ouch

When your clientele is old farts, of course you’re going to attempt to bring in a younger crowd. What you don’t do is implement a system (or systems) that helps drive these old farts away whilst simultaneously failing to attract newbies.

With regards to the play offs you cannot compare speedway to any other team sport. Common practise now is for teams to (purposely?) start slow, thus reducing their team average which then offers them the opportunity to build back up. In other sports this wouldn’t happen as they aren’t ruled by points and anyway if say Stockport County signed Ronaldo then they wouldn’t suddenly become favourites as in that sport it’s very much a collective effort - simultaneously. In speedway you can replace a low scorer with a high scorer and the difference is instant with a massive impact. Speedway is a different beast and this is unfortunately lost on those who wield the power who come up with ideas without fully investigating there impact.

Neil at Belle Vue is excellent with his pre race tunes and depending on what happened in the heat he often picks a tune to reflect it.

Yes, it’s been particularly poor this year. I’ve emailed them about averages but had no response.

Correct.

It would have been 7.26 if he had signed at the start of the year for a PL club. He signed part way through the season so he then used his converted CL average.

Comments about the Poole track were that is was better. It’s essentially like putting more glitter on a plop.

It would be a surprise if all clubs in a tiny 7 team league were not in with a chance of finishing fouth from bottom around the half way stage.

Very concerning. This is one thing I actually hope does get brushed under the carpet. A heavy fine would, I fear, be the final nail in the coffin for the Pirates.

Can you let us know the facts behind this post. It doesn’t tally with the figures I’m looking at?

Jye is only the fourth biggest improver in our team, never mind the league.

You can get one for a Zinger meal from the Dolphin Centre KFC.

Don’t take it to heart, he’s just trolling AGAIN. You’re basically replacing a rider that scored 7 last time with a rider that scored 17. As clueless as Walter Mitty is nobody is that dense so they cannot to see the true impact to the team.

Two of them, as close as to make no odds. Don’t know about the other two.

There’s no way Championship clubs are going to track the likes of Cook, Morris, Schlein & Nicholls at number one as it would sink them.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/other-sport/speedway/ex-belle-vue-aces-star-tai-6150003.amp

In ‘97 in think, we ran teams with a blank in the main team. The other four members took the rides similar to R/R. If we operated this again it would ease the rider shortage worries some have, keep the standard up and address the drop in earning that will inevitably occur, as in essence every four meeting would be equivalent to five in term of rides taken. The problem you have is if R/R was required. I’ll have to dig out the programmes from that year to see what went on or maybe someone could add to the discussion. I also think we should use NL riders at reserve with protected heats but this time get the averages weighted correctly to properly reflect their ability and no moving out of that position all season ( like the Poles).

Never happen.

Some good points posted recently. To save quoting each one here is my bit I like programmes, always have, for any event I go to. The Aces one is excellent with lots to enjoy. I’d really miss it but I can also see the need for an app. I spoke to Dave Gordon about such a thing with us having WiFi in the stadium but unfortunately all that went along with him. I remembered the golden sash after meeting competition. Whether promoters didn’t pay well for it I don’t know but top riders often ducked out of it and it was soon dropped. I’ve said for years now that junior teams should be compulsory and it would be great if their (5 or 6) heats were interspersed in the main meeting. For the last two or three years, at Belle Vue at any rate meeting have been run very quickly, so I think it could be accommodated. There was a 15 heat Colts meeting last year ran in just over an hour.

Typical speedway replacing a minor irritation with a rule that is completely irritating. If I was a ref I’d release the tapes just as the roller had to stop before hitting the tapes. Also if a rider pulled back as we see some do, I’d get him on the phone after the race and tell him he’s out if he does it again. Whilst speedway is essentially a basic sport it shouldn’t be so basic that it can’t adopt technology to help solve this issue.

When we opened we had a lot of old fans return. They begrudgingly gave the play offs a go even though they didn’t much care for them. When Tai was drafted in for the play offs that saw a Wolves victory the old school don’t see it as the sporting contest from years ago. Now it’s just an occasional fun night, not to be taken seriously and this has led to fans drifting away again. The joker didn’t help either. If you had a time machine and you went back and told a fan how the sport would end up and how it would be run, they wouldn’t believe you. Seeing it unfold with my own eyes, I still find it unbelievable.

Yes, but I mean as part of the meeting where scores count. In most cases like the meetings last night the other three laps are pointless.

With gate & go being the norm at over half the Prem circuits and a pretty big part for the rest, is it time to embrace it and run flying laps as part of the meeting. Maybe run 10 1 lap, 10 two lap and 5 (nominated) four lap heats all adding to the score. We could also have match races where they start half a lap apart and points are scored by how close a rider catches up to the other. We’ve got to start thinking outside the box as your regular four lap race just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore imo.

I have put my suggestion on but it seems any attempt to come up with things is ignored in favor of your now tedious rhetoric. We know you views, sport repeating them after EVERY post. Christ, I noticed you less when you were riding.

Cook (until recently), Fricke, Tungate and Drozdz so that’s more than half the team only ride for one team in the UK yet the decline continues. Its doing my head in reading this thread as it’s going round and round rather, I suspect like a BSPA meeting. Everyone of you make good valid points but they are pretty much equal in respect to the decline of speedway. Stop trying to make out one is vastly more important than the other. Its like arguing over what caused the hole in the boat as it sinks.