TonyMac

COMING SOON ON TRIPLE DISC DVD Memories of BERWICK Speedway £16 for SIX HOURS of pure Black & Gold Heaven! FROM Shielfield Park to Berrington Lough and back . . . this nostalgic six-hour, triple disc set captures the history of the Berwick Bandits' first 30 years of racing – from the Border town track's grand opening in 1968, through their British League Second Division days, the successful National League era that brought the first major honours to the club, the ill-fated top flight experiment in the early 90s, right up to the start of the millennium at Premier League level. Featuring: * Breathtaking racing - watch Bandits in action at home and away. Riders featured include: Mark Hall (Berwick's first captain), Andy Meldrum, Mike Fullerton, Wayne Brown, Steve McDermott, Nig Close, Rob Grant, Mike Caroline, Bruce Cribb, Paul Thorp, Jim McMillan, Charlie McKinna, Rob Woffinden, Mark Courtney, David Walsh, David Blackburn, Jimmy Nilsen, Kelvin Tatum, Richard Knight, Scott Lamb, Mikael Blixt, Kevin Little, etc, etc. * Contemporary interviews with riders and management. * Re-live Bandits' KO Cup-winning glory. * Individual heroes - see Wayne Brown & Steve McDermott win the NLRC. * Controversial moments. * Spectacular crashes. * Silver Helmet match-races. * World Champions Hans Nielsen, Per Jonsson, Sam Ermolenko, Jan O. Pedersen & Nicki Pedersen racing at Berwick. Interviewees include: Mikael Blixt, David Blackburn, Wayne Brown, Andy Campbell, Mike Caroline, Brian Collins, Mark Courtney, Rob Grant, James Grieves, Mark Hall, Brian Havelock, Richard Knight, Scott Lamb, Kevin Little, Rene Madsen, Steve McDermott, Charlie McKinna, Jim McMillan, Jimmy Nilsen, Ian Patterson, Chris Readshaw, Peter Scully, Kelvin Tatum, David Walsh. From the promotion, management and staff: Ken Taylor and Ian Graham, Terry Linden, Dennis McCleary, Dick Barrie, Mike Hope, Peter Waite. Memories of Berwick Speedway will be launched at the Bandits' Premier League home match against Workington Comets at Shielfield Park on Saturday, August 29, 2015 (7.00pm) start. But if you are unable to attend this meeting, you can, of course, pre-order this DVD from us at Retro Speedway - www.retro-speedway.com For latest news and info on the Bandits, visit www.berwickbandits.co

Top man! Many thanks, much appreciated.

The best marketing manager in the world may be able to entice new sponsors in, but keeping them involved and coming back for more is a totally different challenge. For starters, the corporate entertainment facilities have to be top notch - and how many speedway venues are left that can boast those? Not saying Berwick, but how many tracks have you been to and found disgusting, unusable toilets and dirty windows and stands? And what do you say to your new big sponsor, who has invested thousands to back your team or perhaps one or two meetings, when countless meetings are cancelled because speedway still hasn't found a way to cover tracks and REDUCE (it can never entirely eliminate them) rain-offs? How to explain the haphazard fixture list that changes with the weather? I know of one Elite League rider who flatly refused the simple request to pose with a young child and the child's father in the pits, well before the start of the meeting. I wouldn't envy the task of any marketing person in modern speedway.

