British Speedway to be reborn?

[Crabba59]

30 minutes ago, Stoke Potter said:

The basic product is no good and not attractive to the paying public in sufficient numbers. 
First thing to be done is fix the tracks, NSS apart.

There are some good tracks in the championship ie scunthorpe redcar, Glasgow to name 3

[RobMcCaffery]

9 hours ago, Hacksaw Jim Duggan said:

I suppose it depends on the definition of survival, but yeah sure, somewhere in the country there will be some field where some people watch 4 guys racing a bike. 

That's not what I said.National League racing takes place in stadia now, not "some field where some people...." Still, if you want to believe such utter rubbish to look good then go ahead. The rest will leave you to it. Ever been to Iwade? That's real grass roots speedway and that certainly doesn't live up to your stupid description. 

 

[RobMcCaffery]

9 hours ago, jchapman said:

Could community run/owned clubs be an option?

It works in Sweden but that is a different society and economy to ours. 

I think the Isle of Wight meeting mentioned by someone earlie=er is this one:

 

[Baldyman]

Mmmm, if standard engines make the racing like that in the video above,, you can keep your standard engines.    That was awful racing.

Speedway should be about close racing and breath taking passes,,,,, although still not guaranteed,,, the easiest way to get speedway like that is having handicapped meetings, so the better riders have to work their way to the front,,,

Edited April 21, 2020 by Baldyman

[Garry1603]

What promoters will have to take into account with 'new speedway'' is the high likelihood that there will be a very big recession after the lockdown ends - many businesses will not open again, jobs will be lost and therefore people's entertainment budget will be really restricted probably for a year or two. Therefore the sport needs to be affordable for families, but obviously sustainable for the promotions as well - not an easy equation I'm afraid. A year of semi professional racing with reduced admissions (or big discounts / free admission for children) might get us through what is going to be a very hard time.

[iris123]

8 minutes ago, Garry1603 said:

What promoters will have to take into account with 'new speedway'' is the high likelihood that there will be a very big recession after the lockdown ends - many businesses will not open again, jobs will be lost and therefore people's entertainment budget will be really restricted probably for a year or two. Therefore the sport needs to be affordable for families, but obviously sustainable for the promotions as well - not an easy equation I'm afraid. A year of semi professional racing with reduced admissions (or big discounts / free admission for children) might get us through what is going to be a very hard time.

I understand what you are saying, and agree to some extent. Just a look at history though, and the great recession after the Wall Street crash in 1929, which was one of the high points in speedway history and then the real peak period for the sport in the UK was directly after WW2. So it could be that sport is a way of forgetting the daily problems. But I doubt in this day and age speedway will profit . Live in hope though 

[HGould]

3 minutes ago, Garry1603 said:

What promoters will have to take into account with 'new speedway'' is the high likelihood that there will be a very big recession after the lockdown ends - many businesses will not open again, jobs will be lost and therefore people's entertainment budget will be really restricted probably for a year or two. Therefore the sport needs to be affordable for families, but obviously sustainable for the promotions as well - not an easy equation I'm afraid. A year of semi professional racing with reduced admissions (or big discounts / free admission for children) might get us through what is going to be a very hard time.

Some of the more progressive Promotions have already announced that this will be the case.

I highlighted last week a few who have already made announcements with Free Offers and significantly reduced Admission Rates.

Other Clubs will no doubt follow once the actual position about chances of Racing in 2020 are known.

It's not all doom and gloom out there far from it. 

The biggest danger as I see it are the dinosaurs amongst the current Promoter population just carrying on regardless and killing the Sport in the process.

A breakaway of the progressives at some point might be the best solution and that takes us full cycle back to the 60's.

 

 

[FAST GATER]

5 hours ago, Baldyman said:

Mmmm, if standard engines make the racing like that in the video above,, you can keep your standard engines.    That was awful racing.

