Is anyone losing interest

[steve roberts]

9 hours ago, KIRKYLANE said:

£20 may seem a lot.... but compared to a top football match I am sure it is relatively cheap..... I have no idea what the cheapest prices are for Premiership football

 

..I certainly wouldn't entertain going to a football match either to be honest.

For me to consider a speedway meeting there would have to be at least twenty heats (including a second half of sorts)

[noggin]

39 minutes ago, auntie doris said:

With local track Swindon not running, next nearest Zummerzet not running, and no Cardiff GP, no speedway for me this year, therefore no interest.

I'm the same, dumped BT so don't watch the Gp's, if I remember will watch the Eurosport match, but that's it, such a far cry to when I started going again in 1987, saturday nights and loads of home meetings, all so sparce now.

[OveFundinFan]

1 hour ago, chunky said:

So, let me ask you...

You would be much happier doing a 600 mile round trip to see a meeting, and have it be over and done with within 45 minutes?

If I chose to do a 600 mile trip knowing it may finish in 45 min, yes I would be happy.

But in the years I went to matches non were as quick as 45 minutes nor do I expect a match to be, more realistically between 75-90 min, 90 is quite enough.

What I don’t want to see is excessive gardening, pit gates open mechanics out at false starts, chain tensioning, numerous practice starts etc. 

[chunky]

2 hours ago, old bob at herne bay said:

Whoa  Chunky ... steady on ...... 

How about  running 15 heats of speedway in around 75 minutes  .... then an interval of say 15 minutes , and then say 4 or 5 heats in around 30 minutes for   junior racing, novice racing or even some invitation races to allwo the tteam to test machinery  ? that looks like 120 minutes for a race meeting with up to 20 races.

Don't believe any club consider that is even possible with the current bunch of promoters, track staff riders and referees.

 

That is my point...

There AREN'T 20 heats, and there ISN'T an interval.

[Trees]

7 hours ago, Bagpuss said:

My argument would be that it's  more likely to be the product that has changed rather than all the people who no longer go because they don't love it any more. It's a shame because when speedway is spot on there is arguably nothing better but it's so rarely like that any more unfortunately. 

I don't think so, I think people's priorities, loves, wants and needs change, more so than 4 riders racing over 4 laps ....

[OveFundinFan]

59 minutes ago, chunky said:

That is my point...

There AREN'T 20 heats, and there ISN'T an interval.

So I wouldn’t expect a meeting with 15 races to go on for 2 hours+, but they do. I doubt very much any meeting of 15 races would be finished in 45 minutes either.

[Trees]

3 hours ago, auntie doris said:

With local track Swindon not running, next nearest Zummerzet not running, and no Cardiff GP, no speedway for me this year, therefore no interest.

I'd be the same, nobody has the same passion for any club but their own ...

[Trees]

6 hours ago, old bob at herne bay said:

FORGET race nights

FORGET crappy little or large stadiums

FORGET admission charges.

 

What can be changed .......

STOP gardening at the tapes

STOP practice starts all over the track prior to every race.

STOP riders jumping every other heat causing a restart

STOP delaying every heat until the ref puts on the 2 minute warning

STOP delaying meetings waiting for riders having 2 races in a row

STOP delaying meetings for endless grading of the track.

Tell the riders they are paid for by the spectators , tell them they are there to ENTERTAIN, not piddle about re adjusting chains back wheel nuts, cooling clutches, and refuelling the bike after every false start. IT'S BORING TO WATCH. 

 

 

So you're saying that riders doing a bit of gardening etc, trying to get a slight advantage to win the race, stops you going lol.   It's their livelihoods, what do they call it these days, degrees or something like that (little positives that give you success), they need to do everything they can to win and earn??

Who wants a meeting to be over in half hour, no banter, no interaction with the crowd, just heat after heat after heat, nah not for me, it's a night out isn't it?  

[chunky]

1 hour ago, Trees said:

So you're saying that riders doing a bit of gardening etc, trying to get a slight advantage to win the race, stops you going lol.   It's their livelihoods, what do they call it these days, degrees or something like that (little positives that give you success), they need to do everything they can to win and earn??

Who wants a meeting to be over in half hour, no banter, no interaction with the crowd, just heat after heat after heat, nah not for me, it's a night out isn't it?  

Exactly!

[Halifaxtiger]

10 hours ago, steve roberts said:

..I certainly wouldn't entertain going to a football match either to be honest.

