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Stoke Potter

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Everything posted by Stoke Potter

  1. Stoke Potter

    Plymouth Gladiators 2021

    It's about looking at the bigger picture, and what's good for the sport. What showcases the sport in it's best light. Which track is better, Plymouth or Belle Vue? Just track not stadium. All those who disagree with what I put above, answer the question, which is better? If you want to save the sport in this country then it needs more tracks like Belle Vue and less that are like Plymouth and countless others I could mention. If Arena Essex (and any club for that matter) come back then they need a copy of Belle Vue, start with the basics, track in a field. Get the track right and build from that. Don't shoe-horn tracks into places where they don't really fit.
  2. Stoke Potter

    Plymouth Gladiators 2021

    Some sense in that, if it's going to work in any season a shorter one will be best.
  3. Stoke Potter

    Plymouth Gladiators 2021

    You're playing one-upmanship over the demise of a long standing Speedway track..? Obviously a true fan of the sport. The answer to the question is when it was around it was better than the Plymouth "training" track, even in the more recent times. And if your memory goes back long enough it was regarded as one of the best in the country. Yes really!
  4. Stoke Potter

    Plymouth Gladiators 2021

    Can't help but think it'll all end in tears unless there is someone with extremely deep pockets behind it. Plymouth making the same mistake as countless speedway promoters before them and throwing money at riders. They should be investing in their most important asset, their track, and start putting a proper sized track in instead of the small training track they've got now.
  5. Stoke Potter

