E I Addio
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Posts posted by E I Addio
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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.
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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.
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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?
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15 hours ago, chunky said:Are you talking about World Finals, or just World Champions? Seeing that you mention Hancock, I would think the latter.
Well, the first one that sprang to mind was Tomasz Gollob. He was 39 years and 5 months old when he won in 2010
Tommy Price was 37 years, 9 months and 20 days old (1949)
Egon Muller was 34 years, 9 months, and 9 days old (1983).
Sam Ermolenko was 32 years, 9 months, and 6 days old (1993).
Jason Doyle was 32 years and 22 days old (2017).
Anders Michanek was 31 years, 3 months, and 7 days old (1974)
Artem Laguta was 31 years and 19 days old (2021).
Jack Milne was 30 years, 2 months, and 29 days old (1937).
These are the only riders who won their first titles in their 30's.
Thank you . Everything I’ve ever read about Tommy Price suggests he was a far better rider than results suggest, perhaps not in his technical skills but he certainly seems to have been a “hard man” and somewhat ahead of the game mechanically. He apparently geared his bike half a tooth lower than everyone else round Wembley on the basis that if he got in front by the first bend, he was such a hard man to pass that he was likely to hang on to that a early lead. In the workshop he drilled extra oil ways to avoid the engine failures occurring to the early J.A,P’s in those days. He also used to start warming his bike up earlier than anyone else because had a special barrel in his JAP engine although I can’t remember what it was made of, or whether it actually was a special barrel or just psychological mind games to con or intimidate the others !
Certainly one rider I wish I’d seen and it’s probably fair to say that if WW2 had not intervened he would likely have had a much better record than he has today.
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On 1/29/2024 at 8:53 AM, salty said:Bit late to post this this as he actually passed away on January 9th, but sad to hear the death of Lokeren survivor Garry Hay. Good obituary in this weeks Star. Having escaped with minimal injuries at Lokeren it was so sad when the following Australian season he suffered life changing injuries which left him wheelchair bound. Haven't seen it mentioned on this forum - apologies if it has.
RIP Garry
AUSTRALIAN SOLO SPEEDWAY RIDER GARY HAY, 77, DIES - Speedway Illustrated News
I’ve only just noticed that sad announcement. Always a double tragedy when a rider suffers life changing injuries as the innocent victim of track crash. Does anyone know the circumstances of the crash and how he rebuilt his life subsequently ?
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Apologies if this has been mentioned before but I was looking at some material about Tommy Price recently and it suddenly dawned on me that he must have been about 37 when he won his world title. I know there have been some , notably Greg Hancock , who became World Champion and an older age but I can’t think of any off hand who were older at the time of their first win ? I am sure Bobbath and maybe a few others have the information to hand so can anyone give us a table of the oldest first time winners?
Thanks
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34 minutes ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:You do only need one bike and if they limited the revs down to 10,000 you would only need one tyre
Hi Dean, is there a foolproof way of limiting revs to 10,000, and what would be the effect on the racing ? I ask that because some years ago Lewis Bridger did a pre- Season warm up meeting on an upright and he got blown away by everyone mainly, I think he said, because he lacked acceleration out of the bends. I know everyone would be in the same situation but would it affect the spectacle do you think.?
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4 minutes ago, MattB said:Be more prudent to make sure only those who have to be in the pits are there and stop having all the hangers on who do nothing but get in the way, especially when something kicks off.
No more than two per rider are normally allowed in the pits and that seems to be the norm for most TV meetings. Two per rider means28 personnel, plus 14 riders, plus Clerk of the Course, plus Pit Marshal , plus team managers plus promoters, and Machine Examiners. I make that 50in total before TV crew. Ŵ
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52 minutes ago, BluPanther said:Wasting a whole evening to watch 15 mins of action is never going to work in the modern digital age. Times have changed since the 'good old days'...
I think there is much more to it than that. Sitting in a freezing cold stadium for two months of a six months season is not going to get modern punters through the doors, especially the times when you are 30 minutes into the meeting and have only run maybe three or four races due to delays. Most people have fairly comfortable homes these days and a variety of TV channels and choices. It’s not like the ‘50’s when people had at best poorer quality homes and BBC only on TV. No incentive to stay at home in those days. And all that is before we even get to what goes on at the track . Dog racing is the same. There were around 40 dog tracks in London alone in the ‘40’s and 50’s but only one I think left today. People just don’t want that sort of stadium based entertainment anymore.
In many ways the sport has shot itself in the foot but I very much doubt whether it would even be big again in the modern world but even if the sport got its act together
. I think less and less people want that sort of entertainment.
