Speedway In China - 1.3 Billion Catchment Area

[manchesterpaul]

As shown by the National League over here a speedway club can be set up with relatively small capital. Relative to the world of motor sports or indeed professional sports generally. I was just curious as to whether the sport has ever been staged on any level in China.

 

Surey with a population of 1.3 Billion people there must be a market for the sport to be introduced? Also, how about India a nation that uses motorcycles as a means of transport heavily.

 

Before i'm cited disposable income being too low to fund the sport, one should bear in mind the SGP/SWC/FIM International meetings will get a few thousand spectators at a venue where normal league racing gets double that. Why? well SGP seem to at times ignore the local economy income levels. If introducing the sport into mass population (yet lower income) nations one could try the £5 a head approach of attracting 20,000 bargain grabbers yielding (£100,000) instead of going the route of 3,000 spectators at £20 a head (£60,000).

 

Feasibility studies of introducing the sport nowadays aside, anyone know of speedway ever being staged in such vast continents as mentioned? And yes i do appreciate that a vast percentage of the population in China and India live in extreme poverty., however, there are still millions who don't.

Edited May 5, 2010 by manchesterpaul

[Bavarian]

Not sure about India, but China has seen speedway at a very early stage, in 1930, when an Australian touring troupe spent several weeks of riding the dirt-track speedways of Shanghai and Hong Kong. They were racing in Singapore and Manila, too.

 

Only a few years ago, the Chinese toyed with the idea of introducing ice racing and a test meeting (with no ordinary spectators allowed) was held on a 400m ice oval at Harbin, involving several Russian riders as well as Swedish riders Svensson and Serenius. It does not seem to have made the wished for impression, though, since nothing was heard about it after that.

 

While speedway, afaik, has yet to make its entry into India, they do have a lively dirt-track championship going since about 3 years. It is flat track racing on mx bikes. http://www.merinews.com/article/dirt-racin...ia/125562.shtml

 

There are even videos of these meetings on Youtube.

 

The potential for 'real' Speedway is undoubtedly there, but the moto cross bikes are much easier to get for the riders in a country like India. Speedway can't compepte with that. It is the same phenomen with other third world countries in Africa or South America. There is dirt-track motorcycle racing in many of them, but they do their racing on ordinary mx bikes.

 

Speedway would have to bring out a very, very, basic and very, very cheap bike, which would have to be reliably and easy to maintain for the riders in these parts of the world to take it up. I have read somewhere on the forum that there is a Chinese bike engine that is used in youth speedway, even in England. Maybe that would be a first step in the right directon. The people in Malaysia, who tried to introduce speedway there some three years ago, also used their own make of would-be speedway bikes with smaller capacity engines (115cc). It worked and it was fun, and in a few years it could become a real boom sport spreading all over the world. This would be a ground roots level introduction of the sport, with the top riders eventually going on to the senior 500cc racing division in the professional leagues and world championships.

 

This would be the desperately needed boost that speedway needs to reach global acceptance. The FIM should do something about it, but sadly there is nobody with a vision.

[manchesterpaul]

The potential for 'real' Speedway is undoubtedly there, but the moto cross bikes are much easier to get for the riders in a country like India. Speedway can't compepte with that. It is the same phenomen with other third world countries in Africa or South America. There is dirt-track motorcycle racing in many of them, but they do their racing on ordinary mx bikes.

 

Speedway would have to bring out a very, very, basic and very, very cheap bike, which would have to be reliably and easy to maintain for the riders in these parts of the world to take it up. I have read somewhere on the forum that there is a Chinese bike engine that is used in youth speedway, even in England. Maybe that would be a first step in the right directon. The people in Malaysia, who tried to introduce speedway there some three years ago, also used their own make of would-be speedway bikes with smaller capacity engines (115cc). It worked and it was fun, and in a few years it could become a real boom sport spreading all over the world. This would be a ground roots level introduction of the sport, with the top riders eventually going on to the senior 500cc racing division in the professional leagues and world championships.

 

This would be the desperately needed boost that speedway needs to reach global acceptance. The FIM should do something about it, but sadly there is nobody with a vision.

 

Thanks for the excellent detailed info in reply.

 

Incidentally, a few years back, i strongly made the same point as yourself with regards to the (non)affordability of taking up speedway racing for the general population. The whole basis of speedway used to be a motorcycle stripped down to it's rawest elements.

 

Unfortunately, along came a dastardly knave and introduced the Weslake engine to the sport. Overnight those riders with the dosh were winning races by the proverbial mile. Wasn't long before access wise speedway became a sport similar to motor racing as everyone needed to purchase the more expensive engines in order to compete.

Edited May 6, 2010 by manchesterpaul

[Bavarian]

Thanks for the excellent detailed info in reply.

 

Incidentally, a few years back, i strongly made the same point as yourself with regards to the (non)affordability of taking up speedway racing for the general population. The whole basis of speedway used to be a motorcycle stripped down to it's rawest elements.

 

Unfortunately, along came a dastardly knave and introduced the Weslake engine to the sport. Overnight those riders with the dosh were winning races by the proverbial mile. Wasn't long before access wise speedway became a sport similar to motor racing as everyone needed to purchase the more expensive engines in order to compete.

 

I agree with You 100%, this is when it all went the wrong way for speedway, which used to be the only affordable from of motorsport for the ordinary people. Until the early 1970's it used to be so easy to start out and try YOur luck in speedway. You had to purchase a half decent bike, went to a training school and got going.

Nowadays it is moto cross has this advantage, while speedway has become an obscure minority phenomen, that is hardly known by anyone outside the sport.

[bryanghk]

Well China is most definitely one of the next destinations for speedway. The disposable income of people in the country are going up really fast and people want to be at par with the population in the west. Also the Chinese government is extremely aggressive in developing China into one of the most developed nations of the world. Regarding India, problem is it has a much different setup, mindset and biking culture in the country. Only a handful of people might be interested in speedway but others would be interested in the local versions only.