    Tales of the Unexpected

    Forcing him to watch Speedway, is that her idea of torture?!!
  6. You could be on to something with that. The only problem is Belle Vue is the only track in the country where you could host a proper 6 man race with genuine racing/passing opportunities.
  7. Belle Vue NSS: The Gold standard for British Speedway Tracks.
  8. I'm pretty sure I've had major disagreements with Bagpuss on here before but I have agree with him/her 100% on this; it looks narrow and appears to ride narrow. As regards viewing figures, the highest I saw it at was around 2400.
  9. From google maps, measuring the width of the home straight gets you something less than 9m as an example the equivalent measurement for Belle Vue is something over 13m. Now I will acknowledge that the Berwick measurement will be out of date due to the recent work and the figures will not be totally precise, but I got the impression from the view of the start that the straight was narrow and the above backs up that feeling. I supposed it depends on each persons definition of narrow. Regardless the promotion should be applauded for attempting to make track improvements, most tracks in this country need it.
  10. The lack of graphics, etc. on camera isn't a massive issue to me as that's probably quite time consuming to sort out in advance. The poor camera work and Direction are the bigger issues to me. If they want to know how to do it just watch the Polish matches from last season (not seen this season) with some of the best direction/camera work I've seen at Speedway. Even the Direction on the GP's isn't always that great with too many fancy pictures from the top of the flag pole cameras, etc. Somebody asked what the changes were to the Berwick track, I don't think it got answered?? I couldn't make a judgement on the bends but the home straight at least still seemed too narrow for proper racing.
  11. If anyone is still in any doubt as to why nobody watches Speedway in this country anymore then they only need to experience the events of last night! Late starting, flood light failure, link for stream being switched, stream freezing multiple times, none-existent racing, poor camera work, have I missed anything..? I managed to stick it to Heat 9, actually saw a genuine racing pass in heat 8, astounding! At least we didn't have the ubiquitous starting tape failure, perhaps that happened once I gave up on it. Perhaps the racing was amazing after Heat 8... Pay what you think it's worth? I wonder how much Berwick will pay me for managing to put up with 8 heats of it!
  12. 8 heats, 1 pass...! I didn't get to see Heat 1 or 5, no doubt there was multiple passing on every bend!
  13. Pay what you think it is worth is an interesting an idea and the promotion should be applauded for it. People should pay a £1 for every genuine racing pass beyond the back straight of Lap 1 in every race. Be very interesting to see how much you'd have to stump up. How many Heats is it?
  14. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    You're missing the point. In these politically correct times Greyhound Racing is, rightly or wrongly, seen as barbaric and out of place in the 21st century. Wallow in your own ignorance.
  15. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    To those claiming it will be fixed by bringing the best riders back, I recall an article in the Speedway Star a few season's back discussing which riders draw the crowds. It was stated that even Tai Woffinden (who may have even been World Champ at the time) would do little to increase numbers and the only rider who made any difference was Nicki Pedersen. In terms of rider quality, I feel these is a cut-off point, you don't need the absolute best in the world but they do have to be quite a high standard to entertain the crowd. NL/Div3 racing does very little for me for example. And to those dissing the idea of the tracks being the problem and stating they are like that by necessity, yes that's exactly the problem, tracks shoe-horned into dog stadia are, for the most part, fundamentally flawed! The tracks are compromised. Solve that problem. Greyhound racing must be one of the few sports with a darker future than Speedway, relying on them for facilities is another, not so minor, flaw in the plan...
  16. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    The majority of British tracks are either too narrow, too short, have sub optimal bend radius, lack appropriate banking, or suffer from consistently poor surface preparation. Or a combination of some or all of those things. Essentially most of them need to bigger and wider.
  17. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    I have just watched the IoW meeting mentioned earlier. The analysis is as follows: 15 Heats 7 passes in total 9 heats had 0 passes Riders still spread out by the length of the straight. Conclusion: Changing engines will make zero difference to the racing spectacle. That conclusion is purely based on this 1 meeting so obviously isn't fair and reasonable, also the riders weren't particularly evenly matched. The racing could possibly have been better with a more even line-up. I have been to IoW 4 or 5 times in the past and that was fairly typical of the racing served up there. This is not meant as a criticism of the efforts of the IoW promotion. I, and (surely) every other speedway fan in the world, want this: And nobody try and tell me there's no throttle control or track craft on display here. It's no coincidence it's at Belle Vue!
  18. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    I don't dismiss at all that something needs to be done with the engines and I'm sure people who have been involved in the past such as yourself could (and should) advise in that regard. From what I gather, one of the features of the modern engines is that they are difficult to optimally setup with little margin of error. What could be done with the current engines to improve that? I don't really see how the UK could go it alone with a particular engine type/config, to me it would marginalise the sport further, i.e. it would be different from European, Australian, etc. Speedway. British Speedway could fix it's tracks and that would actually bring it more in line with Poland for example. I don't see how changing the rules on new tracks has any negative effect on anyone currently in the sport, why wouldn't it be done? To completely "fix" the sport you have to: Sort the tracks, Sort the engines, Have totally evenly matched teams, Have a proper/better incentive/payment scheme for the riders, and bring back weekend racing. None of that is easy and fixing the tracks is actually one of the easier things on the list...
  19. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    Fair enough, thank you for answering.
  20. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    Incidentally Barry Bishop appears to have the space to modify his track to be like the NSS but would he do it..?
  21. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    I agree that tracks aren't the magic key to fix everything but sorting them is one of the biggest single things you can do to save the sport and improve the entertainment. If the NSS had been built 20 years ago I'd wager they would have retained more fans to the present day. And if every track was like the NSS then the image of no racing/passing would not hold water.
  22. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    Unfortunately, it is people like you two that will see the sport dead. You're both completely missing the point. The NSS is not the best purely because it's bigger, it is about the combination of all the relevant dimensions that produce the best, most entertaining, Speedway spectacle. I don't subscribe to the "throttle control" argument but even if I did it is irrelevant in terms of producing the most entertaining Speedway. i could go on but it is pointless because you're not seeing the wood for the trees and persist in harking back to previous eras with rose tinted glasses.
  23. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    And they are still inferior to the NSS so therefore could be better. To survive in the 21st century you have to get away from the perception (and actually the reality) that there is very little racing/passing at most tracks and first out of the start wins. For any newly built tracks the rules should be changed so the minimum size is 300m and also changes to minimum widths on straights and bends to that of something approach NSS dimensions, I can't give a dimension for that as I don't know the relevant widths. For existing tracks, efforts should be made to increase dimensions, bend radii, etc. where possible. There are currently too many fundamentally flawed tracks.
  24. Stoke Potter

    British Speedway to be reborn?

    The basic product is no good and not attractive to the paying public in sufficient numbers. First thing to be done is fix the tracks, NSS apart.
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