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Yes, he could be a bit prickly in his younger days but looking back over his career it has been quite outstanding. Never gave less than value for money, and as everyone seems to agree a great servant to the sport and always seems to have had time for the fans. Sad to seem him go, but a great career over 20+ years
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I’d take Mike Parker any day over , Godfrey, Chapman. , and the present shower.
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18 minutes ago, norbold said:Thanks, BL. Do you know how many attended West Ham's opening meeting in 1964?
Speedway Researcher quotes a report from Speedway Star claiming their were 15,000 there but I don’t know how accurate that is. The Researcher also says that for the second meeting the crowd were so many that it took Bjorn Knutsson half an hour to get into the stadium.
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2 hours ago, norbold said:I'm not sure when the word speedway was first used but it must have first been used originally in Australia and my understanding is that it first of all referred to the track but was then translated to mean the sport itself. As far as this country goes, it was in use right from the start and certainly before 1929/30 and team racing. The first edition of Speedway News came out on 19 May 1928 and throughout the term speedway is used meaning both the track and the sport itself. For example, the riders are referred to as speedway riders and the most prominent promotion was International Speedways Ltd. under A J Hunting.
My opinion of the first speedway meeting in this country as we fully understand the sport was held over the weekend of 7-9 April at High Beech as this was the first time a track in this country had a loose surface and bikes weren't fitted with brakes. It was therefore the first time that broadsiding was seen - demonstrated most effectively by Colin Watson, Alf Medcalf and Digger Pugh. The 19 Feb meeting had a hard rolled surface and all bikes were fitted with rear brakes under ACU rules. No broadsiding took place even by the two experienced Aussies (Keith McKay and Billy Galloway) who were there.The top Australian promoter. A.J. Hunting, arrived towards the end of the 19 Feb meeting and took the promoter, Jack Hill-Bailey, to one side and told him that he "had it all wrong." He then took a hand in preparing the track properly for the 7 April meeting while also lobbying the ACU to remove their rule insisting on rear brakes.
Thanks. The last two paragraphs were something I didn’t know.
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22 minutes ago, norbold said:This is an extract from an article I wrote, with the help of Ross and Nigel, for Speedway Star some years ago:
'There is an old philosophical paradox that goes, “All that is certain is that nothing is certain.” There is no doubt this applies to the origins of speedway.The first problem we have is what do we mean by speedway? Is it just motor bikes racing round a small oval track or does the definition of speedway include no brakes and sliding round the corners on a loose surface?
Certainly if we just take the meaning as motor bikes racing round a small oval track there can be many claimants to the title of the first speedway meeting in the world. There are reports of this activity taking place in America in 1901, in Ireland in 1902, in Australia in 1904, in South Africa in 1907 and in Prague in 1908 amongst many others.
Even if we add the no brakes and sliding round corners ingredients, there is ample evidence to show that American riders were broadsiding round dirt tracks well before the First World War. A rider called Don Johns who started around 1909 and won the National Dirt Track Championship in Chicago in 1912 may have been the first. A contemporary description of him goes like this, “Don Johns preferred to barnstorm the 1-mile dirt track circuits of California and the Midwest, gaining experience as well as a reputation as the hardest fighting rider in the no-holds-barred game. By 1914, Johns had improved to such an extent that the Excelsior could not hold him. He would ride the entire race course wide open, throwing great showers of dirt into the air at each turn.” How else could you throw great showers of dirt into the air on the bends if not by sliding? Was Johns the first speedway rider in the world?
He was followed shortly afterwards by another American called Albert “Shrimp” Burns who was killed in a track crash on 14 August 1921. Part of his obituary written by C.E.B. Clement, which appeared in Motorcycle and Bicycle Illustrated reads, “I strolled down the track to watch him take the turns. Here he came with that motor humming a great tune and into the turn he went. Watching him handle that machine in the long slide all the way around, I saw in fancy, the then great battler of the day, Don Johns. For Burns was holding the pole and fighting the rear wheel in a manner that very closely resembled the work of the then known hardest fighter of the racing game."
After the War, in the late teens and early twenties, two more Americans, Maldwyn Jones and Eddie Brinck, were renowned for the way they threw their bikes in to the bends and broadsided round, using what was known as the pendulum skid.
