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And today marks 44 years since the passing of Tommy Jansson. A true Wimbledon legend that had so much ahead of him to achieve.

He probably failed to arrive and a guest replacement was used.

The age of the average speedway fan will have an effect, plus financial hardship will impact upon a lot of people.

But he's not a promoter and it will be the same promoters who have governed the sport for the last few years who will be running it again whenever we start up. The few ' new ones ' messers Jensen ( Rye House ) Morgan ( Workington ) Rathbone ( Peterborough ), Phillips ( Newcastle ) , and Kay ( Redcar ) all of whom had ' new ideas ' didn't hang around long for various reasons and all had issues of some sort with the sports governors , it appeared, and with only one of the young Courtney's left at Berwick and Smith / Lemon at Belle Vue to bring fresh ideas to the table you have got to wonder where the change of direction will come from. We can hope for a miracle but then we are all waiting for another major one to get us out of the current situation and they don't come around that often.

I think it would be a pretty easy sell: ”Hey, fans, the Covid ban has ended and speedway can now run but we can’t fly in the continental stars due to quarantines, so we’re going to try a domestic league with a reduced admission fee. Will you support us or would you rather have no speedway this year?”

Philip Rising: What's the plan for covering Polish racing once it starts? I would welcome detailed coverage while we have no UK racing., ie: more details than we would normally expect (and need) in a usual season.

Fourthed

It isnt hard to be pessimistic is it given the already parlous state of the Sport.. If nothing else it may give those who run the sport a moment or two to reflect on why their sport always seems to live on a knife edge re how many teams last the season/start the following one, and provide them with the inspiration to change things.. There does seem to be a few more pro active promotions about now so some maybe have already realised that the 'same old/same old' simply doesnt get the cut through anymore, and actually be able to influence the radical change needed to move the whole sport as an entity forward.. What an opportunity in this enforced break to do so, as when the sport returns I would think it gets a 'free hit' as to what it can put out.. Be interesting to see if tracks do something 'different' and gauge reaction from their output..

Thirded! I thought it was a great read and very moving.

Actually it would be speedway’s chance to start taking the nails out of the coffin and lifting the lid on the realisation that it needs to live within its means. As for the admission fee, yes, you would imagine that no flights and fewer big names would result in a lower one, just the same as the different price levels between the PL, the CL and the NL now.

I think the job market has changed so much since those days that working and racing is a lot more difficult. In the past the vast majority of jobs finished at 5pm which would allow riders to make home meetings after work or with a couple of hours off. Now with more and more jobs being run over a 24 hour rota hours are all over the place and it's very much more difficult to find a job that fits in. Also in the past Speedway was a much bigger sport and many employers were happy to help riders in their career allowing for time off and injuries, that just wouldn't happen now. Weekend racing would help a lot but is not possible for a lot of tracks and even that is becoming difficult with ever more 7 day working. Plenty of riders do work running their own business or part time during the season and there aren't so many that could really say they are making a good living out of Speedway, most will have to work at least the off season. At the end of the day it has to be remembered that the likes of Briggo had businesses to run because they used their Speedway income to set them up not the other way around. Certainly in comparison the money paid to riders in the past was a whole lot more than it is now.

Yes, correct, steve. The man in the bow tie is Jon Stevens

17 in UK 1 in Poland

Sorry there are a few pages, but you can see who was discussed, and because of incomplete information, it isn't 100% accurate. It is a few years old, so there may have been some changes since. Apologies for the long-winded link, but it isn't easy trying to do certain things on my phone. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.speedway-forum.co.uk/forums/index.php%3F/topic/39407-speedways-most-travelled-riders/&ved=2ahUKEwiQ7azx-8DpAhVRQ80KHUKKBqcQFjAAegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw2bTcTdaIU72OGcO2XxAgKV

If travel, quarantine and foreign league restrictions aren’t lifted before a re-start is allowed we’ll be left only with a finite number of British riders to make anything of the season. Some clubs might be willing to run and others not. We might be left with a completely unique, one season league of just 10 clubs and a team building average of CL 32! We’d need 70 riders and we have about 85 British riders, including NL ones. Three of Swindon’s top five might be Ellis, Perks and Rowe, and if we could get Jordan Stewart over and have say Kinsley, Luke Harris and Stoneman, I’d be happy to watch that type of team. We might increase the standard or the number of teams if foreigners (including Aussies) base themselves here. Each team could have a home and away meeting each week and conclude the league meetings after week nine, leaving one spare week for rain offs and two weeks for the play offs and final. Without being dependent on foreign riders, clubs could generally run on their preferred race nights and there would be no double uppers! Your rider would be solely your rider. This season could be used as a worthwhile trial for a future blueprint for British speedway, especially one that includes living within its means.

A WHILE back a poster on here bemoaned the lack of an interview with Andreas Jonsson ...well, your prayers have been answered. He talks to Paul Burbidge in SS this week. Compelling stuff.

If found guilty will he get a % reduction in time for being British..?

Probably heard there was to be a drugs test and his van broke down on way to court via Edinburgh

Very quick guide how I got the game working. Don't have computer to hand (wife using it for work) so apologies for any mistakes will double check this evening. 1. Install a VirtualBox (I used one from oracle). 2. Download windowsXP (or 98 if preferred). I googled 'Windows XP for Virtual Box' and found one pretty easy. 3. Run VirtualBox create new 'box' for windows XP. I followed all the steps and didn't change any settings (Used default settings). Was prompted to find downloaded Windows XP to load from (I put file on desktop for ease). 4. Go through Windows installation (this took longest time for me). 5. Once complete and running XP I installed Guest Additions (was found in the devices menu) 6. Once guest additions installed I could drag the Speedway Promoter file (which was still compressed) from my win 10 desktop to XP desktop. 7. Unzipped speedway promoter files then copied these into the GDW2002 folder under windows folder (found in my computer icon in start menu). 8. Played game by opening from same folder copied files into. This is the way I done it. I am by no means an expert and others may have done it different and got it working.

Thanks Mike BV for your opinion. Yes I agree Running behind closed doors has a CHANCE of safely proceeding .... You mentioned F1 ......with its HUGE travelling entourage which has to somehow reach the worldwide venues. Still they have deep pockets and I am sure money will buy a lot of “safety systems. “ Not so for British Speedway which really ought to stop wasting effort on a dream of operating in 2020.

No elite speedway in June and postponed indefinitely. https://www.elitspeedway.com/artikel/n26gaka6u-21mi1/inga-speedwaymatcher-i-bauhaus-ligan-under-juni-manad

Forgive my little advert... but having watched the heats on the random speedway heat thread it inspired me to transfer my Speedway DVD collection to the internet and create a YouTube channel. The source material sometimes leaves a bit to be desired as it's all VHS transferred to DVD and then to PC and then re-encoded, so you may be able to find better quality elsewhere (some of the VHS's were Long Play also... remember that!!). I tried to do this before but ran into copyright issues with some of the content, so hopefully it'll be OK this time as I'm being more careful. Anyway, the channel is called "Sunshine Speedway" and I'll be uploading what I can over the next few days. If anybody does view it and has any better idea of the dates or venues of meetings please do leave a message somewhere and I'll change it. Hopefully there's some interesting and rare stuff there you may not have seen before. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbfL52jLjSBNAZUPgTWCDDw/