Humphrey Appleby

In many motor sports, being within 10% of the track record is considered to be an acceptable speed. The 3 minute time limit is just there to ensure that a race can't last indefinitely, such as if a rider is pushing around. You could however, equally achieve the same effect by excluding riders if they are no longer under power, or if they fail to finish within a certain percentage of time after the winner (assuming there is a winner!).

Depends how you interpret 'racing' but in its strictest application you'd probably say taking the most optimal racing line at usual race speeds. I remember the Rick Miller case and it was over-zealous nonsense from the referee in the circumstances, but probably correct to the letter of the regulations. He was far from the only rider excluded for pulling wheelies whilst 'leading' though.

Quite aside from 'not making a bona-fide attempt to race', a heat has a time limit of 3 minutes. So the last rider could have an engine failure and not have time to push home, although not sure whether that would be actually classified as an exclusion or 'retired'. The last rider might also miss the two minute warning or touch the tapes with no reserve replacement available. In fact, all four riders in a race could conceivably be excluded this way. Another way would be for the last rider to fall themselves whilst 'genuinely making an attempt to race' and thereby be excluded as the primary cause of the stoppage.

Fans don't really come into it for the organisers. It's about finding enough venues willing to front up fees whilst taking the financial risk on the events, and ensuring there's sufficient television coverage to keep (potential) sponsors happy. And where there aren't enough willing victims to stage a GP, then a cheap venue is needed to keep the costs down even if that's in the middle of field...

Yes, Frisian canal vaulting was also never the same afterwards...

We communicated for quite a few years in the run up to his books being published, not least because I had some information he was interested in. He was perfectly fine until one day out of the blue I got an abrupt and rude message basically cutting off communication (although a year or so later made a conciliatory approach). I've no idea what I did, but it's pretty clear he did this to plenty of people so I don't lose sleep about it. Undoubtedly a great promoter, great thinker and good writer too, and knowing what I know now, someone probably someone who carried a significant amount of worry. But I don't buy into the hagiography.

Whilst John Berry was a very good promoter and clearly a great thinker about the sport, he was absolutely the wrong sort of person to be running the BSPA. He fell out with people at the drop of a hat and didn't talk to them for years, didn't tolerate fools glady and could be incredibly caustic. All very well when you're running your own show, but absolutely not the patient diplomatic qualities needed for dealing with different interests and building consensus. I suspect he'd have quickly got frustrated with the job and fallen out with everyone. Plus we've really only heard his perspective about those events down the years. His books and various articles were undoubtedly amongst the better reads in the speedway vernacular, but I'm sure there's another side to the story which largely seems to have gone untold, although it was hinted about in the Ian Thomas autobiography which was also a surprisingly good read.

Not exactly millions - a couple of million a year, and the exact amount appears to be linked to certain earnings. It certainly also used to be the case that the FIM paid the prize money out of this as well.

I'm sure lessons were learned.

It was the slogan of a recruiting poster for the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, inspiring many British volunteers to sign-up (including George Orwell who can hardly be described as a communist). WW2 broke out not long after, making it all very prescient. It's of course better known these days as the title of the Manic Street Preachers song about the subject.

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next turned out to be quite poignant...

I'm sure he would say that as he's thinking of the royalties, but is he so convinced that he'd fund the re-release...

It did feature early performances of Dirk Bogarde, Sid James, Bill Owen and (an even then old looking) Thora Hird who all went on to become acclaimed famous actors though, so there would probably have been wider interest beyond speedway fans. Peter Duncan went on to to play a bit part in Flash Gordon and become a Blue Peter presenter, so probably not the same public interest...

Yes, but all the cars in an F1 GP are on-track at the same time, so it's the same for everyone at any given moment. That's not the case with a Speedway GP.

They hoped to get some of the big oval racing events, like Indycar and NASCAR, and I remember going to the first race there some years ago. Don't think those lasted long though. I've been back a few times since for test days, but whilst its a great facility, it always seemed woefully underused. There only seemed to be 2 or 3 cars driving round the track at any given time during the week.