Graham Miles article Speedway Star

[HGould]

Interview with one of the bravest of the brave. 

Incredible details I wasn't aware of. 

If it doesn't make you cry then I doubt you have any emotion. 

Ultimately though a story of incredible bravery, hope, determination and fortitude over the most awful injuries. 

Respect for all concerned. 

[Goldhawk]

i subscribe to the the Star but haven't fully read the article yet .

I was there at Hackney that night on the 4th bend where the sickening crash occurred. Milo ( "The Red Knight" ) was making great strides.at Hackney and wowing the fans every week with his daredevil swoops round the fence. Tragic crash. Hackney was an outstanding race track but the lamp standards there at that time caused many injuries, indeed worse. It is brilliant that they now have to be away from fence and have air fences. If Milo had had that crash today very likely he would have got up and walked away. 

[brianbuck]

Yes - a most enlightening and sobering article that graphically highlights the risks that all speedway riders take every time they take to the track.

[Tinker]

I have just read the article and must admit I wasn't aware of the full details of the incident. Sounded absolutely awful.

I then started to remember all the other crashes/fatalities/injuries that took place at Hackney over the years so my question to anyone who attended at the time is, how dangerous was it? Why were there seemingly more serious injuries/fatalities than other tracks and was it just the lamp standards or were other factors to blame in addition?

[Chadster]

I was there the night Denny Pyeatt was killed and that was the lamp standards, which the next had all been covered in old tyres. It's difficult to explain, because it didn't seem to have a scary reputation like Exeter, with its steel fence, nor was it seen as a difficult track to ride like Newport, which a lot of riders seemed to absolutely hate and Len Silver was well known for always trying to provide a good surface. It may be that it was just one of those tracks that encouraged riders to have a go and that may have caused accidents.

[salty]

No expert, because I was only an occasional visitor to Hackney and wasn't present for any bad crashes, but I always felt that the racing line got so wide it encouraged riders to blast out by the fence. A slight misjudgement at such speed then brought those oft mentioned lamp standards into play.

[chunky]

8 minutes ago, salty said:

No expert, because I was only an occasional visitor to Hackney and wasn't present for any bad crashes, but I always felt that the racing line got so wide it encouraged riders to blast out by the fence. A slight misjudgement at such speed then brought those oft mentioned lamp standards into play.

Thing is, even now, some riders love to ride out wide - often right up against the fence (we've seen certain riders actually USE the fence - so what do you do?

By its very nature, speedway is a dangerous sport, and no amount of air fences, helmets, or padding will change that. In ANY motorsport, competitors will take chances, as they look for a little extra.

Yes, it's risky, but that's why riders enjoy riding, and we enjoy watching ..

[salty]

2 minutes ago, chunky said:

Thing is, even now, some riders love to ride out wide - often right up against the fence (we've seen certain riders actually USE the fence - so what do you do?

By its very nature, speedway is a dangerous sport, and no amount of air fences, helmets, or padding will change that. In ANY motorsport, competitors will take chances, as they look for a little extra.

Yes, it's risky, but that's why riders enjoy riding, and we enjoy watching ..

All true. I just felt Waterden Road encouraged riders to go ever wider, more than other tracks (in my memory).

I guess we should be thankful that the sport is "safer" now than it was back in the day. 

[chunky]

1 hour ago, salty said:

All true. I just felt Waterden Road encouraged riders to go ever wider, more than other tracks (in my memory).

I guess we should be thankful that the sport is "safer" now than it was back in the day. 

The way that modern bikes rev and kick, it needs to be! I still don't get why we need all that power, just for wheelspin, and then it picks up a bit of dirt, and they're over the fence...

Thing is, Hackney was just one of many where the (or 'a') racing line moved out during the meeting - and it made for great racing. I grew up never hearing the term "blue groove", but it seems to be what the riders want these days.

[Chadster]

Thinking on, the bad accidents seemed to happen from the mid 70s on, so was it that the track struggled to accomodate the faster bikes that developed with the introduction of four valves?

[arnieg]

11 minutes ago, Chadster said:

Thinking on, the bad accidents seemed to happen from the mid 70s on, so was it that the track struggled to accomodate the faster bikes that developed with the introduction of four valves?

That's always been my view.

[chunky]

3 hours ago, arnieg said:

That's always been my view.

Trust me, there were MANY bad accidents happening before the mid-70's...

[customhouseregular]

Sadly many at Custom House in the mid/late. 60’s. Wills and Teodorowicz come to mind. 

[Bunce]

On 3/9/2024 at 7:40 AM, Goldhawk said:

i subscribe to the the Star but haven't fully read the article yet .

I was there at Hackney that night on the 4th bend where the sickening crash occurred. Milo ( "The Red Knight" ) was making great strides.at Hackney and wowing the fans every week with his daredevil swoops round the fence. Tragic crash. Hackney was an outstanding race track but the lamp standards there at that time caused many injuries, indeed worse. It is brilliant that they now have to be away from fence and have air fences. If Milo had had that crash today very likely he would have got up and walked away. 

I was also at Hackney that night, standing near the starting gate. My memory of the event is a little hazy, but at the time I thought his throttle had stuck open as he appeared to be travelling very fast around the outside when he hit the fence. A terrible thing to happen to a rider and as others have said, with the introduction of air fences, how many major injuries have they saved over the last few years?

[E I Addio]

Interesting comments from everyone but I think all of our memories play tricks on us at times. The Sad fact is that ALL forms of motor and motorcycle racing are dangerous and people are going to,get hurt at times.

