moxey63

It is all about opinions. I admire Philip Rising for the job he's done over the years at the Star. He has more knowledge than I do how to run a successful mag. But I also believe the sport itself is in the position it is because promoters held the position of knowing what's best and disagreeing to what fans wanted.

You have got to watch out though, those who want to look at race times and heat details might just cancel their subs to the Star and wander across to the internet like your good self. I hear the world wide web also produces quite a bit of speedway news without waiting a week to find out. But you can't please everyone.

That's brilliant, but I expect to buy the Star to have all the things in it I have always purchased it for. Race times have always been there. You don't always look at them but they are handy when seeing how fast a rider who doesn't win races that often was travelling compared to others. I know something like £11,000 was saved by getting rid of match reports, but the mag has taken on a soulless state in which you probably find out more in reports about Polish matches than our own! There are surely wanna-be journalists out on the terraces that would send the Star copy of each match. Look how Natalie Quirk started as a 14 year-old at Belle Vue and where she is today. It seems like they have given up hope on British domestic speedway. But if you want to find out about a GP you have probably just watched on various devices, you are given seven or eight pages the following week. We don't see every domestic match and therefore reports from each were good. With the quarter-page section of every match for the week (and, I know, there aren't that many nowadays), you are merely finding out the minutest of detail. GPs, I'm afraid, are now just an individual arm of the sport that I didn't start to follow this supposedly team game for. The riders in it are far removed from any one club that I find it difficult to imagine any British team fan bothering who wins the thing or not. Maybe it's just me.

I know it's probably down to drop in sales and having to shave costs. A lot of the effort of the old journalists to find stories seems to have disappeared. Although the cover is a big improvement, this year's Speedway Star has reverted back to being the type of magazine we had with the Speedway News in the 30s and 40s, which carried little information any researchers in later years could call back on. I think it should try to include all British speedway results and, as I have stated before, I would ditch the grass track pages. Speedway match reports were important to me. But this year matches get a brief review and all connectivity of having someone reporting the action at trackside is gone. We now have a rush job with a small weekly review. I even miss race times, as they could offer some form of info as to how a rider was going if, for instance, they had won their first race in a long time. And it's laughable when you read that a rider broke the track record last week, but you aren't given any clue as to what the record is... It's a pointless piece of info if the times aren't given in the first place! I can't grasp what it is, but much of the detail I used to rely on the Star for has vanished - unless I want to find out something on last weekend's Grand Prix. And that's tragic, in some way, as the GPs have arguably helped put British speedway where it is now!

The real frustration is that we have been here before. I believe the late fifties and early sixties was speedway's other tipping point. Thankfully the British shale scene was saved by the introduction of the one big league. Three years later we had the introduction of the new second division and tracks seemed to open instead of close. But, especially now, whereas we actually had people with the nouse to rescue a sinking ship back then, I think today's so-called promoters are too busy saving their belongings in their personal cabin and haven't seen the wider picture. Almost sixty years ago it was men in suits that looked the part. Nowadays I feel the sport is being steered along by a bunch of chancers. It is a mystery how they've managed to run businesses to have the money to plough into the sport, and yet are quite willing to boast how much they are happy to lose playing at speedway promoting. It is a bit of a shipwreck right now. Comparing the two, we recovered from the fifties. I don't have confidence in recovering from this demise.

The way they are selling them is pretty naive.

They could have even accepted email bids leading up to the evening.

For those who can make it, the auction is this Thursday (8 pm), June 13 @ NUNEATON SPEEDWAY SUPPORTERS' CLUB, BRANDON CLUB, MAIN STREET, BRANDON, COVENTRY, CV8 3HW The club states it isn't an auctioneer and doesn't have electronic facilities and therefore is only open to attendees on the night. They add that anyone who can't make it, ask someone on their behalf whose attending to make a bid. Former riders Joe Owen, Lawrence Hare and Bruce Cribb will be in attendance.

I must admit feeling a little frustrated, finding out Tommy Knudsen's racing gear (which he kindly donated to the Speedway Riders' Fund) is being auctioned off to a small gathering in Coventry next week when, ideally, it should have been offered to a wider audience and, in the process, increasing proceeds from it. eBay is the first port of call. As it is, I can see some unscrupulous dealer getting their hands on items and they themselves making maximum profit by putting it, for example, on the aforementioned auction site. I know this post is going to attract criticism of me. But, Tommy's superb act of generosity, I fear, isn't going to reap maximum potential. I hope I am wrong. If it was a time thing, I for one would have volunteered to do the ebay selling for the fund.

I watched Coronation Street the other night, a soap based just a few miles from Belle Vue speedway.

Does that mean tracks will close or there'll be a sudden influx of riders? I guess it'll be the former.