Speedway should be about close racing and breath taking passes,,,,, although still not guaranteed,,, the easiest way to get speedway like that is having handicapped meetings, so the better riders have to work their way to the front,,,

I think that you have to accept with all due respect that overall the standard of riders in the vid were not of the highest order,one of the finest forms of racing is go karts because this brings the driver skills to the fore .You have to use skill rather than raw power to gain advantage and those engines in better hands would make great racing because it is more about setup .You would often see this at grasstrack meetings where it was ( I can say this first hand) much easier to race a 500cc than a 250cc and this is where true skill and ability  float to the top not the biggest budget .

[waytogo28]

17 hours ago, jchapman said:

however it would now be easy to broadcast through an app so supporters could hear it through their headphones connected to their mobile phone.

Oh let it be so at King's Lynn where I have to, by necessity, sit on the disabled bench. That gives a reasonsble view but you can't hear much of any announcements and certainly no interviews. Riders seem to have practiced audo distancing for years and most regard the mic as something likely to do them harm. I have offered this as feedack for at least the last five seasons but with no improvement whatsoever. If you can have a word, please do. Sadly I don't have a smartphone, so I cannot go down the route suggested.

[waytogo28]

52 minutes ago, HGould said:

The biggest danger as I see it are the dinosaurs amongst the current Promoter population just carrying on regardless and killing the Sport in the process.

That for me is sadly ineveitable. It's dinosaur promoters and not dinosaur supporters that endanger the sport in the UK.

[W9 Lion]

20 hours ago, jchapman said:

I think this a great idea

Monitoring the engine controls would be the key. Rather than say having to stip a motor in the pits pre meeting, just say you get caught afterwards with a illeagle mod to the engine you receive a 2 year ban.

[Stoke Potter]

9 hours ago, Crabba59 said:

There are some good tracks in the championship ie scunthorpe redcar, Glasgow to name 3

And they are still inferior to the NSS so therefore could be better.

To survive in the 21st century you have to get away from the perception (and actually the reality) that there is very little racing/passing at most tracks and first out of the start wins.

For any newly built tracks the rules should be changed so the minimum size is 300m and also changes to minimum widths on straights and bends to that of something approach NSS dimensions, I can't give a dimension for that as I don't know the relevant widths.

For existing tracks, efforts should be made to increase dimensions, bend radii, etc. where possible.  There are currently too many fundamentally flawed tracks.

[DC2]

13 hours ago, Grachan said:

It's a team sport with a fairly complicated scoring process. Every match should have the score on display in some form or other.

I cannot understand why they don't, although I suspect it is so they can flog more programmes.

 

Is a scoreboard necessary if the PA announces the score after every race?

[greyhoundp]

16 minutes ago, Stoke Potter said:

And they are still inferior to the NSS so therefore could be better.

To survive in the 21st century you have to get away from the perception (and actually the reality) that there is very little racing/passing at most tracks and first out of the start wins.

For any newly built tracks the rules should be changed so the minimum size is 300m and also changes to minimum widths on straights and bends to that of something approach NSS dimensions, I can't give a dimension for that as I don't know the relevant widths.

For existing tracks, efforts should be made to increase dimensions, bend radii, etc. where possible.  There are currently too many fundamentally flawed tracks.

So its a combination of the bikes being to powerful for the existing Tracks, for as long as i can remember and that goes back to 1965 whenever a top rider gates its almost impossible to get past that rider, no matter what the Track and what the bike be it 2 valve, 4 valve, upright or lowdown, so for me it doesnt need upgraded tracks but tracks prepared properly, but home teams will always prepare a track so that they get an advantage or how their riders prefer it, What it really needs is handicap racing so that riders are equalised to an extent and that can only add to the entertainment which is after all what people want to see, however promoters dont seem to have any inclination to go down this road they just continue with the same tweaks that have brought the sport to borderline extinct.. and home produced riders are fewer and fewer as each year goes by..

[steve roberts]

24 minutes ago, Stoke Potter said:

And they are still inferior to the NSS so therefore could be better.

