sparkafag

Quite the mental gymnastics there.

A lot? There is only 5 or 6 at best who go to the effort and put that xenophobic trash down on a forum most have moved on from the 1800s ….if you are looking for a lot of fans look at Cardiff where 25,000 + will be there supporting Woffiden and wanting him to win or 4,000 + at Belle Vue supporting him for Team GB, that’s A LOT. You’re in a minority, don’t let the odd like make you think otherwise…..shame they don’t have a dislike button on here to squash that delirium and hysteria some take from getting the odd like to their post.

That’s an entirely subjective standpoint, that’s your opinion and in the grand scheme of things it is utterly irrelevant. Irrespective of this thread Woffinden WILL ride for Team GB…..and all the seethe you spew over this forum isn’t going to change that..... which ,by the way, is.....

Should a British rider race for Team GB….emm......yes.

It doesn’t seem that farcical that a British rider signed on a 3.00 average in accordance with regulations to promote junior riders can only be replaced by a British rider signed on a 3.00 average in accordance with regulations to promote junior riders, it just seems pretty logical to be honest.

The use of the word “beauty” is questionable, while advocating what you see as value for money you are saying the “beauty” of the sport was fans being short changed watching meetings in substandard conditions. For all the meetings ran in rain where riders adapt there are as many (probably more) that were turgid with guys struggling to get the bikes around the track, if there has been a stance to put a stop to that this season, that’s good (although I doubt there has been a massive chance of thought re running meetings in rain), some meetings run on Sky in particular sold the sport short rather than showcasing the actual beauty of it. It should always be about putting on the best show though rather than just putting on a meeting. I would also say that rider safety is paramount and that as a stance has probably changed massively over the years, you could send them out on slower bikes etc now but if the track isn't seen as safe I doubt riders will want to race, more power to them. It also tends to be ignored/forgotten that often it doesn't matter re rocket ships or not it is visibility that causes the bigger problem than shale, dirt on tracks. All that being said though this thread appears to have been an attempt to write a narrative when really there is a pretty simple two word answer which Gemini has said, the weather.

Wow

So about that tantrum...

Your exact words. Given how utterly precious this is to you, as you have stressed several times, I feel it is massively important to you that your own exact words are taken into account. The post which you were supposedly alluding to (which by the way hadn’t even been posted at the time you alluded to it)…... was made by a poster who has made reference to several other reasons the sport isn’t what it was such as media coverage, the way it is priced and promoted, rather than, and these are your exact words, the exact things you typed “only concentrate on the fact riders were strung out as much as they are today” there is no such person.

Nah, I know so don't.... And here comes another tantrum, rant, profanity etc and so on....

That’s pretty much what this thread was pointed at. I take the point that it is opinions and entirely subjective but thus far there has been the suggestion put forward that the removal of tracks in London, the birth of the Grand Prix and the day guys started going backwards in the 80s is when speedway stopped being as good as it used to. If that were true that would mean Speedway wasn’t good during the era of guys like Gollob, Loram, Rickardson etc, riders who produced a level of entertainment and racing that would stand up to just about anything any one has produced , ever, and to top it all it was even aesthetically pleasing. The PL as a league in this country was still strong and great when it had riders like Stonehewar, Wilson and Collins racing in it, so it was still good 10 or so years ago and hasn’t deteriorated that much since then, if indeed it has at all The EL as a product has been watered down slightly over the last few years I admit, but to counter that this country has had a problem attracting the world’s best for absolutely years now starting with Rickardson picking and choosing and Gollob dropping out about 16 years ago, Penhall the best part of 40 years ago who decided Speedway wasn’t for him and you could even go as far back as the 70s when Britain went without the World Champion, varying reasons for riders missing out here I take that point, but exclusions from this country’s racing calendar none the less. I don’t doubt that during any of those eras you could have found grumbles and gripes re rule and reg 17.2.3 but when you elevate above those rules with time, for example now, looking back, you don’t think of them and thus only see it for what it should always be seen, a pretty good sport, you remember races more fondly not rule books. I would even go as far as to say that if a rider was guesting in a great meeting you don’t tend to think “pfft yuck crap meeting rider x was guesting and we had rider replacement” As a fan base speedway has spent that long moaning about how it isn’t as good as it used to be, that it has moaned its way through the days when it is good.