We often compare speedway with football. Football is a simple sport and is easy to follow. Speedway, though it is a simple sport, four riders, four laps, 3, 2, 1 etc, it is when you start widening the horizons of parts of it and question which jewels might attract and keep supporters. Guest riders are a problem. Try explaining that one to an outsider. Riders doubling up and down, that's another one that even hardcore fans scratch their heads a little over. The double-points rule was a good one, in which riders who had the lead had to shut off to allow their team mate through, so they could gain the double points for their side. Yet the rule is a rider will be excluded for not making a bonafide effort to race. Thankfully, though it took a decade and a half, that rule has now gone. The rule which allows riders to flit to and from various teams is one big laugh. We have an incident right now, don't we, in which a side is so weak that it has failed to win a match. Because of this team's low achieving start to the season, it has therefore been able to sign a rider with the introduction of the new averages. Now, after that dubious ploy, I'd fathom a guess that riders who were in that team, but had mysteriously been off form, will get that form straight back - and the team will crusade right towards the play-offs. We have seen it before, and it is a big fat farce. Not many years back wasn't there a side that was investigated for chucking points. It was a side that was struggling and riders were having mysterious engine failures. It was still early season and I guess they wanted to lower averages to strengthen when the team level was reset. The play-offs were still in sight and achievable. I also recall, after their investigation, didn't the authorities reduce the number of play-off places available mid-season down from five to four because, although they said they found no proof of result-manipulating, the fact that they cut play-off places sort of gives you the clue what they thought. Now, if new fans are attracted by that sort of activity, then they are welcome to it.

Speedway is 90 years old. Surely every idea that was originally thought a good idea has been tried and dumped. Gimmicks are for those with short attention fans. Serious supporters want a credible sport.

I watched Peter Collins, Chris Morton etc riding for Belle Vue in the 70s and 80s. I also attended Ellesmere Port during the same period. Despite being a lower standard, I never yearned to see the superstars when I watched the second division lads. I just loved speedway.

The tradition for speedway clubs is to look after their own business and not realise that a strong league is vastly more important than becoming the last man standing and having no one to race against. Poole, after all the trophies they have won the last 15 years, and scoffing a lot of calories in riding talent to serve their purpose, are perhaps realising that winning isn't the be all and end all and can leave fans feeling bloated.

It has got to the point now where the Promoters' Conference is more eagerly awaited than the new season. We hear they will listen, but has anything changed this season to last?

What Mr Ford did mention was supporters getting used to success and that sometimes it's best to give them second place and leave them wanting more. At a time when league speedway is set-up for a win at all costs, perhaps we may revert to a time when supporters were interested in watching their team, their riders, no matter how good, and that winning isn't the be all and end all.

It would create more variety. But, as someone mentioned, certain riders would be put off by the increase of meetings, the same riders I bet who say they ride in Poland and Sweden because there aren't sufficient meetings over here. The set-up would have to be what all clubs could afford, perhaps on second division level of pay. Perhaps replace riders who refuse to race the extra meetings with hungrier ones who perhaps would never get a chance, from the lesser countries. More meetings would hopefully cut the need for riders to flit to and fro other countries. This would hopefully reignite the meaning of a proper team sport and not freelancers. British speedway doesn't rule the waves any longer, so we have to sort of begin from scratch and rebuild. Even have money-spinning meetings every so often during the season and invite big stars to race.

You are not alone in thinking it stinks. I really can't understand how anyone can be arsed attending when moves like this are afoot. On the other hand, Buster did save speedway, but with rules like this, you don't have to wonder too much why it needed saving. If rules allow them to be manipulated so easily, what's the point in having rules? Cracking sport and spectacle, but the rules show its unsavoury side. Only takes so long for it to dawn on you.

If it's compulsory, how can riders miss it?

Just turned over to BT, to see what this is about (qualifying) and it disappoints me how similar to formula one it is. Depressing. They just announced a rider(didn't catch the name) isn't in the qualifying practice... because he has an Extra League match somewhere else in Poland! I always thought you had to be there for practice. Be interesting to see if Speedway Star feels it important to include these (qualifying) race times.

The state of British speedway is typified with one of the hottest topics on this forum being about dogs.

My point was that I thought admissions were rising every season and that the sport is too expensive. I was surprised that wasn't the case. It was only slightly less expensive a decade ago, although there were higher class riders. We are getting less quality now for the price of 10 years ago. But, in the last 10 years, people have been squeezed for their cash and, so, £16 admission is needed for other everyday things and, for some, speedway has to take a miss.

I was quite surprised when I came across a pre-season edition of the Star from 2008 and found that Belle Vue was charging £16. Admission hasn't gone up that much in 10 years.

It is numerous things, not just race nights, although I guess that keeps some fans at home. The Speedway Star pre-season edition with all the line-ups, for example, and there is not one single team that would encourage me to shell out £20 to enter a stadium. Reducing prices might help, but promoters are naturally worried about doing this, and so will increase them year upon year to make up for the missing fans and stand the risk of losing more fans who feel it not worth the price anymore. So they combat that by putting up prices again next year. As always, the best hope for speedway's future is for the old supporters to introduce the new ones. I had it done to me, and I introduced my young brother. But, when a new fan is hooked, you have to offer them a product that doesn't have their mates laughing at them.