Speedway Season

[secsy1]

Going back in time to surely promoters had more sense, than now.

Why on earth are every team trying to start the season too early.

Postponements rife already and who wants to watch sub standard racing in poor conditions.

Not only do the paying public suffer, the riders costs are escalated with all the cleaning and maintenance of the bikes.

By the way, when do all the other smart countries start their seasons. 

[ch958]

mid April to mid October for me, especially with the fewer fixtures, mid March is too early. Maybe they can't wait to start losing money!

[Lefty]

At least wait until the clocks go forward.  It's warmer and brighter (allegedly)

[IronScorpion]

2 hours ago, secsy1 said:

Going back in time to surely promoters had more sense, than now.

Why on earth are every team trying to start the season too early.

Postponements rife already and who wants to watch sub standard racing in poor conditions.

Not only do the paying public suffer, the riders costs are escalated with all the cleaning and maintenance of the bikes.

By the way, when do all the other smart countries start their seasons. 

Polish media & practice sessions already taking place hence a few riders dropping out of meetings.

[IainB]

5 hours ago, secsy1 said:

Why on earth are every team trying to start the season too early.

So they can shut down for the summer! 

[mikebv]

6 hours ago, secsy1 said:

Going back in time to surely promoters had more sense, than now.

Why on earth are every team trying to start the season too early.

Postponements rife already and who wants to watch sub standard racing in poor conditions.

Not only do the paying public suffer, the riders costs are escalated with all the cleaning and maintenance of the bikes.

By the way, when do all the other smart countries start their seasons. 

There seems to also always be a fair few injuries "early doors" too, which could be put down to damp, inconsistent, surfaces and a lack of practice on such tracks...

Edited March 14 by mikebv

[Hawk127]

In the good old days when most clubs ran weekly meetings an early season start with challenge matches etc. to get race fit seem to be the norm. Now with a much smaller league and some clubs running once every two/three weeks, I really do not understand why racing starts in March and then you have the lack of meetings in the height of summer. I accept that riders have more European meetings etc and demands on the track time in each country but surely it is time that the idiots in charge of the sport in this country worked out a formula that catered for the UK market/punter.
Who wants to stand on a cold wet terrace in March or October. Yes it had to happen years ago because of the number of teams but the sport today is a shadow of its former self and many of today’s promoters would not have coped in the 70’s, 80’s and even the 90’s. Today a meeting gets called off on a forecast, not actually what the weather is like and they wonder why punters, think the sport is a joke with riders who cannot be bothered and promoters who not only fail to promote but can’t even get a meeting on when you have a bit of drizzle. It is not as if many tracks attract the opposing teams supporters, not many travel to away meetings so call offs could be left to the last minute as it is mainly only local support trundling along to see the match and very few turn up hours before the start so ample time to inform all of a call off.

Is it any wonder no one outside the diehards credit speedway as being professional. Exhilarating it maybe but that in itself does not make up for the rest of it failings.

 

[orion]

4 hours ago, Hawk127 said:

. Today a meeting gets called off on a forecast, not actually what the weather is like and they wonder why punters, think the sport is a joke 

 

I would think most  punters would think is was a joke if you never called a meeting off because of a bad forcast ... its just common sense 

[E I Addio]

6 hours ago, orion said:

I would think most  punters would think is was a joke if you never called a meeting off because of a bad forcast ... its just common sense 

Agreed. We have to remember that promoters lose money by calling a meeting off. I forget exactly how the system works but Jon Cooke used to say that once you get to a certain point the losses run into several thousand pounds so that money is saved by earlier call offs. Cooke used to have about 3 or4 weather forecasts from different sources before calling a meeting off. It’s a difficult decision for promoters and they sometimes get it wrong. A pain for the fans when meetings get called off, but when the sport is being run on a shoestring anyway it hits them hard in the pocket if meetings are called off too late. 

[marko]

Rinse and repeat every season, its why I won’t bother with the BSN stuff anymore, not the fault of BSN but  promoters constantly take the mick calling meetings off on a whim without making any real effort to get it on.

[Chris116]

So we had two planned meetings on Thursday. One went ahead on a damp track and the other was called off. Some supporters have said that the meeting that went ahead should have been called off and at the same time others have criticised the promotion who called their meeting off for not trying to run.

Seems to me that whatever the two promotions had done they would be told they had done the wrong thing! I constantly read that promoters don't have a clue but when there are only two possible actions in a situation both courses of action are criticised.

Maybe this shows just how difficult it is to run a speedway track and maybe we should accept that while we all think we understand how things should be run, we are not the ones who can lose a fortune running the sport.

[marko]

Question, if rain offs cost that much, why bother attempting to run in March anyway?
If no meetings were planned then there is zero chance of a rain off and zero chance of losing money! 
Speedway should be every week from May to August,  no exceptions 

That’s 16 weeks plus right there, fools!

[Skodaman]

10 hours ago, marko said:

Question, if rain offs cost that much, why bother attempting to run in March anyway?
If no meetings were planned then there is zero chance of a rain off and zero chance of losing money! 
Speedway should be every week from May to August,  no exceptions 

That’s 16 weeks plus right there, fools!

