Good Letter In The Star...

[OveFundinFan]

I think it would be good to have 2nd halfs return, except not 2nd halves, run them straight after the main event. May well only be 3 or 4 races for "local" juniors who want a bit of track practice. Running straight after the meeting may mean they will have a "crowd" watching them.

[steve roberts]

Years ago most but not all riders( the likes of Kelvin Tattum , Andy Smith and Joe Screen went in BL straight off) started in the second half of meetings in those days the old NL and the Gulf British league ,firstly in the NL s/halves making the team then about a season later having ago in the s/halves of the Gulf league .From this position they were then offered BL places to cover injury etc before D/U on regular bacis ultimately moving up to full time BL after about 3yrs.This seemed to work quite well IMO as a general rule of thumb a NL number 1 was the same level as a BL reserve of course you had riders that never left the NL or never made the grade or could not make a living in the BL.

I agree! The old Second Division/New National League was originally created to bring on fresh talent with a few 'old 'hands' to get things started. It produced many riders who went on to achieve great things at international level. By the late seventies, however, the impetus faded and the league moved direction and eventually, with the inclusion of foreign riders, became a very different animal.

[chunky]

It would be interesting, although I suspect difficult to get some analysis of the reality. However, it's probably not a huge leap for an experienced motocrosser to move into speedway, which many were encouraged to do because there was more money in speedway. Many riders would also have had grass track experience, although from memory grasstrackers didn't tend to make hugely successful speedway riders, obviously with some notable exceptions. It's something also observed by John Berry in his book.

 

Without actually stating specifics, you brought up the point I was going to make. It's not so much about being an "experience motocrosser", but more the fact that such an exponent would - back in the day - have been in AT LEAST his early-to-mid-20's. While there were SOME special cases (from Ronnie Moore to Michael Lee), a good starting age for speedway was considered 25 or 26! At that age, a person is more mature, and probably a lot stronger than a 15-year-old schoolboy. Therefore, it was probably quite a bit easier to achieve a level of competitive mediocrity with relatively little effort.

 

Again, I think a lot of that can be attributed to the machinery used, track surfaces, and the general style of riding back then, and is less of a indication of an inferior standard of rider as suggested by some.

 

Steve