True, but Berwick's problems are symptomatic of a much wider malaise and are therefore very relevant. Sad to say, it's difficult to imagine a generous benefactor coming to their rescue (or any other track's) given all the countless problems that blight the sport today. Because by investing in Berwick, you are effectively investing in the future of British speedway. You become one of 21 stakeholders (8 EL & 13 PL track owners) in one large struggling business called British speedway. And am I right in thinking PL tracks don't get much of a sniff of the Sky money either? You can run the best speedway in the world but if those at the top continue to bungle most things they touch, then you automatically become a victim by association. To answer your last question (and for what it's worth), we are running a free half-page advert for Berwick Speedway in the next issue of Backtrack, which advertises all of their August and September fixtures, etc. I say 'free', but it's effectively a contra-deal because the Bandits promotion have very kindly got behind the imminent launch of our next DVD, Memories of Berwick Speedway (1968-99), so it's really a mutual back-scratching exercise and one we fully appreciate. They are very nice people to work with (Dennis McCleary is our main contact) and we sincerely hope they can find a way through this and enjoy an upturn in fortunes. We will be at Shielfield Park to launch the DVD on Saturday, August 29 (v Workington) and hope many others will join us there - and at all their other remaining meetings of the 2015 season. And beyond.

Cut, cut, cut everything! (I knew you would have something meaningful to add to the debate)

You start by saying how cutting costs is a 'no-brainer' in tough times - and quite rightly so - but then go on to say that speedway shouldn't ask riders to take a pay cut! Short of finding another 2,000 people to come through the gate at a drop of a hat and without speculating on a costly advertising campaign to try and boost gates, how else is the sport to survive in its current state if clubs continue to pay way over the odds to many riders who, let's be honest, bring little or nothing to the table? Let's be honest, if Tai Woffinden or Nicki Pedersen, for example, walked down any high street in Britain, no-one (apart from speedway fans)would recognise them. They don't really put many 'bums on seats' on the grand scheme of things. So if the GP 'superstars' of the sport are dispensable, where does that leave the many average EL & PL riders, who think they are stars and want to be paid accordingly? For once, modern day promoters need to toughen up and make their riders understand that they, too, have to cut their cloth accordingly. The genie might be out of the bottle, but it's never too late if the BSPA stand as one and stick together, instead of breaking ranks, as they have always done. * Instead of running three bikes, make do with two (why not go back to the days of the Track Spare, which could be shared among team-mates suffering bike problems?) * Instead of employing a full-time mechanic, get by with a part-timer. Perhaps do more work themselves in the workshop between meetings? * Stop spending silly money on engine tuners - it's the promoters (and indirectly) the fans who ultimately pick up the tab. So what if winning times are drastically reduced - speed often doesn't equal entertainment, not if the four riders are strung out. * If riders were paid less, tracks would be more sustainable - it would also give promotions the chance to reduce admission prices to encourage more support, or at least introduce occasional special offers to entice more through the gate. Simply cutting rider costs clearly isn't the total solution to all of speedway's current ills, but it's the obvious starting point. The BSPA needs to form a 'Technical Committee', a working party of, say, three ex-riders who understand current day speedway and have good mechanical knowledge, who are given a brief to explore all ways to reduce riders' equipment costs and report these back to the BSPA. Pete Seaton's lower-cost F2 bikes may well play a part in future developments. Ah, I could go on forever.... Spot on. I don't hold with this 'riders are doing it for our entertainment' nonsense. In one sense they are. But the truth is, they love the buzz of speedway and see it as a good way to earn fair money - it's a job. If they believe that they are not paid what they think they are worth and it costs them too much to do that job, then look for another one. Or reduce their outgoings and carry on. We can draw an analogy with publishing Backtrack. We'd love to extend every issue to 100 pages, run big full size pics, distribute 20,000 copies through WH Smith's UK-wide and take out TV advertising. But we just can't afford to do that, so we have what we have, and have to work within budgets. All comes back to cutting your cloth . . . and promoters and riders must learn this.

The trouble is, Rob, we now live in a culture where the majority of fans (of most sports) demand success yesterday and won't accept regular defeats, even if their team is involved in close, exciting matches. The days of coming away from Hackney thrilled by a 38-40 home defeat, with PC performing minor miracles for the opposition, are long gone. Football suffers from this more than any other sport - it amazes me how many West Ham fans actually expect us to be in the Champions League in the next two years, without a really major new investor coming in. Much of it is media-driven but, in speedway's case, people's attitudes have also changed over the years. It's as if they cannot contemplate being associated with a team that is not successful - even if they are watching top quality racing. Having said that, there are unsuccessful teams beaten in meetings where passing and excitement is minimal! That must be very hard to take and is cause to question if it's worth the admission money.

