Chris116

I hate to say this but I have just got on the bus to Southfields station and half way to the station the rain has started! I do hope it does not follow me to Rye House and spoil the Speedway!

I agree that time was used up with the grading after heat four but I suspect that without it the track would have been more dangerous earlier. A case of whatever you do it is wrong sadly.

Conditions got a lot worse and if the referee had not stopped it when she did there could easily have been a very nasty crash. Full marks to the promotion for trying to get through the meeting, full marks to the riders for trying their hardest to race in bad conditions and full marks to the referee for stopping it before someone was hurt. I am now looking forward to the next meeting.

In my view, the simple answer to gardening is to revert to concrete starting areas. I know it is an old fashioned method but it worked. There was never any gardening with a concrete starting area.

I am so pleased that Rye House are happy about the change. A 3pm start time would have meant my wife would have joined me but a 12 noon start time will mean leaving home around 8.30am and she does not do early mornings! When the fixture list was published I put them all in my diary and intended to attend all the meetings. This problem should have been seen before the fixtures were published and if this is an indication of how things are going to go I may decide not to bother.

Soccer and Rugby sharing a stadium is like many Speedway tracks are also Greyhound and Stock Car tracks. Wimbledon was at its most successful when all three sports had good crowds. Removing any one of them means the overheads increase for those who are left. In this age you cannot run a stadium which is only used by one sport for maybe twenty events in a year. Which is why I worry about the future of Rye House. The costs of maintaining a track and stadium are not inconsiderable and although I enjoy the racing, there are too few who join me!

The admission was certainly reduced although I think it was more than £10. With the new fixed race nights for the two top leagues we should have far fewer guests except for injuries which cannot be avoided. Personally I go to watch close racing and enjoy the evening rather than to worry about a guest rider.

I attended most meetings at Rye House last season. Biggest crowd of the year was the TV meeting!

The BSPA really should take more care when putting items on there website. The latest "oops" is describing the video of Rye House v Swindon last season as being a Championship match. I realise that they must have confused themselves with the changes in league names but they should check things before publishing them.

I just have Freeview TV and go to watch sport live, if they all close due to lack of crowds there will be no Speedway to watch on TV. By going to the track I hope it helps keep the track open for me to watch the action in future years. In London I used to watch racing, bikes and cars, at Wimbledon, Hackney, Harringay, Crayford, Walthamstow, West Ham, Wembley and White City. Only one of those stadiums still exist and that is only for Scumball. We all need to support our nearest tracks, the two I went to last season are a 90 and 150+ minute train journey and they are the only two that I can now get to but if I want to see racing then there is no choice. EDIT:- I missed out New Cross from the tracks in London I had been to!

BSPA site has mention of the opening meeting being:- 24/03/18 1930 Eastbourne Forman IT Eagles v IT First Eagles (Ch) but nothing on the Eastbourne site to say what the match is when it is only 31 days away. Not very impressive.

With all the comments about riders possibly having incorrect averages, surely it is wrong that the BSPA do not confirm a riders average as soon as the rider is declared? With it being left until all the teams are declared if a team has got the wrong information they could be left with a very weak team due to no riders of the right quality being available. That situation could have an adverse effect on the whole league and therefore the sport in this country which is hardly good news for the BSPA!

So the seventh Rocket will announced Friday morning at 9am.

On the subject of food, I have found the sausages, burgers and chicken with chips all nice but not tried the fish as I am not keen on fish. One thing not to relie on is the pub outside which informed me one evening that they were not selling food until after the speedway started as the speedway fans cluttered the place up! That was the last time I went in there! Due to my own circumstances I am very pleased that racing will be midweek as I am busy on Saturdays and would not be able to see any speedway if they ran on Saturdays!

That computer generated image looks all to like an updated version of Crayford! I used to go to the old stadium for Speedway, Stock Car and Banger racing. The viewing was good from all around the stadium. Then they knocked the old stadium down and built the new Greyhound racing only stadium which only has viewing on the finishing straight. The stand at the new Crayford, like the one shown above, is flat fronted but does have viewing on two levels. Sadly on the lower level people can stand in front of you outside so you cannot see the racing and on the top level you have a reasonable view if you are on the front row but anywhere else you can only see the back straight as crowd in front block your view completely. Crayford and many other dog tracks has seating around tables for four which means the track is not in front of you but at your side! Much of Wimbledon and Walthamstow had the side on seating which means you have a job seeing one end of the track. From my memory (my last visit was in the mid 80s) the current Swindon stand allows you to see the track easily with seats that face the track rather than being a restaurant with a track on the side! I pity those who watch at any track that is built like that. The 700 people may well be able to be housed in the stand but I fear only about 100 of them will have anything like a good view of the track and while that may be acceptable at dog racing it certainly is not acceptable at speedway.

