keepturningleft

I was in the south stand overlooking the entrance to turn 3. At the pre meet practice, riders appeared to be going into that corner at full speed with no obvious concerns or hesitation whatsoever. Curious.

Shortly before Christmas, my local paper, the Huddersfield Examiner, carried an advert on the front page advertising a stock car meeting at the Belle Vue dog track. This ad was in the form of a long strip stretching the width of the paper and covering about a fifth or so of the entire front page in a newspaper advertising an event that wasn't even happening in the same town/city. Perhaps speedway just needs to similarly start banging the drum with more basic tactics.

Just been watching this on Motors tv and - it's boring as hell.

Great musician and former Poole speedway fan

The smell of the paper, the feel of the book, the design of the book - no electronic twaddle can beat the physical experience of a proper book, but I'm on the wrong side of 60 and therefore old fashioned.

Must admit having a 'best of' in book form kind of appeals to me rather than storing 'thousands' of mags on the shelf, so I will probably dip my toe in and buy the first volume. Tony, amongst my favourite features in backtrack are the 'opening times' articles - do these feature in the books? It seems obvious to me why there are many books on speedway's past and few on the present. Tens of thousands watched the sport back then - many still alive - so there are simply more fans and potential nostalgic customers than now! PS Don't forget Jeff Scott's collection of books on modern speedway.

Regarding the opening meeting abandonment and subsequent financial consequences, it occurs to me that the meeting could just have easily been rained off. What would the difference have been?

Maybe significant or not, but during all the interviews they have given on local TV from the start of the project to the completion, Mort and and Gordon have never looked really happy, as if something was constantly troubling them...?

Just watched the 1969 world final at Wembley. Mauger threw a race there to allow Belle Vue team mate Sjosten to get on the rostrum.

"It looks like he's on his way to a wedding" (Russian rider tangled up in the starting tape). A sad day for speedway. RIP Dave.

Just finished watching the Melbourne GP and I am dumbfounded by the actions of Greg Hancock. Throwing a race is one thing, but the big, big issue here is walking out of the meeting. We might expect a petulant youngster to do such a thing but a man like Hancock with his reputation, age and experience?? What an insult to the paying public, especially Aussie fans who only get to see these people once a blue moon. His snubbing of fans at Belle Vue shouldn't be forgotten either. Watch that race closely and you will see that Hancock has at least 5 quick look rounds, but he's a mile in front initially and easily looking likely to win, so exactly who is he looking for? This is not team racing so he can't be looking for a team mate...oh, hang on, sorry, he was looking for a team mate. It is now becoming cringe worthy to here commentators describing Hancock as this great ambassador. It is clear that Hancock is only a great ambassador to himself and the green monster. Acting like a 6 year old child and cheating people who pay hard earned money to come and watch you is an action taken by Hancock which should be punishable.

What a refreshing change to see a manager reacting with calm dignity after securing victory rather than having to see the usual spectacle of (thinking mainly of football), managers going demented, gurning and aggressively punching the air seen usually in horrible slow motion high definition playback. Someone earlier in this thread alluded to an apparent lack of passion from Peter Adams but personally I love his dead pan, low key manner.

Is there a track anywhere in the world better than Belle Vue? Have to say it's very difficult to like Woffinden, he is simply obnoxious. Can you imagine Collins, Loram, Craven getting booed, anywhere, ever?

Tyburn Gallows and Kid Bodie

A fantastic piece of work. It would be ideal to see it on display at the National Speedway Stadium.

"He's coming back for more"

Does anyone know why the first bend terrace area was not open? Please don't tell me BV are going to close down sections of the stadium as they see fit presumably to keep stadium management simpler. I fancied watching the meeting from there today and did not know in advance that this would not be possible. The new BV has been sold on the strength of it's impressive viewing facilities, so why is some of it now not accessible? Maybe the turnsyles are broken.

Ludicrous idea. Attendance would be 30,000 less than now.

Another great meeting from the SEC - surely it would be a great boost for Russia and speedway generally to hold a GP at this venue. Despite the admittedly amusing bit of sarcasm from Hans Anderson about his wrong helmet colour, it is absolutely correct that he was excluded. Helmet colours have become a bit of a thing with me. Because of the protruding peak of modern helmets, the cover often doesn't cover anything like the whole helmet usually leaving two colours on display to confuse first time watchers along with everything else that is likely to confuse them. Head on shots frequently showed two riders apparently wearing red helmets for example. This is one of the many examples in which speedway fallen into slovenly ways in my opinion.

Get well Charlie...

I'm no expert on Brazil, but there must be a sizable proportion of the population who can afford those prices. I bet they had no trouble selling out the world cup final when it was held there a couple of years ago.

No, not speedway, the olympics. Even the supposedly greatest sporting spectacle on earth can't fill stadia. Amazing to see so many empty seats at many events.

Since the biggest attendances by far are for the individual events, the GP's obviously, the hostility towards a 13 heat match and then a 'rider of the night' individual event afterwards seems strange. Seems to me you've got the best of both worlds, team and individual in one night. Personally, I lament the decline of domestic individual events Although true that many fans used to leave after the main match, well, that was their choice. The 'rider of the night' could be made into a much more meaningful event than it used to be with maybe the winners throughout the country qualifying for some kind of a grand final - at Belle Vue? Speaking of which, I have been in the speedway wilderness since Odsal closed but I could be a regular returnee to Bell Vue, if only I knew what their regular race night is. This hotchpot of race nights is a disaster as alluded to by earlier posters which is surely hindering the success of Belle Vue.

Been watching speedway since 1965 and I doubt if I've seen racing more thrilling than that!

Security guys wearing hard hats - what's that all about?