Save Isle Of Wight

[Jonny the spud]

If you are sponsoring a rider, that is great!, well done! What point are you making? Let's assume you are sponsoring a rider that owns a car. If you provide a trailer and a bike, you have reduced your outgoings!

It's not a question of reducing my outgoings. It's a question of making sure the young British rider has the best and most economical means of getting his equipment and himself all over the country and Europe to meetings I sponsored him with a secondhand van this year and an exploding fith gear in Munich meant a slow overnight drive from lonigo to Leicester with only 4 gears. The old trailer and car excuse in reducing riders costs is a false flag

[Ray Stadia]

It's not a question of reducing my outgoings. It's a question of making sure the young British rider has the best and most economical means of getting his equipment and himself all over the country and Europe to meetings I sponsored him with a secondhand van this year and an exploding fith gear in Munich meant a slow overnight drive from lonigo to Leicester with only 4 gears. The old trailer and car excuse in reducing riders costs is a false flag

What ev! Good for you, but I do think, overall, Speedway's troubles are due to riders, promoters and ultimately, fans, costs.

[greyhoundp]

If you are sponsoring a rider, that is great!, well done! What point are you making? Let's assume you are sponsoring a rider that owns a car. If you provide a trailer and a bike, you have reduced your outgoings!

Be careful Ray, do some research, Jonny is a little bit more than just a sponsor, but of course he is that also.

 

It's not a question of reducing my outgoings. It's a question of making sure the young British rider has the best and most economical means of getting his equipment and himself all over the country and Europe to meetings I sponsored him with a secondhand van this year and an exploding fith gear in Munich meant a slow overnight drive from lonigo to Leicester with only 4 gears. The old trailer and car excuse in reducing riders costs is a false flag

Hows Adams injury coming along jonny ?.

[gaptooth]

Sometimes it pays to know what you're talking about before opening your mouth and making yourself look dumb!

For a start trailers are impractical and who would want to leave one with around 10 grands worth of kit on in the car park of a service station. Secondly , when I raced sidecar grasstrack a good few years ago I saw a trailer turn over with an outfit on. Also who wants their bikes on a trailer getting wet, even with a tarp it's not ideal.

For another thing,promoters now insist on riders having 2 bikes and more often than not it is in their contract that they do.

Transit van every time, room for 2 or 3 sometimes 4 bikes if sharing a journey. Tool boxes, kit and 6 people. How many estate cars fit that bill?

As Jonny pointed out, who the hell wants to do a European road trip with a trailer or some cheap banger that's going to have problems.

As parents we try to teach our kids to be professional , it attracts sponsors, the promoters want it and so do the fans.

I worked with a young rider last year who didn't have two penny's to scratch his arse with but he did his best with what he had and was openly berated by his promoter for only having 1 bike.

With the Isle of Wight, I'm afraid if they can't encourage more islanders to attend then it's doomed whether they find someone to throw money in or not. The issue is paying punters not the air fence. That was just a bridge too far for the current chairman.

[Halifaxtiger]

So we can see the problems potentially caused by weekend racing, we see the lack of support for Tuesday racing, what do you guys suggest the IOW do?, rather than throw in the Towel.Its pretty apparent relying on locals and a few holidaymakers, just isnt enough.

 

As Dean says, there's no way Wightlink will accept free spaces for riders on a summer weekend, so that's out.

 

Tsunami's point about holiday makers just arriving or leaving is a good one too. I know someone who has tried to set up a track in a similar sort of area (ie a tourist destination) and he immediately ruled out weekend race nights for that specific reason.

 

Many locals stopped attending when the team went NL but IOW speedway always relied on visitors anyway. Back in 2008, Dave Pavitt showed me the spectator figures for a meeting held in April and it wasn't much more than the number quoted now. However, he stated that the figure would increase 6 fold in the summer holidays and I suspect he was right.

 

As by and large tourists couldn't care less what the level of the speedway is, there must have been a change between those days and what happened in the last couple of seasons, and I think that is a matter of advertising - there simply isn't enough, and to me that's a disastrous mistake when you rely on visitors to the area to survive.

[Ray Stadia]

Sometimes it pays to know what you're talking about before opening your mouth and making yourself look dumb!