Many thanks for your kind words and glad you enjoyed reading. When you get a sec, would you mind please copy-and-pasting your above comments on Amazon as a review of the book. Would very much appreciate it. Cheers, Tony Mac

Which is why riders - yes, even the lesser lights in the EL - need to become amateurs and get themselves another job alongside their racing. Of course, a number of riders will take their ball home and threaten to quit, or actually leave the English leagues (if they can). When that happens, revamp the leagues to six, five or maybe four-man teams, so that there are still enough riders to go around and the farce of doubling-up, which has grown out of all proportion, is brought to an end. The whole thing needs a radical approach from the BSPA but, for sure, clubs at both Elite and Premier League level cannot continue to pay out more to riders than they are taking in at the turnstiles. In recent years a myth has been perpetuated, sometimes by smug PL promoters, that the second tier had all the answers, was the 'way forward' and was showing the EL how to run things properly. Well, the recent declarations from Scunthorpe and now Berwick, and the reports coming from others struggling PL venues, paint an altogether different and much more accurate picture that promoters of ALL THREE leagues in the UK must urgently address.

Yes, ITV covered just a few of Carter's races as part of his battle to overcome his 1984 injuries. Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. When you get a sec, would you mind please adding a review to the Amazon Kindle Store site, as this is the best way we can grow sales to readers from the non-speedway sector. Very much appreciated. We will obviously publicise availability of the Simmo book and the others as, and when, they appear in e-book format. Simmo's book will hopefully be available from the Amazon Kindle during August. Alan Carter is currently working on an update of his printed book, so we'll let you know when that is ready. How could we possibly know "100 %" that they would sell as well as they have? With the rising costs of print and paper, everything in publishing has some risks attached, because you are gambling on the initial print run and it's really just an educated guess how many copies you print initially. The smaller the print run, the more it costs per unit to print, so it's best to print what you think will be the ultimate number sold from the outset - and thankfully, we've been very accurate in this respect. Most of our speedway books have sold out - albeit some sooner than others - so we've not been left with unsold stock. You have to weigh up the subject matter and be sufficiently satisfied that there will be enough general interest in the person concerned - Carter, Simmo, Lee, Berry, etc. We usually base our judgement calls on the author's character - is he interesting enough? - and the merit of his story both inside and outside speedway. Yes, admittedly, a controversial element is always important, too, but general appeal also counts. There are some ex-riders who could write a book that would sell OK-ish at their local track, but have little appeal beyond there. And honesty is a hugely important factor, probably the biggest as far as we are concerned. Are they prepared to tell it like it was, warts and all? Mike Lee, Simmo and JB all fell very much into this category and that very much explains why their books all sold very well. Who wants to read an autobiography where the author conveniently ignores the big issues in his life and only wants to write about the good stuff? Riding ability doesn't count for everything. There are plenty of ex-star riders whose life stories, in and out of speedway, wouldn't sell enough copies to make it commercially viable. Indeed, we have turned down a number of approaches from ex-riders (former No.1's and world finalists) and promoters because we simply don't think there will be enough interest in a book in their name. Alan Carter is probably a classic (rare) example of a non-speedway rider whose extraordinary story, based largely on his very close association with Kenny, has been a big seller. Sidney, all the old Screensport, KM Video and MBI Video meetings are now in the safe hands of Jan Staechmann and his Classic Speedway Videos business. I believe Jan is still in the process of updating his catalogue but if you are after copies of specific meetings from the mid-80s period, check out his website at www.classicspeedwayvideos.com

Thanks, Sidney. Can't recall exactly how long it took to come together - the original came out eight years ago, in June 2007. I'd guess about six-to eight months, on and off, to do the interviews and write everything up. But with our Retro Speedway business, any book writing/publishing has to be done in between producing our 10 magazines (6 x Backtrack & 4 x Classic) a year. And now there are the DVDs, too.