You wouldn’t mark your neck with a blow torch…you chuck a tantrum every time you are supposedly misquoted or misinterpreted and then proceed to post about people who only concentrate on strung out races…. A person who doesn’t even exist and a comment no one has even made.

Holder has pretty good race pace, more than he has had the last season or so. He also strikes me as a rider who, despite having previously won a World Title, has a better understanding of the Grand Prix now. He is racing like a guy who knows he won’t win the entire thing this early in the season but could seriously dent his chances by collecting mistakes. I think the idea of burnout is slightly over played by some, I think it could easily vary rider by rider how much “burn out” they actually suffer. It can massively depend on life style, home life, fitness programmes, travel schedule and racing style – Holder seems a lot more conservative on the bike now than he has been previously.

What an idiotic post….. My reference to this thread being mental was that it asks why there isn’t concrete starts, it is referenced one rider died and another broke his back as a result of concrete starts, but apparently that’s just people dismissing suggestions, I mean it isn’t like a guy dying and another breaking his back is just common fn sense to remove something from a sport that is already dangerous. While some things were great in the good old days, other things were not and were removed for a decent reasons, what next? More wire fences and ow sod an air fence get back that steal fence they had at Exeter, things were great then.

This thread is mental.

I agree, the GP should be an enhancement to the product rather than the hindrance it is often referenced as. It affords the sport and many performers in the EL peak sports coverage on a Saturday night. It i’s the kind of thing speedway in this country should have learned to work around by now, more so given how early the GP calendar is published.

If Speedway is assessed in blocks could you argue the Rickardson generation produced a standard of speedway/entertainment that would stand up to anything that has ever been produced? I would say that generation spans from late 90s through to Crumps retirement. During that time the standard of racing stands up to anything IMO, iconic GP’s at Bydgosz, Gollob and Nilsen, Loram in Sweeden, the introduction of the World Cup, you even had grudges and fights or is time just kind, are they considered part of when speedway was great, or do they fall into the part where it stopped being good?

It is something I often read on here, that the sport isn’t what it used to be, bikes are too fast now and tracks are poorly prepared. If that is the case when did that trend begin? When did this era of the sport with poor crowds, poor tracks etc start and the last era end, who was part of the last era of the sport when it was entertaining and how well attended was the sport during that era? I am curios to differentiate between what the sport was and where it is now, and what it is that has changed so much and how attendances have changed, how long the "rot" has been set in.

Berwick v Workington is the kind of meeting that should be on Sky….ow wait, it is. Source: Newsletter.

While a bit of a farce I am finding the team changes and racing orders slightly fascinating, it is producing some pretty interesting meetings.

This topic is about Belle Vue stadium it is yourself who has misunderstood that by referencing the impending Armagedon, yet again, for about the 1,000th time, I think people get it by now..

So why waste so much time and energy talking about it or even wishing for people to listen to your warnings about something that isn't even that important to you anyway.

An excellent meeting. A fast, aggressive Lindgren is brilliant to watch. He looks like he could be in line for a comparable revival season to that which both Loram and Andersen went through when they missed out on the GP. At the age of 30 he also has plenty of time on his side to work his way back to being a contender at GP level.

Wow incredible, a speedway inside with 60 years of knowledge, you absolutely are worth listening to and I mean the input to this thread in particular could define the very existence of the sport, please tell, how does one go about putting your plan into place, what is the first step of the “Indeed - it will do just that for as long as speedway survives” action plan you have constructed?

"Constructive and positive ways of improving the sport" is what the majority of people want and mostly engage in, which is why it irks them when a certain poster “likes” posts about the sports possible demise and pollutes threads prediciting armagedon at every opportunity as that’s not constructive or improving the sport, its being a troll. The Belle Vue track looks stunning, genuinely excellent, they will recover from the initial glitch quite easily if NL meetings (no disrespect intended) can produce the standard of racing on show so far, let alone EL meetings.