yahoho

Now this certainly got me thinking - it may not be popular but I think its definitely something that is overlooked a lot by people. Everyone here has an interest in speedway and understands the inner workings to an extent. Because of this, we are all looking deep into the technical details of the sport, which is not where the casual viewer is attracted. Fundamentally, to a casual observer, there are 4 bikes on a track going round in a circle. Now we can change the tactical rule, double points, guest bookings, gate positions, doubling up etc etc and it will make zero difference to what the casual observer sees. There will still be 4 bikes sliding round a track. It's only us "committed supporters" that will notice, and we will just moan about something else instead. Its the same in every walk of life. Now I have become more of a causal supporter these days, I just dont have the time. When I do get visit a track for a meeting, I often pass on a programme and take my seat / position somewhere in the stand / terraces and hover about a bit until something happens on track. I can't understand the tannoy systems (either too echoey / quiet / loud) - but this is a general tanoy system thing, not just poor speedway tracks tanoys - they just arent a great way of getting information over. I see bikes to the right in a fenced off area, this must be the pits - OK got it! Then there is a track - OK thats where they race, got it! - Then what? 4 blokes come out in different helmet colours that I probably havent even noticed and then they race around - 4 laps a race, OK - Got it! 45 minutes later and 8 races down and they are coming out again - are these the same people? different people? who is winning? what is the score? how many races are left? what team am I supporting? are they teams? are they 4 teams? what are points? how do points work? When I have taken someone along for the first time, these are the questions I get asked all the time and spend half the meeting trying to explain - its not difficult, but speedway makes itself that way! A simple scoreboard on the center green can answer most of these questions without them having to ask. Display the thing just like the programme. Riders, Teams, Heats and Helmet colours - just like the programme. Add in a 2 minute timer so people understand what that is about. Suddenly a casual viewer who has turned up randomly to see what all the noise actually is every week, has a vague understanding of what is actually happening, when and why.

What is the point of the start marshall these days? I mean really? No one listens to him - he just appears to be a figure there for historic value and the pull the tapes down. Seeing some bloke franticly wave his arms and be ignored is not only pointless but embarassing. Last time I took a newcomer along with me that was their main question - "Why is that man there?". Just use the lights that are already in place around the tracks: Pit gates open and 2 minute warning is sounded 2 minutes ends and the pit gate closes Green ref does his check around the track and green light comes on At any point after that green light comes on the tapes are released (Given enough time for riders engines to spin up) Anyone left waiting at the tapes did not adhear to the two minute warning and has peanalised themselves.

Personally I am just happy I get to buy another panthers team shirt and support the team for another year. Its become a bit of a tradition now in the winter, to visit the annual "will we / wont we debate at the showground - but so be it. Heres to Ged for securing at least one more year at the Showground - if it stops, we all loose. Sometimes its good to remember that. I enjoy winning as much as anyone else, but am quite happy to rock along and see some familiar faces drifting round the boards for my fix. Personally I prefer the likes of Ostergaard and Lambert coming back each year, instead of some random Dane who couldnt care less. Team continuity is important to me - I hate starting a season and thinking "Who the hell are these guys?", "my team" is just a list of riders, I dont like it. Seeing Ulrich and Simon rock up makes me feel like someone other than me cares about the result of this meeting, instead of just being another rider out for a paycheque. Anyway, I digest. Heres to another season!! Panthers!!!!

This would be my understanding of such a venture - 1 meeting a week clearly isnt enough to draw people in for Sky or BT. This type of service would be an opportunity for either an external company or tracks themselves to invent a new platform for spectators that would appeal to the masses, without the bureaucracy and pre-defined rulesets that govern the mainstream broadcasters. "By the fans, for the fans" if you were.

ReRun are indeed very impressive these days, the quality is very good and I have just checked their website as I have not paid much attention to them recently and seen that they do cover a lot of tracks - I don't know if this is something they do for all meetings or just occasional ones, but my question would be - is it feasible for them or anyone else to put out streams of this quality for all tracks, every meeting? Or would a cheaper more realistic approach need to be found, thus my mention of a single fixed camera with no commentary - effectively a webcam style. I would disagree about speedway not having the same barriers as the boxing - although distance is not the same as travelling to america - travelling an hour up the road to make a 7.30 start meeting, to travel back afterwards and get to work the next day, at least once a week, is beyond the majority of supporters. Be this due to cost of tickets, fuel etc or simply the logisitcs - I would argue that speedway does indeed have those barriers. I would agree that the potential audience is not huge, which brings me back to the thought that a simple unmanned camera feed would be the way I would imagine it getting started due to low implementation costs. I would put myself as a fairly stereotypical speedway supporter, or at least of the younger generation. I love to go to the speedway and support my local team where possible. I cannot afford to go every week, nor can I justify the logistics of travelling to away meetings during the week, certainly not regularly, infact I don't think I have been to an away meeting for quite a few years. However were there a way for me to watch my team racing in their away legs, I would be very happy to pay a subscription to watch them on the road, plus a few other meetings if there was a catchup service style thing, during the week. All this being said, I personally would only stay at home to watch a stream instead of going to watch my team at home, due to financial justifications, at which point I wouldn't be going to the track anyway - so surely a small amount is better than no amount. It would also help me feel more attached to my team if I were able to follow them around their away legs, something that I have not felt for a long time. There are arguements for and against, but I cannot imagine that the impact to tracks due to people staying at home to watch an internet stream, would be anything like the impact caused by Sky. I highly doubt this will be a massively lucrative project for anyone who takes it on (unless done by tracks individually - at which point you never know), but it could certainly be a great thing for the fans.

