cityrebel

it does look a tougher line up. i'm looking forward to seeing the likes of nicholls and harris at rye.

thanks to those excellent photos you can see it's not shelbourne park. with the dog track on the outside of the speedway circuit it's looking more like swindon (pre grandstand) to me.

i've been to stock car racing at both aldershot and st.austell. aldershot was a compact stadium in a built up area with houses nearby. st. austell did have a grandstand on one side apart from that i can't remember too much about it. it's not rayleigh because the weir had stands on both straights with strange lamp standards that leaned over the track. it does look a lot like swindon with it's rural location, as for shelbourne park, i've never seen any photos of that stadium in the mid 1950's.

i tell it how i see it!

weather permitting, this coming saturday sees buxton visit the launch pad. with a general lack of intrest in the raiders this season and weak looking opposition, i can't see this fixture attracting many punters.

as a smallbrook regular it seems a lot of the intrest in the IOW dissapeared when the islanders dropped down into the NL. full credit to all those on the island who keep the track running during these hard times.

The weather is looking dodgy shads, but give len his due, he has made the effort to get the last few meetings on despite the monsoon season. Lessons of previous hasty call offs might have been learnt.

Garrity has hardly got bags of experience, he should be allowed to ride in the Nl.

tough luck on the islanders. with today being a bank holiday, some decent weather might have attracted a good crowd to smallbrook tonight. on the plus side a trip around the shops at pompey with the other half would have cost me a few bob, so i'm quids in!

i saw quite a few rockets fans at lakeside last night complete with team colours, should they have been at hoddesdon supporting the raiders, maybe!. i also noticed the rye house pits marshall working on the track staff, some divided loyalties going on at arena i think!

i regularly go to rye house, lakeside, eastbourne and the iow because that is all there is left locally for me. you can get good and bad meetings at all of those venues. i was a lifelong wimbledon fan from 1968 until 1991, i went during the CL years but was too long in the tooth to consider myself still a fan. my favourite track of all time was west ham, i went to all of those you mention apart from new cross, which was a bit before my time!

the chip shop is usually open for NL meetings at rye.

a lot of the rye regulars i know are not rockets supporters, we were all once fans of london/south east defunct clubs. take away us floaters and it would make quite a difference to any clubs income.

All of the rye regulars i know, myself included will be at lakeside or eastbourne on saturday. It's going to be tough for the raiders to pull in a crowd with two big meetings going on elsewhere in the south east on the same night.

the FIM world cup meeting at lakeside last sunday was £17 to get in and £4 for a prog. it took over 4 hours to run in the baking heat, i wish i had stayed at home. it might be a close run thing to get the meeting completed by curfew time at berwick, the way the FIM run these events.

i'm far too young to have gone to that!, i went to my first ever speedway meeting at wimbledon in september 1968. i never got to west ham until 1970.

jack young had a lot to do with the west ham track being reduced in size in 1954 to 415 yards, it remained this length until it's closure.

i went to the 1970 british final at custom house. there was 20,000 there that night and there was plenty of room for more. west ham was a big, wide 415 yard pacy track with plenty of racing lines. the place was steeped in speedway history and if you ever went to hyde road, then you will know exactly what it was like.

i hope it's still running. it's a great set up at lydd and i've thoroughly enjoyed attending the last two veterans championships staged there.

today is the 40th anniversary of west ham speedway's closure. despite being a dons fan custom house was the 'daddy' of the london tracks. it left a lasting impression on me as a child and i still miss it today.

my all time favourite must be west ham.

i sat in the stand last night just behind the tapes and saw both red lights, firstly on the camera and secondly the brake lights on the van in the car park. i fully understand james sargeant getting upset about the incident, but his actions during the race could have caused an accident, giving the ref no option but to stop the race.

i remember it well, but i think it was in the late 70's because i saw him jump at the white city as well, during the rebels era.

crayford was a tricky little track inside an excellent all covered stadium. with a connecting railway station serving the london main line, it was so easy to get to. how i wish it was still running today.

there is going to be some hard first bends at plymouth this season with that trio, plenty of fence repairs as well!