Having watched speedway all my life and over the past 20 years or so seen racing at all three levels that have run under different names to keep eveyone guessing what the names mean I have come to the conclusion that good speedway only needs teams that are matched evenly. Some of the worst racing I have seen has been in the top league (I have also seen some magic meetings in the top league) and some of the most exciting meetings have been in the third division. Yes, the riders in the top league are faster, more skillful and make fewer mistakes. Sometimes that makes for excellent racing but it can also make for matches where no one overtakes anyone after the first half lap of each race. In the third league the riders are slower and make mistakes which means that you can have overtaking on every lap or they can get strung out with the crowd yawning! Balanced teams where all the riders are able to beat all the others will give exciting racing. A team with two 8+ riders, three 5 to 7 point riders and two reserves of 4 and 3.5 would be inside the 42.5 but most races would end up being two match races. If the top riders have a lower average that leaves room for higher scoring reserves and so makes each race more likely to be close. The big problem with all of this is that at the end of the season some of the 6 and 7 point riders will have gone up to being 8.5 point riders and under current rules they could be lost to British racing which will then bring even more upset during the following winter. Do I have any answers? Probably not but I do have a few ideas which I think might help the sport in this country. 1) Premiership to allow two 8+ riders in a team. Championship to allow one 8+ rider in a team. This makes the two leagues different instead of the situation we have where the standard is nearly the same. 2) Riders who have not ridden in this country for the previous twelve months to have the averages of the countries where they have raced added up for the previous season that they raced in this country and for the last season compared. You then find the multiplier and use this on their last British average to find their new British average. For example a rider had a 6 point average in 2014 in British racing. In 2014 his Polish and Swedish averages added up and then divided by 2 comes to 5.8 and in 2017 his Polish, Swedish and Danish averages added up and then divided by 3 came to 6.5 which produces a multiplier of 1.12068966 and applying that to his old British average gives him a starting average of 6.72. 3) At all meetings the visiting team should be allowed a 15 minute practice session before the meeting. How often do you find that the away team only start to compete in the second half of the meeting. Allowing them to get their set up right will give closer racing from the start of the meeting. I realise that some home track only fans only want to see their team win all their home meetings but for me I want to see a close meeting with close racing. I enjoy being on the losing side of a 44-46 meeting than on the winning side of a 60-30 meeting. Let's hope we have lots of close racing and close scores, enjoy your racing. Chris

On 26th November the official website apologised for the delay in commenting on the AGM. It is now 25th January and we are still waiting! The fixtures have been announced but we still don't have a seventh rider. Towards the end of last season the promotion said they had a final meeting planned after the league matches were complete but then just never ran the meeting. Am I alone in starting to lose faith in the promotion?

Yes, you are right and I seem to have forgotten how to count! But both Harris and Nicholls have higher averages than 7.28.

Rye House only have 6.78 to play with which means Chris Harris is number 1 and not 5.

Fixtures are up on the BSPA and Rye House web sites. Interesting that the Rye House site says that fixtures will take place on Saturday evenings at 7pm and some Monday and Wednesday evenings at 7.30pm! I think someone needs to stop cutting and pasting from last year and actually read what they are publishing!

I would like to see the National Trophy run at the end of the season. Once all the league matches have finished the top four go into the play offs and the other teams contest the National Trophy. It would mean that tracks would not close early due to lack of success and teams could go for a trophy even though the main part of the season had not gone well. ALL League matches to be raced by an agreed date which would mean that no league matches would be held after the cut off for the play offs.

I think Rye ended having more meetings mid week than on Saturdays last season which suits me fine as I am busy most Saturday evenings. When I was young I was taken to Wimbledon who at that time raced on a Monday and it was never a problem. The junior riders raced at all the meetings so mid week will not stop them. My only concern is that if the start was put back to 7.45 it would mean I would arrive home later and living near Wimbledon the train journey takes nearly two hours so my vote would be for sticking to a 7.30 start but maybe advertise the parade at 7.30 and tapes up for heat one at 7.45 which is what really happened last year but would mean those who had to work and then get to the racing would know they had an extra 15 minutes to do so without missing any racing.

I agree they may change their minds but at the end of the day only the referees opinion counts even if everyone else in the stadium disagrees!

It has never mattered what anyone sees. The only opinion that counts is the referees and if they get it wrong that is just tough luck! Same in football, rugby cricket and most other sports.

I was brought up as a child going to Wimbledon on a Monday night. When I was working in the City of London I used to go to midweek meetings regularly. Now as a pensioner I am busy nearly every Saturday evening so if the racing is mid week then it suits me fine but I understand others may disagree but personally I am praying they don't race on a Saturday.