I would imagine similar numbers to those who stayed at home and watched on sky, at a guess. The quality of these streams is unlikely to be anything close to a camera crew setup so I would imagine it similar to a betting style feed that would serve a purpose as opposed to being an alternative to going. I would imagine a PPV stream solution to be something to bring in a bit of extra income to the tracks for supporters who wouldn't otherwise be able to make the meeting, rather than watching a weak stream of probably one maybe 2 cameras max at a low quality instead of going to the meeting proper. Could be wrong though, interesting topic for sure and would be crazy for it not to be looked into seriously and trialed at a few tracks if there is no TV coverage.

Its a no brainer if there are no contracts in place blocking this like in previous years. £0 gate money for the away supporter who can't / wont travel VS £3 PPV money for the supporter who would watch a basic stream from home to follow his / her team...

Exactly this. PPV Streaming. I think a huge amount of people would pay for this either through subscription or the one offs for their away team meetings. Set this up through a main channel that manages the feeds, links and subscriptions and you are away! The great thing is that the expectation bar will be so low, customers will be happy with a single camera and no commentary / production value. Clubs could litterally setup a webcam on their home straight and people would pay to watch that.

Slower bikes. More down to rider ability, reading and reacting to track conditions and allowing for overtaking. You see crap racing a F1 level generally but great racing with Go Karts... Same applies. Anyway, back on topic. Haven't watched the interviews as I don't do Facebook - but good to see someone is trying to make an effort to get something out to the fans over the winter months. Does sound like it was a bit of a shambles and from the screenshots it looks a bit of a shoddy production - I know everyone is saying its better than nothing and its low budget - but any teenager with a webcam and a green screen could stream something without any issues that looks damn good. The entire promotion of speedway is crap, the appearance is just endlessly disappointing and until it looks better, it'll never stop the rot. Literally at some tracks. Speedway has the potential to be a serious extreme sport with fast paced, high adrenaline racing that is unlike anything else; it has a World Championship, leagues all over Europe, Riders with characters (like them or hate them), back stories, rivalries, and to top it off - BT Sport & SKY both show the sport to anyone who will tune in! Now if you cannot make a product work with this amount of collateral behind you - something is badly wrong.

... Im sorry what? £35 Per Team, Per Season? 4 Leagues with up to 40 slots per league? Wow. If your costs for: Are running over £5,500 Per Annum (Lets assume 1 season a year) - you are doing something drastically wrong... Aside from the above (I couldn't not comment on that - when seen, it cannot be unseen), I would be more than happy to contribute to an open source project. I have said a few times now that I still want to develop 5-1 but time is clearly an issue for everyone here, as it will clearly never be a full time job for anyone, so who knows when / if that will ever come to fruition. In terms of the algorithms and associated systems / engines, its all incredible simple to get the results you would expect. I used a Moral system which worked in a similar way to the "Meeting Form" mentioned by SCB above. Although this was the one factor that was used alongside their average to help calculate heat results, this Moral was affected by a long list of variables from previous meeting results, EF's, recent falls, even weather conditions. It worked very well. The one thing I did not get into was the AI tactics, I had AI that would run through the meeting nicely and do R/R's if a rider fell and was injured etc, but thats as far as I went as the rules kept changing too often and I got fed up of it - so focused my attention on other aspects such as transfers and stadium management, track preparation etc etc.

The source for 5-1 was written in VB6, there are approx 250 pages of A4 printed single side - it is not logical for someone to transcribe this as it is outdated before you have even started. In regards to the current popular subscription / in game transactions model - the reason it is now adopted so widely is because it works so well for the majority of people involved. Developers get a regular income which enabled them to stay in business, and make more money generally. Players get to "buy in" at a much lower cost than traditional models, they get more support from the developers as the developers are still around and not on holiday after one big payday, also more content and development is provided by the developers as they continue to support the games that continue to provide them an income. Its a great system, just some people don't like it. As long as a game is not "pay 2 win" then I think its a fantastic model. I don't go in for subscriptions generally, but to be honest this would be a good model for this type of game as it would nicely cover the server costs to keep the game online. Once the subscriptions stop coming in, then the game is dead and you can shut down the servers. Also as long as there is subscriptions coming in to cover the servers, then you can keep them running - therefore the game will only die when people stop playing. Perfect IMO.

Just to clarify, we did not stop 5-1 due to not seeing a profit, we stopped because of potential legal proceedings being brought against us. Im all up for open source, I actually have a printed version of the source code in a ring binder somewhere if someone wants to type it all back up Unfortunately the original source is lost now, but would be mostly useless now due to it being incompatible with modern windows. Also a desktop game is now the completely incorrect market - its all about online. Yes there will be people that will download and install an application, but a web based version that can be accessed anywhere with an internet connection, with a companion mobile app or at least a mobile friendly web application that can be utilised on the go with 4G / WiFi? Thats where you want to be targetting. App stores cost money, take development time, a real pain in the ass for any indi developer. Web based allows one source code to rule them all

Is this being shown online anywhere?

Oh good. I thought I would be starting a flame war against me for saying its awful, but it is. @waihekeaces1 - A lot of clubs do, coventrybees.co peterboroughpanthers.co etc etc etc all have a standard site by a company that manages it. Think its something to do with BSI but I dont know - someone will be able to give proper information.

Thats the revamped site? I must be looking at something different as its pretty painful to look at and half the links dont work... =/