By the early 1920s Australia had also discovered the sport of motor cycles racing round small oval circuits. The generally accepted wisdom used to be that Johnnie Hoskins “invented” speedway at Maitland Showground in 1923. Evidence from America clearly shows that this is not the case, and, even in Australia there are many reports of meetings similar to that put on by Hoskins prior to 1923 in places such as Townsville (as early as 1916), Rockhampton and Newcastle. Eleven months prior to Hoskins’ much vaunted December 1923 carnival on the grass track at Maitland, motor cycles had raced on a cinder circuit under lights at Adelaide’s Thebarton Oval.
Again, in the Adelaide Mail, dated 3 November 1923, there is an article headlined, “Steering into a skid Dirt Track Methods”. This article goes on to say:
“To steer away from the direction in which a corner is being taken is quite a usual practice on level tracks with a soft surface…it appears to be voluntarily adopted by the experts in order to make the turn at a higher speed than would be possible in the ordinary way…On a dirt track the friction available is very small, consequently in order to corner without skidding, a very low speed would be necessitated..” So there we have an article explaining the process by which the “experts” take the corners on dirt tracks over one month before the meeting at Johnny Hoskins’ meeting at West Maitland.Indeed, the major argument against speedway originating on 15 December 1923 at Maitland is the Monday December 17, 1923 Maitland Daily Mercury's report on the Saturday December 15 carnival, which says: -
"For the first time motor cycle racing was introduced into the programme and the innovation proved most successful. In an exhibition ride at the last sports several riders gave the track a good test and they then expressed themselves satisfied with it. They also stated that it was better than several other tracks that have been used for this kind of sport on a number of occasions..." Note that last sentence in particular. Maitland’s own paper did not see the meeting on 15 December as anything new. The riders themselves were comparing Maitland to “several other tracks”Perhaps the boost Maitland did give to the sport however was to provide speedway on a regular basis as between 15 December 1923 and 26 April 1924 there were no fewer than 15 carnival meetings featuring motor cycle racing, with promoters Campbell and DuFrocq staging six of them and including a rider by the name of Charlie Datson who was to become one of the leading pioneers of the new sport of speedway.'
A nice history norbold, but something I’ve often pondered on is when did speedway become “ speedway “ . It seems to me that there was common ancestry with grass track, long track and arguably board racing. Even early films around High Beech only suggest a loose relationship with the sport as we now know it . Certainly films of the very early 1930’s are clearly identify it as the sport we see today. Do you happen to know by what date it was being marketed and recognised as “Speedway “ ? Personally I would have said 1928 when the first dedicated stadiums where built over here, but that’s without much knowledge of how things panned out abroad . So what in your opinion would be the date my which it was universally recognised as the sport we know today?
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1 hour ago, Panthers99 said:Have to agree with Richie on this one, that's shocking from vatcher
Assuming Richie is factually correct.
Bottom line is if he never had cocaine in his system he wouldn’t have got a £1,500 fine if he took his punishment instead spouting off all over social media he wouldn’t have got the £3000 fine. No point in blaming everyone else.
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1 hour ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:A couple of weeks before his failed test he said some cheap remarks about me and then said I should show him some respect, you can imagine how I laughed when he got caught
He has always had the habit of going on social media to bad mouth people. I still remember when he was signed by Lakeside early in his career then Belle Vue stepped in and bought him. Without going into the rights and wrong’s of that messy episode, he went on social media calling Jon Cook names when most people would not have known the back story. It doesn’t look good when professional people are washing their dirty linen in public. Even back in those days Ritchie had a high opinion of himself. As others have said, his bother Steve is very different and maybe that’s why he is more successful.
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2 minutes ago, eric i said:9 months from september 5th so Worral will be signing for someone on june 5th?
I don’t think he will find it that easy . At 33 years old next June his career is more likely to go down than up. He will have to find a club that can fit his average in and take a bit of a chance on him, especially as by June others will be race fit and he won’t. He might get in somewhere perhaps as a temporary signing to cover injuring but might well have to go to a club a track that doesn’t suit him. The repercussions will probably go beyond the period of his suspension and hit his pocket in more ways than one.
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2 minutes ago, iainb said:He'll have to get another job then... just like a delivery driver would if they lost their licence
Yes, they would certainly have their licence suspended if they had cocaine in their system while driving in the course of their employment.
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3 minutes ago, Fromafar said:Of course it did..!! They will be telling us who spiked the drink next!!!!
Probably spiked by one of those pigs that flew over !
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Comparison with rock stars is nonsense. Worrall and Boxall were taking substances deemed to be performance enhancing. I can’t think of any other sport where someone would not get a ban for doing anything, drugs or otherwise, that was deemed to give an unfair advantage over the other competitors. In essence it’s no different to going to the line with an oversized engine.Its just another way of gaining advantage over riders who play by the rules, and ultimately to cheat the spectators. In addition they both knew full well they were breaking the rules.
