Ben91

There isn’t a shortage of riders. We try and run our leagues at a higher standard than the ability of the riders available. And then we allow them to race in both of our “professional” leagues anyway. Polish Speedway isn’t hurting British Speedway, British Speedway is hurting British Speedway.

It isn’t a sweeping statement and it isn’t wide of the mark at all. The sport is in decline everywhere, the trouble is some people believe the propaganda that is put out, they tend to be the ones who still attend religiously. Green shoots are easy to pull up. Look at the young riders with half a chance of progressing domestically who have retired in the last few years alone. That says more than the few who are considered prospects now and could as easily pack it in by this time next year as be riding at a high level in the future.

Ultimately, the powers that be have had since March to work out a plan, albeit with uncertainty over how things will develop granted. With regard to cancelling the league season I believe they have made the right decision, however the communication with fans was not good. I seem to remember only two updates from the BSPA since March and one of those was to say that the season was being cancelled. The party line until that point was that some league racing was hopefully going to happen, yet it doesn’t seem there was a plan of how to achieve that. If there was then the most important people, the fans, weren’t informed. Speedway is a strange beast. We are a motorsport but race as teams with home and away fixtures, I can’t think of any other motorsport that does the same. But those teams, while under the same umbrella don’t seem to read from the same songbook. The sport really needs an overarching authority with no ties to any club. It has done for a number of years now.

Cute soundbite but completely false.

Sensible. Not defeatist.

The standard gets worse year on year. And it isn’t watering the product down. At the start of the season there would be four qualifiers. The top four riders from each of those meetings would then move on to the championship series. The standard of Speedway here all riders should be competing as a hobby and working a real job anyway. The sport cannot support giving riders a full time living but rather than accepting that we let them double up so they don’t have to face the reality that Speedway isn’t that popular. And why should riders be paid to compete in their national championship too? Expenses yes, but they should do it for the opportunity to be national champion.

They don’t have to be of Championship quality or above. The qualifiers open the competition to the top 64 British riders and then it’s about how they perform in those qualifying rounds to see who reaches the final. The likelihood is the qualifiers will be 16 of the better riders of the 64 but there is room for upsets. I remember David McAllan qualifying for the British Final in 2005 when riding solely for Sittingbourne in the Conference League, he ended up doing reasonably well too. There’s no reason the British Championship can’t be open to more than 16 or so riders.

Suggested something similar way back at the start of lockdown. Would be a great idea, makes a lot of sense to me. The only stumbling block would be that if fans are only allowed in from October then time may be against it. It wouldn’t be hard to whittle 64 down to 16 with meaningful qualifiers and a final. I think a British Championship series should be looked into going forward anyway. Qualifiers in March-April with a series running from May til July for example. A meaningful competition that would also give fixtures to a lot of tracks. We should be finding ways to fill fixture lists with interesting competition, not just two home and away meetings in the league. If the Cardiff wildcard is the big prize for being British Champion then the champion can take the wildcard the following season. Simple.

Not particularly. I made a passing comment about the thread in general and you got your knickers in a twist. I just thought I’d lend you a helping hand. You’re welcome, have a nice day. I wish you well curing this pandemic.

Wow you bite so easily.

Shame more people aren’t concerned about the fit of the mask.

Ok, thanks for that.

Perhaps they hadn’t factored in Speedway’s delusions of grandeur...

Someone should direct Chris Whitty to this post considering all the corona virus experts we have here...

The sport has been in terminal decline here for many years now. Here we are with a chance to rip it up and start again but instead there seems to just be a wait and see attitude. We could hope for some individual meetings in 2020 and take the time to put a proper plan in place to help the sport try and flourish once more but why bother when we can just try use the same incredibly flawed system next year again.

Perhaps that will be a good thing and they’ll just race alongside their proper jobs as a hobby in future, as should have been the case for a long time now.

To the best of my knowledge it’s a tactical position. He can be used at any time. While the team’s reserves have to be Polish Under-21s, a number 8 can be a rider of any nationality under the age of 23. So it makes more sense for Rybnik to use him as their number 8 as he is one of their best riders.

Speedway in Britain doesn’t need any external help on that score.

The site content hasn’t been updated since Lakeside finished racing at Rye. Would be a shame to lose all that content of course but it will all fall by the wayside when the domain name expires I expect.

The website is www.ryehouse-speedway.com - sometimes it doesn’t hurt to do a google search.

There is room for a dog track but the old dog track was taken up and it would only be more expense to reinstate it. I believe the raised banks on the bends are on top of where the old track once was too. There’s a dog track in Harlow ten minutes away anyway, too close to make greyhounds viable at Rye.

Top flight Speedway at Rye was always going to fail. The Saturday crowds would have tailed off once the novelty wore off, the fixed race nights were the death knell that accelerated things. Could BMR have stepped back to the second tier once fixed race nights were floated? Maybe. Did they know what they were doing? I doubt it. The way they built their teams was testament to what I always saw as their naivety when it came to running a speedway team. It appeared to me they wanted to run at the highest level even though it wasn’t sustainable. Speedway at Rye House was a big part of my life, I would never have met my best friend if it wasn’t for Rye House and I’d be sad if the door to Speedway was shut forever, however it looks increasingly likely. Someone could run the track and make it a sustainable enterprise in the second or third tier I’m sure but it would take deep pockets in the short term to do so and you’d be stupid to walk into speedway these days.

Could be argued that Ward’s subsequent maturing was a result of his ban. Fate then stepped in with regard to his injury. Never liked the bloke personally but his talent on a bike was undeniable. We all make mistakes and do stupid things when we’re young too.

Speedway isn’t a proper professional sport. I don’t recall a time it ever has been. It masquerades as one but the reality is it should be run on a semi-professional level. Glasgow have made a sensible decision. If sitting out 2020 means they have a long term future then that is the right move. I hope other clubs will do the same rather than blindly follow whatever the BSPA’s plan may be if it hurts them long term. The party line seems to be that there will be a form of curtailed season. I’m off on a tangent here I know... But there doesn’t seem to be any concrete plan of how that will be completed. To me the sensible thing would be to plan to a worst case scenario in which speedway can take place and hope for better. There are no guarantees that we will get any form of speedway this season full stop. The worst case where we could still go racing is that riders from overseas can’t get into the country. We either water things down considerably team strength wise (not a good idea) or we expand the British championship to include any British riders who want to compete. Depending on how many months of the season we fit in that can take the shape of qualifiers and a GP style series at tracks who wish to/can host or qualifiers leading to a one off final. Cramming a half season into three months is a silly idea especially when one of those months is notoriously bad weather wise, getting sillier as the days go on where no progress is made. If any speedway is run this year in Britain it will be a miracle in my eyes, that speedway doesn’t have to be team speedway however.

There really is no debate to be had here. Speedway is barely profitable with paying fans, it won’t happen behind closed doors here. If it does it is financial suicide.