Although safety features , notably air fences have enhanced safety , that , in my opinion is cancelled out by the fact that there are far more crashes. 

I can’t remember a single meeting back in the day when we were 20 minutes into a meeting and had only run two or three heats because of crashes, yet it seems to be a frequent occurrence today. I remember talking to Olle Nygren not long before he died and he was saying that when he was riding he reckoned to do about 100 meetings a year and only fell off once or twice and that “Briggs Mauger and the others were the same” , but these days he reckoned most were falling off more than that every month. Speedway tracks are much harder to land on than most spectators realise.

There seems to be little doubt that tuners have got a lot to do with it. You can’t get a quart out of a pint pot , and every time you squeeze more power from the engine you shorten the power band so power comes in more suddenly and unpredictably making the bike more difficult to ride. 

Incidentally, can anyone update me on what SS said about Graham Miles post accident?

[Chadster]

19 hours ago, chunky said:

Trust me, there were MANY bad accidents happening before the mid-70's...

Apologies, I didn't make myself clear. I was referring to Hackney specifically. It seemed to me (from afar) to have a good reputation as a racetrack in the 60s, but there were some bad accidents there from the mid 70s. I remember seeing some bad crases at Hyde Road in the 60s.

[chunky]

41 minutes ago, Chadster said:

Apologies, I didn't make myself clear. I was referring to Hackney specifically. It seemed to me (from afar) to have a good reputation as a racetrack in the 60s, but there were some bad accidents there from the mid 70s. I remember seeing some bad crases at Hyde Road in the 60s.

Oh, okay... Thing is, while I didn't witness any of the fatalities at Hackney, I get the idea that at least a couple of them were kind of "freak" accidents, and the only real issue was the lamp standards.

If you look at my website, you will also see that Newcastle had several fatalities. When I commented on that once, I was told that I was being most unfair. The thing is, we know that crashes can be caused by a variety of factors, including collisions. Are these collisions a result of situations caused by the track, or the bikes?

I just think that the big problem there was the lamp standards...

[Goldhawk]

Hackney really was an outstanding race track where riders could and did pass anywhere. I've read in the past it was felt by some too fast for size of track. There may be some truth in that tbh, but the overriding issue of all the time i watched Speedway there ( 24 years ) was riders hitting lamp standards with serious injuries or worse. Both fatalities there with Vic Harding and Denny Pyatt were caused by them.  i also saw the worst looking crash i have ever seen there in 1973 between Allan Emmett & Dave Kennett where they locked handlebars going full speed going down the back straight and didn't turn hitting fence on third bend at full speed upright. Allan Emmett was a star in the making and retired the following year and Dave Kennett wasn't the same rider after. He potentually could have been as good as Gordon.

Hackney was a great track, if today safety fence regulations were in place of today the injuries of the time would have been very much less . The were much worse tracks out here. The lamp standards were the issue. Maybe Wimbledon was the safest track of the time with their supported fence without any lamp standards if i remember rightly. 

 

Did it match Hackney for racing ? em ...............................; )

 

PS On Milo (reference last paragraph and post) Milo has made a successful career out of stand up comedy since crash. He still harbours hope to walk one day.. 

Edited March 15 by Goldhawk

[E I Addio]

39 minutes ago, Goldhawk said:

Hackney really was an outstanding race track where riders could and did pass anywhere. I've read in the past it was felt by some too fast for size of track. There may be some truth in that tbh, but the overriding issue of all the time i watched Speedway there ( 24 years ) was riders hitting lamp standards with serious injuries or worse. Both fatalities there with Vic Harding and Denny Pyatt were caused by them.  i also saw the worst looking crash i have ever seen there in 1973 between Allan Emmett & Dave Kennett where they locked handlebars going full speed going down the back straight and didn't turn hitting fence on third bend at full speed upright. Allan Emmett was a star in the making and retired the following year and Dave Kennett wasn't the same rider after. He potentually could have been as good as Gordon.

Hackney was a great track, if today safety fence regulations were in place of today the injuries of the time would have been very much less . The were much worse tracks out here. The lamp standards were the issue. Maybe Wimbledon was the safest track of the time with their supported fence without any lamp standards if i remember rightly. 

 

Did it match Hackney for racing ? em ...............................; )

 

PS On Milo (reference last paragraph and post) Milo has made a successful career out of stand up comedy since crash. He still harbours hope to walk one day.. 

I think the riders being flung head first into the safety fence or lamp standards was a common feature of many fatal and serious accidents both at home and abroad.

On a slightly different tack regarding riders riding wide on the bends at Hackney, I remember reading an interview with Colin Pratt in Classic Speedway in which he was saying when he rode for Hackney he would always get to the track early so he could make sure Len Silver would always prepare the inside line the way he wanted it done and that was where almost all of his wins came from .I found that interesting because Pratty’s time at Hackney was probably the best of his career . It’s interesting how track preparation helps different riders. 

[Goldhawk]

Pratty was a white line rider at the Wick as i remember, can't say elsewhere. Only saw him a few meetings there as a youngster in 1969 before moving to Cradley Heath for 1970. season. Was priveleged to see him guest for Hackney that year and score a 12 point maximum the Friday before going to Lokeren for the weekend.  it would have been his last ever meeting as a rider. Went to a thing at Paradise Park re Tatum and Pearson around 6 years ago and spoke to Pratty. What an ordinary down to earth guy and top bloke he was. i remember going to chippy in Hoddesdon after he retired in early 70s and he was there serving fish and chips !! : )