For a start trailers are impractical and who would want to leave one with around 10 grands worth of kit on in the car park of a service station. Secondly , when I raced sidecar grasstrack a good few years ago I saw a trailer turn over with an outfit on. Also who wants their bikes on a trailer getting wet, even with a tarp it's not ideal.

For another thing,promoters now insist on riders having 2 bikes and more often than not it is in their contract that they do.

Transit van every time, room for 2 or 3 sometimes 4 bikes if sharing a journey. Tool boxes, kit and 6 people. How many estate cars fit that bill?

As Jonny pointed out, who the hell wants to do a European road trip with a trailer or some cheap banger that's going to have problems.

As parents we try to teach our kids to be professional , it attracts sponsors, the promoters want it and so do the fans.

I worked with a young rider last year who didn't have two penny's to scratch his arse with but he did his best with what he had and was openly berated by his promoter for only having 1 bike.

With the Isle of Wight, I'm afraid if they can't encourage more islanders to attend then it's doomed whether they find someone to throw money in or not. The issue is paying punters not the air fence. That was just a bridge too far for the current chairman.

If you feel the sport of Speedway is in good shape, fine. All I am really suggesting, is if the sport is to survive, not only on IOW, but tracks on the mainland, costs need to come down. How you reduce the costs, is up to the sport as a whole, but from someone outside looking in, you either raise the cost of admission or you reduce the cost for the promoter and rider. It is not only me saying costs are too high, there are many others on this forum. It has been said on this thread that riders have been paid 'over the top' to ride for IOW. With a fan base of 120, that is never going to square! If promoters say 'well, you can't get them to ride unless we pay them £x'. Then Speedway must be the only motorcycle sport who does that. The NL or certainly the spirit of the NL is a training league an amateur league. If you started out on Moto X, Trials or Grass Track you wouldn't get paid, you pay for everything and do it for the love of the sport. Why should the amateur end of Speedway be different?

[Vince]

I can answer that!

 

Firstly amateur Speedway is different, clubs run meetings weekends and the riders pay to enter just the same as the other sports you mention.

 

If you ride MotoX, Trials or Grasstrack you do so nearly always on a Sunday, you also pick and choose the meetings you want to do or can fit in around other commitments. Equally you ride when and where you can afford to, if you have major problems with your bike you sit out a few meetings until you can afford to fix it.

 

If you ride Speedway at NL level you ride when and where you are told, it is hugely difficult to fit in a job around your Speedway commitments. You get fined if you turn up late or lose your team place if you can't get any more time off work. You lose your team place (and any hope of progressing in the sport) if you can't turn up with good bikes because you have had problems and the money has run out. Even running on a shoestring it cost me more for one lad to ride NL Speedway than it did for myself and two lads to ride local MX. The major expense was always the travelling and time off work but don't go back to the van conversation because you are wrong!

 

It is right that costs need to be reduced but the set pay rate for NL isn't going to cover anybody's costs let alone see them making money. Do away with the payment and you will end the sport as the vast majority of riders couldn't survive. Cost reduction has to come from the reliability and maintenance of machinery and for the NL possibly enforcing the pay rates better (but even then the Island has the unique problem of it's location making it a longer trip, therefore more time off work, for the majority of riders).

[iris123]

In a way it seems IoW is more suited to a continental style approach of running a number of meetings in the summer months rather than a British league system.I would say the BSPA should be more flexible in their ideas,but it seems they have a one system fits all,or nothing approach.

[gaptooth]

If you feel the sport of Speedway is in good shape, fine. All I am really suggesting, is if the sport is to survive, not only on IOW, but tracks on the mainland, costs need to come down. How you reduce the costs, is up to the sport as a whole, but from someone outside looking in, you either raise the cost of admission or you reduce the cost for the promoter and rider. It is not only me saying costs are too high, there are many others on this forum. It has been said on this thread that riders have been paid 'over the top' to ride for IOW. With a fan base of 120, that is never going to square! If promoters say 'well, you can't get them to ride unless we pay them £x'. Then Speedway must be the only motorcycle sport who does that. The NL or certainly the spirit of the NL is a training league an amateur league. If you started out on Moto X, Trials or Grass Track you wouldn't get paid, you pay for everything and do it for the love of the sport. Why should the amateur end of Speedway be different?

