BOBBATH Posted July 4, 2022 Report Share Posted July 4, 2022 Any forumlanders out there who attended this meeting. Living in Canada I just had to go.. A reasonable crowd , but there was absolutely no publicity-nothing in the L.A. papers for example. Les Collins had the meeting of his life- but of course the main thing was the Kenny Carter-Bruce Penhall clash. On balance I have to go with the refs decision to exclude Carter-great meeting though. I met quite a few British fans -for some it was the holiday of a lifetime. Also met Dave Jessup at Disneyland-seemed like everybody had a wonderful time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chunky Posted July 4, 2022 Report Share Posted July 4, 2022 I was there too. Scary to think it was 40 years ago! Yeah, the sport has never meant anything to the US public - or media. We went to a meeting at Ventura the week before, and it was like no speedway I'd ever been to before. The locals acted like we were all weirdos with our team gear, and one guy saw all my badges, and said, "He must have 20 lbs of metal round his neck"! I had a great time, and we DID have the holiday of a lifetime. We (two coaches) spent the week in LA, and then drove back to Dallas, taking in some great sights. We bumped into dear old Vaclav Verner and Emil Sova in Disneyland... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOBBATH Posted July 4, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2022 Did you go to any other US tracks Steve- I managed to go to Costa Mesa and Ascot. I think Costa Mesa must have been like the nearest thing I ever got to a New Cross style track Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chunky Posted July 4, 2022 Report Share Posted July 4, 2022 3 hours ago, BOBBATH said: Did you go to any other US tracks Steve- I managed to go to Costa Mesa and Ascot. I think Costa Mesa must have been like the nearest thing I ever got to a New Cross style track No, just Ventura. I've been to a few other American tracks, including the old Mid-America speedway in Indianapolis, and Lawrenceburg, plus one-off tracks in Duquoin and Springfield (both Illinois) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatface Posted July 5, 2022 Report Share Posted July 5, 2022 Don't know how others see it, but looking back that final was the end of an era. Not just Penhall's career, but the end of the sport being in the national consciousness. The Penhall-Carter rivalry was national news and thereafter, the interest just seemed to fall away quite rapidly. Four years on and the World Final was not even televised. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arnieg Posted July 5, 2022 Report Share Posted July 5, 2022 1 hour ago, falcace said: Don't know how others see it, but looking back that final was the end of an era. Not just Penhall's career, but the end of the sport being in the national consciousness. The Penhall-Carter rivalry was national news and thereafter, the interest just seemed to fall away quite rapidly. Four years on and the World Final was not even televised. Agree. Sunday People expose followed by World of Sport dropping speedway were the major staging posts in that decline during the 80s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehone Posted July 5, 2022 Report Share Posted July 5, 2022 i was there, and at Costa Mesa, even met some rather horrible Cradley fans in Disneyland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve roberts Posted July 5, 2022 Report Share Posted July 5, 2022 10 hours ago, arnieg said: Agree. Sunday People expose followed by World of Sport dropping speedway were the major staging posts in that decline during the 80s. Personally I think that the Sunday People expose was blown out of all proportion...anybody with any knowledge of speedway knew that deals were made and other sports have been equally guilty over the years and some more recently. Remember reading "Cloughie's Book" that players during the sixties were found guilty of throwing matches but football survived. The only thing that Simmo and Wiggy were guilty of was was being naive and talking to strangers about deals that had taken place. Martin Rogers in answer to my question regarding the expose wrote a very interesting reply in an edition of "Backtrack" a few years back which proved enlightening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOBBATH Posted July 6, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2022 3 hours ago, steve roberts said: Personally I think that the Sunday People expose was blown out of all proportion...anybody with any knowledge of speedway knew that deals were made and other sports have been equally guilty over the years and some more recently. Remember reading "Cloughie's Book" that players during the sixties were found guilty of throwing matches but football survived. The only thing that Simmo and Wiggy were guilty of was was being naive and talking to strangers about deals that had taken place. Martin Rogers in answer to my question regarding the expose wrote a very interesting reply in an edition of "Backtrack" a few years back which proved enlightening. Maybe the European decline is just in UK- the Poles seem to be going gang busters-and that's where all the top riders go with Speedway crowds to match. What say you forumlanders? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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