For me to consider a speedway meeting there would have to be at least twenty heats (including a second half of sorts)

Having sat through the scintillating displays of England's football team for the last three matches, it is difficult for me to accept that speedway does not give better value for money, at least on occasion. 

8 hours ago, Trees said:

I'd be the same, nobody has the same passion for any club but their own ...

Not entirely true. Up to 2017, I attended about 80 matches a season at tracks all across the country without supporting any of them. Based upon his posts here, Cityrebel is the same. 

8 hours ago, OveFundinFan said:

So I wouldn’t expect a meeting with 15 races to go on for 2 hours+, but they do. I doubt very much any meeting of 15 races would be finished in 45 minutes either.

Completely agree. Unless exceptional circumstances apply, a meeting should take no longer than 90 minutes and I have no problem if it takes an hour as I go to watch racing, nothing else.

I can recall going to an early season meeting at  Birmingham a few years ago. It took over 2 hours on a freezing cold night, with fans standing around getting frostbite. You could almost hear the anger when it was announced that there would be 'a short interval'. Another was a bank holiday one at Kent against Mildenhall (which remains probably the worst I have ever seen - it was when, infamously, they refused to bring the ambulance on to the track to treat an injured rider) that took almost 3 hours.  What compounded that was how things dramatically speeded up when they realised they might break the curfew. 

Unnecessary delay is, in my view, a total disaster. 

7 hours ago, Trees said:

So you're saying that riders doing a bit of gardening etc, trying to get a slight advantage to win the race, stops you going lol.   It's their livelihoods, what do they call it these days, degrees or something like that (little positives that give you success), they need to do everything they can to win and earn??

Who wants a meeting to be over in half hour, no banter, no interaction with the crowd, just heat after heat after heat, nah not for me, it's a night out isn't it?  

Riders put before fans yet again. Its one of speedway's greatest failings. They are paid to perform, I am paying to watch so what I want comes first every time.

As I said above, I go along to watch racing, nothing else (a bonus is the opportunity to see friends). There are enough gaps between heats without creating any other and which give requisite time for announcements and interviews.

Give me a meeting over in half an hour any day (although the shortest  I can recall is about 75 minutes) over one that takes five times as long as that with endless tractor racing, totally unnecessary intervals,  announcers and presenters who think they are the star of the show and riders doing precisely what they like.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Halifaxtiger

[steve roberts]

9 hours ago, Trees said:

So you're saying that riders doing a bit of gardening etc, trying to get a slight advantage to win the race, stops you going lol.   It's their livelihoods, what do they call it these days, degrees or something like that (little positives that give you success), they need to do everything they can to win and earn??

Who wants a meeting to be over in half hour, no banter, no interaction with the crowd, just heat after heat after heat, nah not for me, it's a night out isn't it?  

Couldn't agree more...speedway for me was meeting up with my mates. Putting the speedway world to rights between races and generally enjoying a night out.

[IainB]

23 hours ago, KIRKYLANE said:

£20 may seem a lot.... but compared to a top football match I am sure it is relatively cheap..... I have no idea what the cheapest prices are for Premiership football

I'm not sure you're comparing apples with apples there

22 hours ago, mikebv said:

It's telling that other forms of Motorsport all run into, and through the weekends, rather than try and run during the week..

Bottom line is Speedway in the UK is just an opportunity for riders to earn money under an ultra tenuous "team" infrastructure, that ultimately delivers "Championships" hardly anyone cares about, achieve very little merit or kudos in winning, and certainly have no major financial reward...

There's a reason the British F1 GP is not being run on a Monday night...

I've been staggered by the lack of self promotion by Leicester after winning their Championship, I've mentioned it a few times on some of the recent Leicester threads and have mostly been shutdown by people close to the club. What is the point of paying to go along to watch a "team" try and win a Championship and when they do it almost gets ignored!

14 hours ago, old bob at herne bay said:

Whoa  Chunky ... steady on ...... 

How about  running 15 heats of speedway in around 75 minutes  .... then an interval of say 15 minutes , and then say 4 or 5 heats in around 30 minutes for   junior racing, novice racing or even some invitation races to allwo the tteam to test machinery  ? that looks like 120 minutes for a race meeting with up to 20 races.

Don't believe any club consider that is even possible with the current bunch of promoters, track staff riders and referees.

 

Leicester regularly run matches around 1 hour 50 minutes, for me that's 20 minutes too long... the other week they even managed to cram 15 races into 2 and a half hours, admittedly due to inadequate medical cover. I'm pretty sure that back in the day at Leicester (Blackbird Road) they used to allow free entry to the stadium after the main match was done, not sure if they did that at all tracks? And I'm pretty sure that's how I and probably many others started going down regularly, I went to a few "freebies" liked what I saw and then started paying to watch the main match.  