So do I - can't beat the smell of freshly-printed paper and a good read while relaxing on the sofa with a light ale or vino blanco in hand. My tablet is Allopurinol, to keep the old 'Salmon Trout' at bay. Trouble is, we have to move with the times. As it is, we're years behind and playing catch-up! Seriously chaps, I'd really appreciate it if, after having read Tragedy, you would please post a reader's review on the Amazon, in the hope it will prompt others to try it. We consciously wanted to keep the price low to encourage people but it ain't easy this publishing lark (what is?), so any help you can offer by way of reviews would be very much appreciated by Susie and I. On the other hand, if you think it's crap, forget I mentioned it! Thank you. Tony Mac

Hold fire! We'll have Simmo's The Whole Truth out there in eBook before then, along with a few others hopefully...

Pleased to say we have just published our first eBook. Softback copies of the original sold-out TRAGEDY: KENNY CARTER are priced at a ridiculous £100 on Amazon . . . but our new UPDATED (two extra chapters and additional contributors, plus new pictures) Amazon Kindle edition is available for only £4.99 - the best value for money speedway book on the market. You can read a free preview of the intro and opening two chapters when you visit our page in the Amazon Kindle Store at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tragedy-Kenny-Carter-Love-Forget-ebook/dp/B0128VURS8/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1437559229&sr=1-2&keywords=tragedy+kenny+carter

It gives me great pleasure to say that Retro Speedway will now be publishing Dave Morton's long-awaited book, TAPES, BREAKS AND HEARTACHES, which will be out this coming October. More details will appear in Backtrack and on our website at www.retro-speedway.com, and on our social media platforms of Facebook and Twitter, etc, nearer the time). For those who have been asking about the book's publication date, I just wanted to get the message out there now to let everyone know that, after four years work, the book will finally come to fruition in October. Foreword has been written by Mort's old school pal Peter Collins. As a kid supporting Hackney, his round-the-boards style was one of the aspects that made Friday nights special and it's been great getting to know Mort in recent years and enjoying a few pints of real ale with the man.

Dave was by far the better gater and, as you say, but for that bad leg break he would probably have gone on to be a consistently high BL points scorer for many seasons - his average was 10+ at the time of his crash. As tracks became slicker in the early 80s, his trapping ability would have boosted his figures had the serious 1977 injury not already taken its toll (think he broke a bone riding for Wolves in '79 too). Having said that, he was never once-paced. When behind, he knew how to find the grip to pass people about three inches from the Hackney fence! A great sight.

Good to see that everyone has read the question very closely and given serious thought to their answers! Thank you for your input. So that's about 58 different riders who would "inject new life into modern speedway".

Any last votes to be cast before we go to press tonight (Thursday)?

