Chris116

Closed 19th January 2025. The stadium was rubbish as from the expensive seats you could not see the home straight! The old stadium may have been a bit of a dump but viewing for speedway and stock cars was much better.

That would be in line with the problems Skegness had.

The Spedeworth fixture list has been issued for the first half of the 2025 season with the first car meeting bing on 22nd March which means a full season of speedway should be possible if they can be fitted in between the car racing and if the BSPL will agree. Here's hoping things work out successfully.

I only went to Crewe twice. One was an afternoon meeting featuring a National Hot Rods NHRPA Championship round which saw some fairly expensive Hot Rods shaken to pieces on the rough track. The drivers were very unimpressed! The second time was for an evening meeting featuring F1 Stock Cars and I commentated on the consolation. I totally agree about the dark patches around the track. Even the best light places appeared to only have a 60 watt bulb. It was impossible to read the numbers on the cars on the back straight or bends but fortunately in those days I knew the shape of most of the cars. About 30 years ago the track lighting at Skegness had to be changed due to the local council suddenly saying they were too bright in the surrounding area. A firm who did lighting for motorways and major outdoor events put up the new lighting system and they were nearly as bad as the lights at Crewe and they had to double the number of lights before the next meeting which even then were no where near as good as the old lights had been but at least the local council were satisfied.

There, that's corrected it! 😇

I could use some very rude words to describe my feelings but they would serve no purpose. I saw two, three and four wheel racing and my parents must be turning in their graves at what happened to the stadium. They would be equally unhappy at the fate of all the London stadiums, Crawley Heath, Peterborough and so many others we enjoyed visiting for racing.

In the last five years of stock cars at Wimbledon they checked bags for food and drink but it never stopped my father and I getting a thermos of coffee plus sandwiches in. Great having deep inside pockets and a bag with my programme board and extra warm clothing which they checked carefully and there was never anything of interest to them. The bag did a great job hiding the bulge in my coat caused by the thermos!

Sören Sjösten. Rode in the same style as Peter Craven. I loved watching both of them.

That will all depend on who is asking and what effect it will have on the rule makers. I bet it won't be covered in an undisputable way in the rules.

Isn't that the way speedway rules have always been written?

No real news yet on the state of play at Mildenhall following the fire but the one piece of news is that a championship qualifying round is being advertised for 24th May 2025 so Spedeworth must be fairly certain things will be back to normal by then.

When we had tracks in London, I regularly attended Wimbledon, Hackney and Crayford. You knew which night of the week they ran and didn't need to check the fixture list as they ran every week. Len Silver made a point of 'Make it a date, Friday at eight' and that is exactly what the fans did. The same weekly format was the norm throughout the country so it meant riders were on average racing one home and one away meeting every week during the season. How the promotions get things back to that is a major problem to which I don't have any real answers. Back in the 60s and 70s supporters would arrive in equal numbers for league, KO Cup, local derby challenges and individual meetings. These days many are only interested in league matches and don't even support a second team in a lower league (Oxford being a notable exception).

Sadly, it is the fans who have caused the loss of international matches by us not turning up in sufficient numbers to make them profitable. We have also lost most of the big individual meetings due to lack of support caused in some cases by promotions reducing their costs with cheaper riders or running with only 12 riders instead of running a full 16 rider 20 heat meeting. Costs being reduced by those methods give the promotion a higher profit the first year but further reduce the attendance in following years which leads to more economies, further loss of attendance and then the loss of what used to be a well attended meeting. I can understand why the promotions did what they did as I suspect that the rise of Polish speedway meant some riders started asking for more money. At the other end of the sport, we often read how much we need a thriving Development league but such comments are often followed by the same correspondents saying that they don't want to watch Development league standard racing as they only follow professional team racing. I used to enjoy the international matches, both top level and junior level. Equally I can enjoy meetings in all three leagues run in this country. I have seen good and bad meetings in all three leagues. How the promotions get the sport back to what it was I don't know and I fear none of them have the cash backing to be able to run big meetings in half empty stadiums.

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