Little Thumper

Incredible!

So, tomorrow is the big day - the National Leaguership Promoters' Conflab. Even as we speak, the supremos from the various promotions will be revving up their satnavs and doing their butties ready for the big journey to wherever it is that the Conflab is being held. Just wondering how many chairs will be round the table?

Mike.Butler, I know you to be a person of impeccable character, so if you tell me that uk martin has loads of friends then I shall have to believe you, however difficult though that is.

Perhaps you could set off the day before? I'm sure AntiqueSteve could find you a bed for the night as he seems a very nice chap.

Could you not call on some friends along the way?

I think SCB might regret starting this topic.

gustix has special powers - he is a Global Moderator.

AntiqueSteve, I have no intention of winding you up. If you follow, the link that I have provided, then you could purchase a season ticket for Snetterton and it would cost you £99. https://connect.msv.com/Product?PublicID=d8ab6a59-7e13-4859-abe2-16ab24dad481 For your £99, you will get entry to every meeting at Snetterton including BTCC and BSB. Your pass gives you access to all the practice days as well. Your £99 will get you into around 20 days of action, including some of the best racing in the country and it will cost you approximately £5 per visit. With reference to your, "maybe speedway is not for you" comment, I have followed speedway since 1966 both in this country and abroad, so I think perhaps speedway is for me but I want speedway to deal with the realities of the situation and take whatever steps it can to survive and prosper.

All I will say to you at this stage is BOGOF. Yes, supermarkets run Buy One Get One Free offers because they have a far greater understanding of customers' habits than I do and firmly believe that they will spend more if they think they are getting better value for money. Sadly, speedway is not a niche product such as a Burberry handbag and therefore will not sustain an unrealistic price model.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

uk martin, you are quite right in what you are saying I believe. Let me just come back on a couple of your points -"The value is what people are prepared to pay". As the number of people attending speedway meetings has been declining for many years, then people have surely decided that the price being asked is too much for the product that is being offered. With regard to your statement that 50,000 people paid between £30 and £50 to watch some bloke run down a bit of a track, then that would be 30 - 50 pounds more than I would be prepared to pay! So perhaps, we all value things differently and spend our pennies accordingly. But at the end of the day, speedway has to get more people coming through the gate and they are more likely to do that by reducing the price rather than increasing it. Not comparable? Have you been to a hill climb recently? Cosworth powered state of the art single seaters, sports cars, bikes. all racing up a thin ribbon of tarmac and the winner decided by hundredths of a second. If that's not exciting, the I don't know what is! Karting not exciting? Now I know you are trying to wind me up. So, we all decide what something is worth and act accordingly. Thanks

These two links do not bring up the documents to which you referred. So are you saying that the documents to which you previously referred don't exist or that you have misplaced the location? I would be very interested to see the updated strategy document, so if you could spare a few minutes to locate them, I would be grateful.

Well, that is all very interesting. Might you, therefore, be kind enough to put up a link to the later documents to which you refer. Thank you.

Exactly so, Jayne! And that is part of the problem for speedway promoters such as yourself. Competitors at a Clubmans' car meeting at a circuit like Oulton Park will pay in excess of £100 in entry fees. And many of the drivers will also pay the circuit another £100 to do the test day which is usually on the day before the meeting. So if you work on the basis that you will have 100 competitors at your meeting, you have got between £10,000 and £20,000 in the bank before you even open the gates! Get a good number of customers coming in, sell them a nice dollop of food and drink and you are laughing. The majority of your race day staff (marshals) are volunteers, so virtually no cost there. You do have to pay for doctors, timekeepers and commentators and of course, there are all your fixed costs, such as maintenance, insurance, staff salaries etc. And on the days, you haven't got race days, you run car and bike track days, corporate days and experience days. There is very little cost in putting these kinds of activities on and they generate substantial profits for the circuit owner and keep a heallthy cash flow. So, speedway has little chance of competing with the economic model employed by other motor sport offerings, so it's only option is to either cut costs or enhance the product that is being offered. I do not envy the job of the speedway promoter and I sincerely hope that the sport at National League level can survive and prosper.

Thank you, Aces51

You will find reference to the Speedway Academy on page 17 of the Eastlands Community Plan document:- http://www.manchester.gov.uk/egov_downloads/7._Eastlands_Community_Plan.pdf Sadly, I am not aware why the Academy has not been opened. Perhaps, you might be kind enough to tell me? I have no axe to grind and have supported Belle Vue Aces since 1966 and hope to do so again in the not too distant future.