And there will still be rain offs

[marko]

3 hours ago, Skodaman said:

And there will still be rain offs

Much less chance in May to August but if they really felt that way then why even bother to try and run at all, it’s all or nothing, you can’t be half pregnant.

[mikebv]

10 minutes ago, marko said:

Much less chance in May to August but if they really felt that way then why even bother to try and run at all, it’s all or nothing, you can’t be half pregnant.

The main issue is that they have to try and "get in early" before Poland kicks off..

That way they are (almost), guaranteed that "the top lads" are available..

By May, the Polish leagues would be well under way, and those teams doing less well in particular, would be doing what they could to improve their situations..

Plenty of practice sessions and doctors notes have been sorted before....

And, as we know, in this country, it can rain at any time of the year..

 

 

 

[IainB]

On 3/15/2024 at 5:27 PM, Chris116 said:

So we had two planned meetings on Thursday. One went ahead on a damp track and the other was called off. Some supporters have said that the meeting that went ahead should have been called off and at the same time others have criticised the promotion who called their meeting off for not trying to run.

Seems to me that whatever the two promotions had done they would be told they had done the wrong thing! I constantly read that promoters don't have a clue but when there are only two possible actions in a situation both courses of action are criticised.

Maybe this shows just how difficult it is to run a speedway track and maybe we should accept that while we all think we understand how things should be run, we are not the ones who can lose a fortune running the sport.

You are right, clubs are always going to get criticised, it goes with the territory and you can argue the toss until the cows come home on the merits of whether meetings should have gone ahead or not. I think we a can all agree that meetings have run in the past where they certainly wouldn't do today, whether that be to do with the bikes, tracks, financial risk, whatever the reason. The thing is it is now 2024 and as far as I can tell absolutely nothing has been done to try and remedy the situation at all. The only "improvement" has been the proliferation of weather "forecasts" (and you can really take your pick there as to which service you use and whether you think that is accurate or not) which can often just add confusion to a situation and the dalliance  with track covers occasionally at some tracks.

Comparing the Oxford and Leicester matches, the circumstances were very similar, they're only 80 miles apart have had pretty much the same weather recently and were both going to cop some rain on their opening night. The track was in perfect condition at Leicester the night before, yet Leicester elect to cancel and Oxford don't. Both had the press at their stadiums the day before saying there's going to be Speedway tomorrow night, Speedway is back! You only have to look at Oxford's TwitterX feed to see the size of the crowd they pulled in.

Edited March 17 by iainb

[Gambo]

1 hour ago, iainb said:

You are right, clubs are always going to get criticised, it goes with the territory and you can argue the toss until the cows come home on the merits of whether meetings should have gone ahead or not. I think we a can all agree that meetings have run in the past where they certainly wouldn't do today, whether that be to do with the bikes, tracks, financial risk, whatever the reason. The thing is it is now 2024 and as far as I can tell absolutely nothing has been done to try and remedy the situation at all. The only "improvement" has been the proliferation of weather "forecasts" (and you can really take your pick there as to which service you use and whether you think that is accurate or not) which can often just add confusion to a situation and the dalliance  with track covers occasionally at some tracks.

Comparing the Oxford and Leicester matches, the circumstances were very similar, they're only 80 miles apart have had pretty much the same weather recently and were both going to cop some rain on their opening night. The track was in perfect condition at Leicester the night before, yet Leicester elect to cancel and Oxford don't. Both had the press at their stadiums the day before saying there's going to be Speedway tomorrow night, Speedway is back! You only have to look at Oxford's TwitterX feed to see the size of the crowd they pulled in.

At the Leicester P&P the riders were advised not to ride the inside line on the bends, and they all heeded that advice. You don't get that option when there are 4 riders on the track.

[IainB]

27 minutes ago, Gambo said:

At the Leicester P&P the riders were advised not to ride the inside line on the bends, and they all heeded that advice. You don't get that option when there are 4 riders on the track.

Yes, it was noticeable that the riders weren't using the inside of the track on turns 1 and 2 for the start of the session but by the end they were

[marko]

I am sure when I was younger if a promoter wanted to call a meeting off, they had to get a local ref to come along and confirm the track was unridable at that point, not what it might be like in 2 hours time, 10 hours times or 1 days time.

However, the riders are by no means the innocent party in all of this, they have conditioned promoters to call meetings off earlier than they would have previously because they (the promoter) knows if the track isn’t perfect, the riders will simply refuse to race and force a cancellation that way.

And the riders have that attitude because the bikes now can only be ridden at full throttle and there is no leeway.

Recently in the star they had a piece on the silencers affecting the bikes, we had it with the solid block tyres, we have recently had it with the Anlas tyres being rubbish, why is the sport constantly going backwards in terms of the bikes? They are making the sport more expensive, less safe and less of a spectacle. 
I can’t think of one single benefit the modern speedway bikes have brought to the sport.

[chunky]

2 hours ago, marko said:

why is the sport constantly going backwards in terms of the bikes? They are making the sport more expensive, less safe and less of a spectacle. 

And they dictate the condition (and depth) of the track surface...