Harley Keith

This is a familiar story of a once avid Speedway supporter the era of Barry Briggs, Ivan Mauger, and then many top British riders of the time. Since this time, as a spectator I have had sporadic returns to the sport, the last time being two years ago at Swindon. I came away rather despondent through lack of entertainment, and not value for money, what I had witnessed was each race identical. This brings me to a recent televised event, a European Championship I began watching the meeting and soon realised this is exactly the same as I was watching two years previous at Swindon...…I only watched part of the meeting. And before anyone says, "You have lost interest", all my life motorcycles have been a passion either racing or riding on the road, which I still do. I will explain, we know the format four riders appear from the pits and progress to do practice starts, they return to the pit gate were upon clutch adjustment is carried out and rear chain tensioned, why??? There is no such thing as chain stretch, being a retired Mechanical and Electronics Development Engineer I can say the only reason drive chain require further adjustment is due to other inerrant engineering faults. Eventually one at a time they gather at the start where upon they all have a go at digging the starting gate up with their boots, if I wanted to watch gardening I would watch Monty Don. The race is ready to go, oh, we may have a tape breakage, the above events are then repeated all over again, but this time with three riders. Hold on, I'm a paying spectator I come to see four rider in a race...…….and so it goes on. When a race does get under way it will be more times than not a drag race for four laps and no overtaking. I would suggest Santa Pod for that. When watching the recent televised event, one of the heats was re-started due to a rider getting an allegedly unfair start. The rider in question did not roll, did not touch the tapes, he got a blinder of a start. What other sport penalizes a sportsman for being to good, which brings me to team averages. The team manager puts a lot of effort hopefully building a winning team only prior to the next season to change the team again to comply with academic averages. Now ask a question, "If you did not know about speedway and went on the description above, Would you pay money to watch this ??" Again what other sport penalizes success. Being a supporter and hold a technical position of professional British Superbike, and supporter of World Superbike, and Moto GP I cannot for one minute imagine these shenanigans going on in those sports.

The title of this post has been discussed in various forms all the forty plus years I have had an interest in the sport, this is my profound view.........Typically from everything the sport is, blame the cost of the laydown motor - did'ent Douglas produce one of these in the early days??? I remember riding a JAP, the two valve JAWA emerged and cost was a concern then. In fact it turned out the JAWA was a lot more reliable than the JAP, which I still have and runs well to this day. Slick tracks, at least the majority are slick, same for everyone. I remember riding on tracks which would change every week, you did'ent now what to expect. Maybe that's what produced the interest !!!! The old argument of cost, if you enter any motor sport it's a bottomless pit were finance is concerned, I now I have been there and it escalates out of all proportion. And of course you can go on and on with different arguments. Another point is the seemingly the lack of British riders, again many points of view on this one........I can only say, back in the nineties I was involved in the Youth Grass Track scene. That produced a number of good riders that went on to be good Speedway and Grass Track riders, with a few reaching GP standard. At the time you always had people pass comments they could do better, we were doing this wrong and that wrong......... we stopped being envolved for various reasons, and where were these people that could do better, they did'ent come along and carry on were we left off did they..............so there you have it another avenue for youngsters to come through reduced. I rest my case on that one. However, I did attend Bob Kilby's Memorial meeting at Swindon. Excellent rider line up and meeting presentation was really good. However, I can't help feeling that it played into the hands of first one out the gate won point of view........apart from two races which produced a good Speedway race. I payed £20 to see two actual races !!!!!!! In the meeting one race was stopped through unsatisfactory start, the rider concerned did'ent touch the tapes just got a flier of a start, now he has beat the referee, fair game as far as I'm concerned, what other sport penalises a competitor for being to good ?? Another race a rider excluded for falling and the race being stopped, the rider caused no infringement to other riders and was unhurt. Why penalise the rider for making an error of judgement, is'ent that what makes Speedway interesting ? And more importantly me and many others have payed to be entertained with four riders in a race. Would I go again after watching that meeting ? Probrably not. Can anything be done? In any motor sport technology progress will always be the for-front, in BSB this is controlled by various means to increase the entertainment value, may be there's an idea.