 

Where did I say it was in good shape? I simply stated why your idea of estate cars and trailers was tosh. Perhaps a career in politics would suit you .

[Ray Stadia]

Where did I say it was in good shape? I simply stated why your idea of estate cars and trailers was tosh. Perhaps a career in politics would suit you .

I do love forum members, like you, who berate members ideas, but are not capable of coming up with alternative suggestions. I still remind you that many amateur motorcycle racers still use cars and trailers to haul themselves around. I can see it's not as fashionable as turning up in a sign-painted van though. Speedway's issues, sadly, go beyond 'do I use a trailer or a van'.

[gaptooth]

And I like ones that totally skip over the point and come back with something different from the point I was making!! Amateurs don't get fined if they are late or break down or have their equipment pinched. I like you point out how I berated your ideas? I simply made my point coming from a professional point of view. Perhaps we should scrap professional speedway and just have amateur meetings then?

[Ray Stadia]

And I like ones that totally skip over the point and come back with something different from the point I was making!! Amateurs don't get fined if they are late or break down or have their equipment pinched. I like you point out how I berated your ideas? I simply made my point coming from a professional point of view. Perhaps we should scrap professional speedway and just have amateur meetings then?

Speedway, surely, is semi professional for many anyway. If Speedway could be made cheaper for everyone, promoters, riders and fans, it could perhaps save the closure of tracks like IOW.

[greyhoundp]

And I like ones that totally skip over the point and come back with something different from the point I was making!! Amateurs don't get fined if they are late or break down or have their equipment pinched. I like you point out how I berated your ideas? I simply made my point coming from a professional point of view. Perhaps we should scrap professional speedway and just have amateur meetings then?

To begin with The NL was more or less amateur, only paying basic expences, in recent seasons it has sadly begun to move away from this. With the Big 2 as i see them, and now Kent in the NL. The NL was originally a way of young riders aided by more experienced riders to learn there trade, and gain experience, but also a way for new Tracks to develop there set ups, improve there facilities, such as Plymouth did, and then progress to the PL etc,etc. This left the truly Amateur Teams such as Buxton, and various Clubs junior Teams; Scunthorpe, Kings Lynn to find the young riders and bring them on with little or no pressure, but now we have Cradley and Mildenhall, 2 Clubs who have an entirely different objectives, The first has a great History and Tradition in the Sport, with a supporter base, many are envious of, The 2nd has tried and failed to survive in the PL for the same reasons IOW are struggling now in the NL, it cant financially live with the big boys.

Okay so pay structures cannot be policed, riders expences are difficult to control, therefore the smaller Teams face an uneven struggle to compete, i see the time getting closer, where IOW, Buxton, and even Stoke could no longer afford to stage NL racing as we now know it, The uneven contest between the have and the have nots will see the end of these smaller Teams.

 

Here is a suggestion; why dont we bring back a form of rider allocation, whereby riders are allocated to Teams, this way it will give the smaller Teams an equal playing field when it comes to the signing of riders, and hopefully it should help to control riders pay in a supposedly amateur League. This will give the IOW,s, Buxtons, Sittincbournes, more incentive to carry on or even come back into League racing, and see the riders who see this as an easy payday move up into the PL and leave more openings for younger guys, to break into the sport.

 

Hopefully more suggestions could be made, to help save Teams like the IOW.

Edited December 26, 2013 by greyhoundp

[Vince]

I still remind you that many amateur motorcycle racers still use cars and trailers to haul themselves around.

 

 

I'm not sure if you are deliberately missing the point. Some do, by far the majority at any amateur event turn up in vans these days, that's because they are cheap enough to buy and run and comfortable enough these days that they can be used as everyday transport.

 

Those that do use a car and trailer do so when they leave home at a sensible time on a Sunday morning and arrive back late afternoon or early evening. Unlike Speedway riders who are out and about at all hours, any day, any weather and sometimes have to use a services at 2am. Personally I wouldn't leave a bike on a trailer at 2am in most services.