After Morris, Worrall and Boxall one would hope the message would get through to any other riders minded to act similarly.
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10 hours ago, Ray Stadia said:The land used to be a sand pit/quarry. There was/is a 4x4 track there and a fishing lake. It is possible, that part of the area will be used for an industrial site type area, which doesn't need the same regulations/permissions as dwelling homes, for the data centre and a portion of the land for sport/recreation? It would cover all bases!
Yes it was a quarry of some kind and my understanding is that as a result it became contaminated which made it unsuitable for housing, and that’s the reason Chick Woodroffe was able to get the land relatively cheaply and build a stadium in the first place. When. similar parts of land get contaminated the cost of cleaning is usually astronomical and not cost effective so I don’t know how the prospective buyers will get round all that.
However, even if permission for a speedway track were given tomorrow there are still the same problems that I mentioned in my last post, in particular finding someone to put up the money and a promoter to make a go of it. You only have to look at the problems facing Wolves , Peterborough, and Swindon, and they are all in better positions than a brand new Lakeside would be.
This is only my opinion of course and there may be other things going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about, but it doesn’t look like it at the moment.
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2 hours ago, old bob at herne bay said:I now its Halloween and you all think this is a Treat , but surely its a Trick ?
You really think a Global Infrastructures business has paid £40m for the site to stick speedway in there for £2k a week rent on a dozen days a year ????
They will want to build a huge new data centre (after all that's their core business)
Sorry I don't see that this is any progress at all. Sad to hear that the only permanent structure at the old Arena, the raceway tavern has been demolished.
Thurrock Council are bankrupt and will be only too glad of a big new owner to pay some business rates for the site.
I agree . I am the last person that wants to pour cold water on the project, and Mark Sexton is to be applauded for his fantastic efforts to get the project this far. I would like to think it would be a success but realistic it’s now 5 years since the club closed and likely to be at least another 4 or 5 at least, if Swindon is anything to go by , before we see any racing. What state will Speedway be in at that stage and how difficult is it going to be to attract sufficient new fans from scratch to make it pay ( and it will take a lot of new fans who have never heard of speedway as the old guard are getting less and less).
Then we have the problem of building a new track and spectator facilities. I had affection for the scruffy old stadium, rather like a pair of comfortable old slippers, but the fact of the matter is that people will expect something more sophisticated than they put up with in the 1980’s, and it all costs money.
The reality is that Stuart Douglas and Jon Cook who were Lakeside won’t be back, with Stuart living abroad and Jon sadly no longer with us.It was Douglas and Cook that picked up the corpse that Ronnie Russel left and made it into a viable club for the next ten years, only for a duplicitous combination of Rob Godfrey and the stadium owners to put the club out of business with debts of £24,000.
I hope I have got wrong and I would love to see the dream to become a reality but there are enormous obstacles to be overcome.
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21 minutes ago, foreverblue said:Lambert only 19th thats not great, personally I believe Lambert is as good as he will ever be, Bewley has potential to be world champion
Bewley is a great sportsman and a credit to any sport. Speedway is lucky to have him. Lambert is a spoilt brat, always was, always will be . If you hear or see his parents behaviour, especially his mother, you will see why he is the way he is.
Tai is is own worst enemy. On a personal basis he can be very polite. It’s just a pity that he doesn’t know how to project himself to a wider audience at times. Tai and Lambert are professional entertainers. If the fans don’t come they, and others will be out of a job. Both are old enough to know how to behave in public. They will probably never learn now.
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7 minutes ago, The Third Man said:i have not got a clue how we have got Lambert, the same way as i still don't have a clue how Belle Vue got him last year,
Those running the sport haven’t got a clue either. It’s one thing to get a guest, such as bomber for example who is a bona fide supporter of the league , but something quite different to bring in a carpet bagger who is just making up his money as the Polish season winds its way to an end. No wonder clubs are struggling to get fans through the gates.
It’s a pity they don’t have the ability to rule “ Not in the best interests of Speedway “ to give the league and play- offs some sort of meaning.-
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John "Tiger" Louis R.I.P.
in Speedway News and Discussions
Posted
An all round motor cyclist who already had a successful career in scrambling behind him before he even took up Speedway. It’s not easy to successfully make the transition from one discipline to the other but Tiger did it, reaching the World Final within 3 years. I think he carried on successfully in Speedway till he was about 40, which was quite old to stay at the top in those days.
So, more than just a Speedway rider , a great all-rounder and a great enthusiast. A credit to the sport.