enotian

It was. Fired his bike right into the side of Kenni Larsen, outside the pit gate. Banned and never rode again I think. Maybe there was a similar incident elsewhere.

I passed Cleveland Park on Sunday via the flyover. It's now a school/academy and five aside football pitches by the looks of it.

That's my point. Whilst I don't think it's possible to deliver 200 balls in 15 minutes what natural gaps they have are minimised to the extent that there's mostly always something going on. For a sport which has speed in its name the pace of meetings certainly doesn't live up to the title. Always bemused me when a meeting starts to get some momentum there'll be an interval. For what purpose exactly? If a meeting can be run in 75 minutes dont stretch it out to 150 minutes. Unless you have some other content to fill the gaps... other than track grading.

There's a fine line between things being becoming novelty though. I used to love the gold/silver helmet match races and 2nd halves but they were discarded. Not sure why? Riders didn't want them? Fans didn't want them? Promoters couldn't afford them? Probably a bit of all of those reasons. Personally I lost interest before the demise of the Diamonds due to the scratch nature of teams and lack of variety. But mostly because I was hanging around for 2 hours plus to see 15 minutes of mostly not great racing. At least the first 4 of which the track was rubbish followed by a long delay to put it right then more likely the last 2 or 3 heats didn;t matter but still took half and hour to complete. I still watch and mostly enjoy the GP's but that's part of the problem for domestic speedway. If you watch SGP and/or Polish speedway and compare that to what the UK have to offer it's a poor comparison without being priced cheaply,

If you did want to have one league of 16 teams then why not run it on a four team tournament basis. 5 home matches, 10 if each opponent visits twice. 15 or 30 away matches respectively. Pros. Reduces the number or riders 80 instead of 112 for 7 rider teams (reserve would always be a youth rider. Each fixture has 4 participants(1 home 3 away) appeals to streaming services as you've doubled the potential audience. Removes guests and R/R Format often results in closer finishes Provides the correct amount of home matches and sufficient away matches to provide riders with similar number of domestic meeting to remove 'doubling up' Better pathway for young riders with grading replacing points limits. Cons No team riding Home track would have to pay all riders so would require a change to contracting riders Likely large variances in ability between the top and bottom riders More riders per meeting. 20 instead of 14 More heats per meeting, at least 16 if not 20 compared to 15 Personally I think Discovery Sport have a role to play here. If they're serious about growing the SGP/SON/SWC brand they need to ensure the development of riders across a number of nations then they do need to provide a platform or opportunities to develop. I'd like to see a Euro Club League along the lines above. A couple of teams from each of the main countries, maybe more from Poland and a couple of development clubs from the likes of, Germany, Italy, France, Checia, Latvia for example. In terms of this country less is more but you get to see the top starts in league action in say 10 or 15 meetings in the UK.

I think the current promoters think if they can provide the same format as the Polish League then the crowds will return like they do in Poland. Just a couple of vital missing ingredients. Tracks, facilities and riders. but how radical do you go? can you go? Move the whole thing indoors? Electric bikes on 'plastic' tracks? For me 1 minute races are the ideal format for low attention spans but you need them delivered in quick succession. They penalise slow play in white ball cricket because they know what the fans want, boundaries and wickets. The fans even cheer dot balls now. Imagine the darts if between each leg there was a ten minute break whilst someone cleaned the board? I find darts to be incredibly repetitive, same two blokes playing the same game over and over and don't get me started on the cringy nicknames, but it does produce some dramatic finishes. Just not sure how speedway can deliver the constant action that attracts the masses.

Cricket is a canny analogy. They've basically dumbed it down for a dumbed down society. Nobody is interested in strategy or technique or any of the other 'interesting' facets of the long form. The people just want wickets and boundaries which signal pyro and catchy chorus', the chance to drink and sing Neil Diamond. Just like they get when two blokes chuck arrows at a board. The problem is, if that's what you want, how do you give them it? It's not 15 minutes action over 2 plus hours that's for sure.

Mark Thorpe for me. Was dropped at one point during his first two season's with the Diamonds despite showing glimpses of potential he was ordinary in some not very good Diamonds teams. As I understand it he wasn't in the promoters thoughts for a third season but the numbers worked and he found himself starting the season at reserve with newly signed Scott Lamb. Probably the best 2nd tier reserve pairing ever, Thorpie was like a different rider going straight from reserve to heat leader and staying there. Even become Commonwealth Champion (I think) at one point. Statistically speaking it has to be Berwick's Wayne Brown.

excellent point hopefully discovery will read it and abandon the idea. my take on 'sprint races' in F1, Moto GP and WSB is that they're required because the full length races are dull and they need to fill 3 days content. Only in speedway could the sprint race be the same distance as the normal race.

I recall a stunt rider at Brough Park, probably during the 90's. Evel Kinevel style he jumped over some vans or something. Just about 20 years behind the zeitgeist

Wasn't he on First Dates as well??? I look forward to Alan's business partners examining his proposed investment into BSPL So you don't own any stadiums, haven't got enough riders and the average age of your customers is 88..... .....you don't need £250k mate you need a miracle. Nice pies though.

without a home team to follow? or at least one that would get smashed after being seeded to the final?

I'd imagine that your problem is, as ever, an economic one. League match pay rates are across a range of rider standards as defined by the points limit. I imagine the expectation of a Test Match is always the best seven riders from each country. Now that probably isn't seven number 1 heat leaders nowadays but you'd still expect the pay rates to be higher than a league contest. The crux is would a test match attract more through the gate to cover the increased costs? Or would points limited (or graded) international teams be a more economically viable option?

Something to rattle the purists but with Poland likely to dominate any world cup in the future and the unsavoury jingoism of international competition would the speedway world cup be better made up of twelve teams representing each of the star signs (or calendar months if you don't subscribe to that type of gubbins). Might bring the sport some notoriety and even up the competition (unless all the best speedway riders were born at the same time of year?) After all everyone in the entire world has a star sign so you could naturally migrate to support your own team even if none of its riders were from the same country as you. Afterall if you believe in star signs then you probably have more in common with someone of the same sign that you do with someone from the same country With nationality becoming increasingly more fluid anyway would you support a twelve team star sign world cup? Who'd you support and who'd be in the team?

Similar, apart from the Coventry bit. So long ago I can't quite remember the game play. I'm thinking for each rider you had to decide on their line and riding style (easy or hard) for the four laps.