I can go to 3 Sisters near Wigan and watch a full day's car, kart or bike racing for £5 (children under 16 FOC). I can go to Oulton Park and watch a pretty decent day's sport for £13 and that includes free parking, spotless toilets and a free grandstand seat. I can go to Curborough, Loton Park or Barbon Manor and watch some excellent sprinting or hill climbing for around £10. All these venues seem to be able to pay their insurance, staff, advertising etc etc and still charge a reasonable admission charge. So AntiqueSteve, I do understand what you are saying but the speedway product must compete in a lively market. And to answer your question about whether I understand what it costs to keep venues open, I can reassure you that I am aware of this challenge as I was involved with the promotion and organization of motor sport for over 20 years.

I am sorry that I have not made my point with sufficient clarity. In simple terms, I believe that National League speedway is a £10 event. It is perhaps unlikely that this competitive price point targeting will be a strategy that emerges from the NL conflab. On this basis, it is surely reasonable to expect any admission price rises to be no greater than the current rate of inflation. I am not aware of any justification for suggesting that the inflation rate in the world of speedway is different to the rate in the real world.

Well, obviously Fred Flange is making some very interesting points and believes that the worthy councillors would be happy with the progress of the Regeneration Framework, particularly with regard to the speedway stadium and academy. I am not sure that I spotted the bit where he illustrated that the core objective of the strategy had been achieved i.e. improving the economic and physical health of the inhabitants of the Eastlands area but perhaps I missed it. And as to the suggestion that the City of Manchester would be keen to spend several more thousands of pounds of taxpayers money on the venture, then I sincerely hope that he is right. Clearly, Fred Flange is hearing things from the horses mouth and is therefore better placed to explain the on-going developments. I am sure that we wait expectantly to hear the positive news that had been suggested.

So, uk martin, we shall have to agree to differ on this one. You are inclined to consider that speedway represents fair value at £1 per minute. I am looking for slightly better value for money and would certainly avoid any venue that seeks to increase it's prices by more than the rate of inflation. We shall see what emerges from the forthcoming conflab.

How do you know that Lee Geary won't be coming back? I think that Lee did pretty well last year and could develop nicely in 2017.

The current phase of the Eastlands Regeneration Framework was drawn up in 2010, long after the building of the football stadium and the velodrome. This latest phase is centred on the Belle Vue Sports Village which comprises of the National Basketball Centre, the National Taekwondo Centre and the National Speedway Stadium and Academy. Manchester City Council are very fond of including the word National in any of their venues as it is their stated ambition to be the UK Capital of Sport. The aim of this Framework is to improve the economic and physical health of the inhabitants of the area. The Basketball and Taekwondo Centres are up and running and are the base for the National teams as well as providing facilities and opportunities for local residents. The National Speedway Stadium is possibly a white elephant and it's future at this stage is unknown. It's contribution to the regeneration of the area may be difficult to discern. The National Speedway Academy has so far shown little sign of materializing and I see no mention of it anywhere. So the councillors of Manchester may be able to justify to the ratepayers having spent a big chunk of their money on the Basketball and Taekwondo Centres as they are up and running, developing young talent, adding to Manchester's sporting status and making facilities available to Mr and Mrs Public. Justifying the expenditure on the speedway component of this Regeneration Plan might prove slightly more challenging. We can but hope that somebody is devising a very cunning plan indeed to extricate the sport of speedway and the various parties involved from this unfortunate position. Fingers crossed that the encouraging noises that have been reported turn into encouraging actions.

Gustix, in reality you are obviously correct. But the thrust of Mike,Butler's argument I believe, is that clubs shouldn't be allowed to opt out of meetings they don't fancy and put on pretty pointless meetings which are a handy little money spinner. Sadly, there doesn't be much attempt by the governing body to send offenders to the Naughty Step, To be honest, I really cannot get excited at the thought of a meaningless Air Fence Challenge between Stoke and Buxton. You see Stoke compete against Buxton in the various competitions without dreaming up more opportunities for the same old same old.

It may well have been classified as a regeneration project but after 12 months, you would struggle to find any re-generation that has occurred as a result of having built a speedway stadium. If cost/benefit analysis was to be undertaken at this point in time, considerable cost could be seen but very little benefit. Too often fancy terminology is used to make things appear more attractive than may actually be. Calling a facility National or alluding to some kind of re-generative effects is often just flimflam which is meant to impress people into parting with funds. Manchester City Council needs to be very careful here, as nobody needs this affair to sink to even lower levels than it already has done. Hoping for the best.

At the end of the day, the National Speedway Stadium was built with money that belongs to Manchester City Council (or their lender) and therefore with money that belongs to the council tax payers in the City of Manchester. The councillors involved with this matter have an over-riding, legal responsibility to safeguard the money that they have invested in this venture and that responsibility must guide their actions going forward. If I was a resident of the Gorton area of Manchester, I would have written to my elected councillors to ask them why they were squandering money on something that might be regarded as a vanity project, whilst at the same time advising me that local services were being withdrawn. If this venture was to go pear-shaped for a second time, it is highly likely litigation would follow and the councillors should be very wary indeed.