To survive in the 21st century you have to get away from the perception (and actually the reality) that there is very little racing/passing at most tracks and first out of the start wins.

For any newly built tracks the rules should be changed so the minimum size is 300m and also changes to minimum widths on straights and bends to that of something approach NSS dimensions, I can't give a dimension for that as I don't know the relevant widths.

For existing tracks, efforts should be made to increase dimensions, bend radii, etc. where possible.  There are currently too many fundamentally flawed tracks.

...and wasn't that just the case for many years. Tracks squeezed into some restricted stadiums...Somerton Park instantly come to mind! Trouble is that many tracks were not created in custom built stadiums (unlike many in Sweden) and had to share the space with other sports.

[FAST GATER]

I still think we can work with the tracks we have ,one of the great things about the UK  is  the smaller tracks in the past riders come  here to "hone" their skills, I loved the big open spaces of Crewe but  riders  then had to negociate the likes of Crayford .The sport needs to address costs and it will be easier to adapt what we have than start from scratch ,we don't have the goodwill other counties seem to enjoy for the creation of new tracks .In fact we are often battling to save what we have how long and how much did the NSS cost ,IMO it will probably be that last new stand alone track ever built  in this country .

 

[foamfence]

9 minutes ago, FAST GATER said:

I still think we can work with the tracks we have ,one of the great things about the UK  is  the smaller tracks in the past riders come  here to "hone" their skills, I loved the big open spaces of Crewe but  riders  then had to negociate the likes of Crayford .The sport needs to address costs and it will be easier to adapt what we have than start from scratch ,we don't have the goodwill other counties seem to enjoy for the creation of new tracks .In fact we are often battling to save what we have how long and how much did the NSS cost ,IMO it will probably be that last new stand alone track ever built  in this country .

 

Crewe and Crayford where in the days of uprights, these days you have laydowns struggling to negotiate tracks that were OK for uprights but are too narrow and the wrong shape for laydowns (with a very small number of exceptions). We've had loads of Speedway meetings on YouTube etc over the last few days, some of them were advertised as 'great meetings' and as someone who started his Speedway involvement in the early 50s, I quite looked forward to them but in the main it's been a borefest. I hope it has a future but I see it more as a part-time or amateur sport here, as it is it's unsustainable. 

[FAST GATER]

13 minutes ago, foamfence said:

Crewe and Crayford where in the days of uprights, these days you have laydowns struggling to negotiate tracks that were OK for uprights but are too narrow and the wrong shape for laydowns (with a very small number of exceptions). We've had loads of Speedway meetings on YouTube etc over the last few days, some of them were advertised as 'great meetings' and as someone who started his Speedway involvement in the early 50s, I quite looked forward to them but in the main it's been a borefest. I hope it has a future but I see it more as a part-time or amateur sport here, as it is it's unsustainable. 

IMO powerful laydowns should be for the GPS ,I am saying we should have less powerful unified engines in the league ,easier to change the engines than try to build new tracks .I have watch some old racing  have seen some good /excellent and boring bit like the racing today really ,the olny difference is a few seconds faster and a shed load of cost today  .

Edited April 21, 2020 by FAST GATER

[foamfence]

21 minutes ago, FAST GATER said:

IMO powerful laydowns should be for the GPS ,I am saying we should have less powerful unified engines in the league ,easier to change the engines than try to build new tracks .I have watch some old racing  have seen some good /excellent and boring bit like the racing today really ,the olny difference is a few seconds faster and a shed load of cost today  .

Plus there's no one watching! I certainly agree with you though.

[steve roberts]

23 minutes ago, FAST GATER said:

IMO powerful laydowns should be for the GPS ,I am saying we should have less powerful unified engines in the league ,easier to change the engines than try to build new tracks .I have watch some old racing  have seen some good /excellent and boring bit like the racing today really ,the olny difference is a few seconds faster and a shed load of cost today  .

If memory serves that was the situation when they were first introduced (1995?) but of course the authorities succumbed and they found their way into the domestic programme.