disagree on why speedway is failing and all the issues are valid points, how we combine to make it all viable is the tricky part...

If riders didn't double up tho, it wouldn't be worth their while anymore because that's what makes it pay nowadays unfortunately. Seems to be a necessary evil...

We will. Enjoy your hollow victory, well earned.

No Birmingham rider has ever been threatened with the sack under any circumstances. MPT only moaned about the track after the manager decided he was going to complain because things wasn't going his way.

Lost all respect for the Redcar management last night after they threw their toys out of the pram basically because they were getting outgated and beat early on. They appeared to have an agenda which goes back to the first meeting between the teams. Nothing to report on the track walk, didn't hear anything about the track from the first few heats and then the manager decided he wanted to speak to the referee. Even his own riders looked miffed. By this point, no rider had struggled with the track, nobody had fell off and Kerr had posted one of the fastest times of the year. So the referee had to come down because the team manager said his riders wouldn't ride. The manager insisted on the grading taking place. A stronger referee would have told them to crack on but once she agreed to walk the track they were always going to get what they wanted. It's these sort of childish shenanigans that's killing speedway and it was sad to see. The way Birmingham started, it was set up to be a really good meeting, Kerr was superb and showed everyone how to ride a track. The delay did enhance the crowd participation and produced a great atmosphere, something that a lot of meetings sadly lack. If the meeting had just carried on, it had the potential to be a classic but Redcars management had other ideas. Can only think it's a bit of payback from previously. I'm not bothered about the result too much but the way we got there, I do have an issue with. Yes Birmingham have had problems with the track this year but last night wasn't really one of them but Redcar made it a problem. Redcar are a good side with some excellent fans but the management side are quite frankly pathetic.

Didn't Robert Lambert try one a few years ago and quite enjoyed it. He said that the power was the same but strange being quiet because you couldn't tell what the bike doing regarding spinning, bogging down, wrong sprockets etc because a lot of that is figured out through noise as well as feel...

And the chance to earn money, something that very few do in moto x

Thanks mate, did wonder

Whatever happened to the long list of moto crosers and grasstrackers that the BSPA gathered to try out speedway? Didn't they get names and emails from a bike show giving them free try outs? A few years ago now so I'm a bit sketchy on the facts...

Yes but I only heard 1 Poole rider saying that he wasn't going to ride. The rest were unhappy but suggested that after a bit of grading it would be alright. Harris and Thomas were 2 that were happy to just crack on at the time

Grobauer had a huge crash last night and was carried off the track by his team-mates with a heavily strapped ankle. Was brave to carry on but is suffering today hence the reason he's out of this fixture

This is correct. Only heard one Poole rider saying he didn't want to ride and was moaning before the track walk... All the others were happy with regular grading which would have happened if it wasn't for the delay early on. The track needed to be attacked and the likes of King, Riss, Harris and others did this and had some good close racing. The track was well watered to combat the dust problem but with lots of cloud cover it never really dried to produce the excellent surface of recent weeks. Poole are safely in the play offs and were never going to put their necks on the line with bigger meetings coming up. I thought some races were good, some not so good, a typical speedway meeting that you find at every track up and down the country, not just Birmingham!

The problem is now is that some of the stronger, well ran clubs are only a few poorly supported meetings away from going under. If we had less clubs, do you think supporters would travel long distances to see speedway? Maybe a start would be to tackle riders wages tho I know they will hate the idea. Would it work if riders were paid a standard rate across the board? ie: your highest averaged rider gets £60 per point (just for example before people shoot me down!), your number 2 gets £50 per point and so on down to the reserves. It might make riders think that every point really does count towards income and create competitiveness within a team. It might encourage riders to go out and get sponsors and look after them too for any extra income. The BSPL could offer bonuses to league winners and prize money for being the British Final winner. Try and create incentives rather than guarantees. Let's help track curators a little bit by having wet weather tyres instead of calling off a meeting because it looks like rain and go back to making bikes more user friendly so we can race in most weathers. Their must be a few things that can be tried to make it sustainable for clubs as a starting point.

A lot of clubs don't give the chance for riders to develop like they did years ago in the search for instant success but is that because promoters know that fans walk away from an unsuccessful team rather than just enjoying their speedway? I don't know. I'm in the minority in the respect that doubling up/down doesn't really bother me, I support the 7 riders who ride for my team irrespective of where else they might rider. We don't moan if they ride for another team abroad do we? It's a necessary evil that I accepted years ago, riders need as many meetings as possible to make it worthwhile or they quit, if they quit then you run out of riders anyway because youngsters don't aspire to being a speedway rider anymore. I also think that there's worse things about speedway than doubling up that tend to make the sport taken less seriously too...

Yes you can Diamond

Given the amount of peace and quiet the residents of the houses behind have had over the last 18 months I can't see them welcoming speedway back with open arms any time soon...

If you feel that strongly about it, pop along to the pits tomorrow night and have a word with Shanesie about his scoring then. Then go and see the promotion and get their thoughts about calling it a day because we lost away from home after all their hard work in trying to put things right and make things better. What harm can it do?

Absolutely, they've done well under difficult circumstances and apart from Scunthorpe at home, have either won or lost on a last heat decider if I remember right. Home entertainment has been good and this is important for any club and the fans have been brilliant too. We might not make the play offs but it's been nice to have racing back at Perry Barr and hopefully next season will be even better!

A few tracks seem to be suffering from a track that seems to have turned to dust /powder and doesn't react well to watering. I know Birmingham and Eastbourne had the same problem and shale does seem to be hard to find. I'm surprised that the shale at Somerset, Swindon or even Cardiff hasn't been investigated as a short term solution tbh

Best place for race times might be on speedway updates tho there was one heat with no time because it was awarded.

I have to say that from Gary May through to every rider last night they were all very polite, well mannered and a credit to their club. They had all the time in the world for autographs and photos and were very happy and approachable. Crumpy was very busy with fans and never turned anyone away and chatted to everyone. I could think of a few that could learn a lot from his professionalism and down to earth approach. Obviously enjoyed his night too and his battle with Riss, laughing and joking at the end. For all the negativity in speedway, Plymouth are a massive breath of fresh air.