11 hours ago, OveFundinFan said:

So I wouldn’t expect a meeting with 15 races to go on for 2 hours+, but they do. I doubt very much any meeting of 15 races would be finished in 45 minutes either.

I wouldn't want a meeting to be over in 45 mins, equally I don't expect to be stood on the terraces for 2 and a half hours, 90 mins seems to be a happy medium with some kind of "2nd half". Perhaps 90 mins should be the target and like in Cricket with slow over rates, some kind of penalty introduced for those that can't.

11 hours ago, Trees said:

So you're saying that riders doing a bit of gardening etc, trying to get a slight advantage to win the race, stops you going lol.   It's their livelihoods, what do they call it these days, degrees or something like that (little positives that give you success), they need to do everything they can to win and earn??

Who wants a meeting to be over in half hour, no banter, no interaction with the crowd, just heat after heat after heat, nah not for me, it's a night out isn't it?  

I don't go to the Speedway to watch you having banter with your mates, I'm there to watch the Speedway racing on the track. I suggest you meet with your mates before or after the meeting

[marko]

Poland seem to have it right, but they have not always been in that position, that country has a history of being held back and yet still they have risen our sport to levels far exceeding our own, there must be lessons we can learn from how they turned that around.

We have a massive rider shortage, 75 odd years I recall a story of clubs especially Wembley having mass try outs to find future riders and stars, that is what we probably need to do, invest in getting new riders to the sport, but you have to get other things in place first, the equipment needs to be more standard and cheaper to run, it needs to be more viable for new riders or grass track/motocross riders to get involved.

As it stands, one "big" league will happen eventually anyway because clubs will continue to close because what we have is unsustainable, our leagues are going through the motions continuing to be bleed money.

[Sotonian]

20 minutes ago, marko said:

Poland seem to have it right, but they have not always been in that position, that country has a history of being held back and yet still they have risen our sport to levels far exceeding our own, there must be lessons we can learn from how they turned that around.

We have a massive rider shortage, 75 odd years I recall a story of clubs especially Wembley having mass try outs to find future riders and stars, that is what we probably need to do, invest in getting new riders to the sport, but you have to get other things in place first, the equipment needs to be more standard and cheaper to run, it needs to be more viable for new riders or grass track/motocross riders to get involved.

As it stands, one "big" league will happen eventually anyway because clubs will continue to close because what we have is unsustainable, our leagues are going through the motions continuing to be bleed money.

That will be one "small" league then!

[OGT]

On 6/28/2021 at 9:08 AM, KIRKYLANE said:

£20 may seem a lot.... but compared to a top football match I am sure it is relatively cheap..... I have no idea what the cheapest prices are for Premiership football

 

A Sky Sports day pass on Now TV is £9.99. That does for 24 hours, obv.

 

[moxey63]

Speedway matches would end faster if "promoters" actually worked on the track before the crowd was in the stadium and not during the meeting, referees chose not to call a restart umpteen times a night, and the gaps between heats were cut and didn't actually cause concern whether the club had gone bust since the last race. 

[geoff100]

15 minutes ago, moxey63 said:

Speedway matches would end faster if "promoters" actually worked on the track before the crowd was in the stadium and not during the meeting, referees chose not to call a restart umpteen times a night, and the gaps between heats were cut and didn't actually cause concern whether the club had gone bust since the last race. 

Down to the riders "4 laps standing clutch start" couldnt be easier, last nights show was awful watching riders gardening and then jumping start fining them they will soon stand still!

[moxey63]

1 minute ago, geoff100 said:

Down to the riders "4 laps standing clutch start" couldnt be easier, last nights show was awful watching riders gardening and then jumping start fining them they will soon stand still!

Seems some disagree, going to the reaction to my last post. Some are still happy with the tedious delays and then wonder why new, younger fans with zero concentration levels aren't swarming to the sport. 

[Hacksaw Jim Duggan]

1 hour ago, moxey63 said:

track before the crowd was in the stadium and not during the meeting,

What an idiot 

[Hacksaw Jim Duggan]

51 minutes ago, moxey63 said:

Seems some disagree, going to the reaction to my last post. Some are still happy with the tedious delays and then wonder why new, younger fans with zero concentration levels aren't swarming to the sport. 

Have you ever actually attended or even watched a game of NBA, NFL or Rugby?