CYRIL Roger, the oldest living World Finalist and one of Britain's finest post-war discoveries, died of pneumonia at his home in Kent last night (May 26, 2015). He was 93. It was an honour and a privilege to interview Cyril for Classic Speedway magazine (issue 24) some 18 months ago, when he talked fondly of his racing days that spanned 18 seasons and six teams. Born at Ashford, Kent on December 27, 1921, he was the second of three racing brothers. Bert (who died in 1995) was the eldest by almost two years , while Bob (who passed away in 2002) came along seven years after Cyril. All three starred for New Cross in the early 50s. Cyril appeared in five World Finals (1949, 1950, 1952, 1955 and 1959) and won league championship with Exeter, New Cross and Southampton. At 5ft 10ins tall and weighing 11st, Cyril was bigger than your average speedway rider. He was tough and uncompromising, not one to throttle back at the first hint of danger. He told Retro Speedway: “They were the boom days and suddenly speedway riders were famous and it took some handling. I don’t think I did too badly, I wasn’t unpopular or anything. I always used to give of my best and I think the fans got good value for their admission money. “And I earned big money at times.” Cyril leaves behind his wife Phyllis and their three sons, Simon, John and Luke, plus six grandsons and two granddaughters. Simon contacted Retro Speedway by email this morning to inform us of his father's passing and asked if we would pass on the sad news to the speedway community. Simon said: "My father passed away last night. The Doctors and nurses did all they could but pneumonia got to him. He put up a brave fight, just as he always did. We were beside him and supporting him during his last moment. "Reg and Gloria Luckhurst managed to see him yesterday, which was nice, as they go back a long way. "My daughter Elisha printed pictures of Dad and his brothers together, along with some speedway action shots, that were placed by his bedside. You could see it meant a lot to him. "The picture of Dad in his New Cross days takes pride and place at home. "If you could let the speedway world know, as he was a speedway legend."

Great story, just wish it had happened in 1970 (or later!). Although, at this rate, we might have to run the same feature, using pre-70s examples, in Classic Speedway mag. The 1967 British Final at West Ham, when the riders threatened to strike over pay just before the start, was a major story at the time. 'Night of Shame' Speedway Star editor Paul Parish called it. They only agreed to ride after the West Ham management, fearing their public would be the main victims of the riders' threat, coughed up the extra cash to ensure the meeting went ahead. Caused a big furore at the time.

If my memory isn't playing tricks, I'm pretty sure that Heat 10 of the Romford v Hull match in 1971 was actually run AFTER Heat 13! There had been a series of reruns, crashes and controversies (Tony Childs being in the thick of it all) and to give the riders in Heat 10 more time to get their bikes repaired, the ref decided to press on with Heats 11, 12 & 13. Bizarre, but think it's true.

The thing is, although the Standard claims to represent and serve London and is distributed free there, it is effectively a national paper in terms of its sports content - and this was probably the case back in 2002. They are much more likely to cover the England football, cricket and rugby teams and give very little coverage to local lower division football clubs such as Leyton Orient - certainly not on a daily basis. From what I saw of the DVD from the reopening meeting at Wimbledon, if you were a first-timer to the sport I can't imagine why you would want to go again. The racing, on a difficult, slippery track, was truly awful. Inexperienced juniors crawling round, barely able to turn the bike, let alone get it broadsiding. You had to feel sorry for all associated with the Dons, because of all the effort and cost that went in to reviving them. Luck deserted them on the night they could least afford for it to happen.

1991 is just outside our basic Backtrack time-frame of 1970-90. Feel confident we can fill 50 pages with fiascos from that period. Good, ol' Kilb - that's just the kind of showmanship the sport is sadly lacking today.

It really hadn't occurred to me - honest! Seriously, though, even for us dinosaurs from pre-historic times, we have to concede that quite a lot of diabolical things happened back in the 'good old days' too. In fact, far too many to recall. Which is why we need the collective help of the masses...

IN the next issue of Backtrack we'll be looking closely at some of low points of the 1970-90 era, the classic cock-ups, controversies, dubious decisions and walk-outs that made headlines in British speedway for all the wrong reasons. The 'Warsaw 2015' calamities of days gone by, if you will. And we'd welcome your input. Tell us what you recall as the worst, most embarrassing and damaging moments that that sport suffered in the Backtrack era (we're not interested in anything that happened before 1970 or after 1990). * Maybe it was a rider(s) or team walking out of a meeting in protest. * A major decision by a ref who got it hopelessly wrong. * Poor track preparation that caused a meeting to be called off or abandoned. * Starting gate problems that led to green light starts. * An administrative cock-up(s) by the BSPA, SCB or FIM. For the sake of debate, it would be good if you'd post your stories here. But if you would prefer to email me, we're at editorial@retro-speedway.com Many thanks. Tony Mac