 

You seem to keep telling everybody that it's about riders wanting to be 'fashionable' when in fact it is by far the most sensible and cost effective option. Clearly you have not run a modern van for yourself so why not listen to those who have that experience?

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

Riders in the NL should not be paid more than £15 per point. At that level alone if you score ok you should be able to break even.you will never make money but at that level your not supppsed to be. If you choose to spend 1000s on not needed parts then thats your problem. Its not needed at that level. I have done this so i know what im talking about. I also know the latest breed of up and coming rider want bling ,it not exclusive to speedway they are the same in motocross. Bling costs £s but dosent make you a better rider. To be the best takes hard graft and dedication and going beyond that and you have to expect to loose money in doing it. When you have served your time and move up the leagues thats when you should be looking to make money at it

Edited December 26, 2013 by THE DEAN MACHINE

[Hawk127]

Why not allow the IOW to run open meetings and make it the main track to race the 'formula 2' open speedway meetings. Alternatively affiliate riders to premier or elite teams and have them enter four man teams to the type of speedway rather than NL and see if they progress any better with a lower cost product to attract new talent to the sport. Another solution, hold the super seven events at the IOW track.

[Ray Stadia]

I'm not sure if you are deliberately missing the point. Some do, by far the majority at any amateur event turn up in vans these days, that's because they are cheap enough to buy and run and comfortable enough these days that they can be used as everyday transport.

 

Those that do use a car and trailer do so when they leave home at a sensible time on a Sunday morning and arrive back late afternoon or early evening. Unlike Speedway riders who are out and about at all hours, any day, any weather and sometimes have to use a services at 2am. Personally I wouldn't leave a bike on a trailer at 2am in most services.

 

You seem to keep telling everybody that it's about riders wanting to be 'fashionable' when in fact it is by far the most sensible and cost effective option. Clearly you have not run a modern van for yourself so why not listen to those who have that experience?

You are missing the point Vince, I mentioned van versus trailer as 'a' possible way to reduce costs, not by any stretch the 'only' way and if riders substitute a van for a car or need a van for their other income earning activities, yes, I can see a van is sensible. But if the van sits on the drive when not used for racing and the rider runs around in a car most of the time, the van is an expensive luxury. And yes, I am aware that vans nowadays are comfortable etc, but not practical for everyday use, in my opinion. But you just want to pick holes in one part of an earlier comment I made, when the big picture is IOW hanging on by it's fingertips and perhaps others and why? because promoters can't afford to run and why? because the promoters biggest expense is the riders. Reduce riders costs, promoter reduces the amount he has to pay and the big benefit, tracks might stay open!

[rhidassa]

I may be wrong, but I thought the main issue affecting whether or not Isle of Wight can afford to run this year and indeed in the future was the cash to afford an air fence, which is now a requirement to run in a league this year? Whilst I'm not saying everything else is rosy and, if they could get an air fence in place, they wouldn't need to look at other elements such as reducing costs or further promotion... but surely these wouldn't affect raising funds to get an air fence to be able to race? From what I've seen, surely if they can't get the financial investment to get an air fence in place, other things such as race nights aren't relevant, because they won't be able to run?

 

I thought I was reading more of a 'Problems in Speedway' thread than anything directly relevant to saving Isle of Wight Speedway...

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

I may be wrong, but I thought the main issue affecting whether or not Isle of Wight can afford to run this year and indeed in the future was the cash to afford an air fence, which is now a requirement to run in a league this year? Whilst I'm not saying everything else is rosy and, if they could get an air fence in place, they wouldn't need to look at other elements such as reducing costs or further promotion... but surely these wouldn't affect raising funds to get an air fence to be able to race? From what I've seen, surely if they can't get the financial investment to get an air fence in place, other things such as race nights aren't relevant, because they won't be able to run?

 

I thought I was reading more of a 'Problems in Speedway' thread than anything directly relevant to saving Isle of Wight Speedway...

the IOW lost £20,000 last season lorna. This needs to be addressed before the issue of the air fence

[Lord Skid]

the IOW lost £20,000 last season lorna. This needs to be addressed before the issue of the air fence

Does the 20k loss include the take from the bar/catering, scooter rally, gymnasium rental, wedding/party venue hire?