Thornaby48
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Posts posted by Thornaby48
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The current premier league has to weaken if they want to survive ,with only 7 teams now it cannot be a viable attraction to new and old supporters.
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It's time for the annual reorganisation of our favourite sport. I think it's obvious that the two leagues now have to merge. Make it a 16 team premier league initially, with the rest in the national league. 16 teams makes it easy to run subsidiary comps like a league cup , a knockout cup and a fours comp. Start the league comp in the 3rd week of May with every team racing one home and one away each week and ending in September.Prior to this date ,and after the subsidiary comps can be raced. For next season lower the points limit until teams are settled and it can be amended in the following years. Limit the scourge of guests to only the injured no 1 rider, no one else and further limit it to a guest can only be used ,say ,6 times in the league season otherwise use a new system of r/r. Bring back the old 13 heat formula and start a second half regionalised reserve league to bring on New riders. To make races more exciting,which after all is what we pay our money for, handicap the heat leaders to give the lesser riders a chance to shine. Well thats my 10 pence worth.
Forgot, speed way has to advertise, no business can survive if people don't know it exists.
In following years the 2nd tier championship league can be revived
Simplest.
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I cannot see it being postponed ,it would make a mockery of speed way if it was, not everybody is a football fan. I will be going , it will be nice to see red car win for a change
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I returned to speed way 3 years ago after an absence of 14 years. I didn't know any of the riders names or wether they were top riders or not , I just enjoyed the racing. What did shock me was the number of guest riders, even at reserve and I hesitate to attend now if there is more than 1 guest riding. I want to watch my team not a random collection of riders. To my mind there are several reasons for speed ways decline,
1) the lack of publicity locally and nationally
2) the excessive use of guest riders. How can you associate yourself with a team that is not yours
3) I like r/r but in its current form is not fit for purpose.
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Last night, against Peterborough i saw Dimitri berge ride for the first time. Apart from his first ride he was excellent and seems to like riding wide. Now, partner him with a rider who likes to ride tight and we have the ideal pairing for team riding which is not only a joy to watch but is also a potential 5-1, or at worst a 4-2. In heat 12 he was paired with Nathan greaves and for a while they were team riding until Dm sped off and we had a 4-2. I remember the crazy Jack Millen ( now, there was a showman who was a great rival of Frank auffret ) team riding with Dave gatenby at Sunderland to great effect. I am sure that speed way as a spectacle would benefit if more team riding took place rather than riders just taking off leaving their partner behind. Obviously it wouldn't always work but worth a try.
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1 hour ago, ch958 said:apparently according to the programme we have lost money on every meeting this year. Texter says tonight is above average - around 500.
What the absolute fck. When are we going to wake up and make the div 2 affordable.
It would be interesting to know what size crowd we need to break even.
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Good meeting tonight ,wrong result though but all credit to Peterborough. PalmToft was excellent and shame he didn't get his max. Very impressive for red car is Dimitri Bergen,likes to go wide and a shame that in heat 12 couldn't team ride with greaves for a much needed 5-1.
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21 hours ago, moxey63 said:I'm not kidding myself that speedway forty years ago was perfect either - for in one 1980 fixture Bobby Schwartz of Reading and Hackney's Finn Thomsen pulled on Aces' jacket as guests in one match - despite both of their teams challenging the Manchester club for the league title! And it happened late enough in the season - mid-September - to have had an influence on the title race.
Perhaps to avoid this happening there should be a cut off point , say, two thirds of the way through the season when guests cannot be used
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With all due respect that is irrelevant and is only complicating a simple solution
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All this could have been avoided by having one group of 5 teams, one group of 6 teams with top 2 in each group going into semi finals ____simples.
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I would much rather see one guest, rider replacement and where possible give the number 8 a ride ,so that I am watching my team rather than a championship league select.
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Two guests for red car this week ? One supporter not going if correct
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Years ago British riders tried to make their way into speed way via the second half reserve and rider of the night races, these have long gone now but it was interesting spotting future talent. Nowadays we don't even give them a chance at no 8 when rider replacement is used.
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I visited the shay a few times and seem to remember Eric boothroyd ,the promoter doing a cartwheels at the starting gate
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One way of advertising speedway ,or any sport for free is via the sports results in local or national newspapers. Displaying the league tables shows people interested in sport that speedway exists in their area something they may not have been aware of. Our leagues are not large so wouldnt take up much space. I was talking to a fan at Redcar recently who lives in Redcar and he said people didn't know about the speedway. I don't know how one goes about publishing the results and league tables ,this should be the responsibility of the promoters to get it sorted.
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I agree that gate positions are important but it wouldn't stop the high average riders on their faster bikes making the gate ahead of the lower ave riders and in many cases the race for position is over by the end of the second bend.
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I am new to the forum and don't know if this subject has been brought up before. I have just returned in the last 3 years to speedway after a 14 year gap due to working unsociable hours. One thing that hasn't changed whilst I have been away is the processional racing we get from time to time. Recently I visited a northern track where every race was won from the gate and after the 2nd bend it was a case of follow the leader, I counted no more than 3 overtakes in 15 races and the final result could have been declared after one lap of "racing" rather than the usual four. This isn't always the case of course. I feel that to bring in handicap racing would make it much more interesting and give the lower average riders a chance to make a competitive race of it for at least one lap. I suggest that after heat 4,when all the riders have had 1 race to get the feel of the track the heat leaders are handicapped 15 meters. This wouldn't apply to heats 8, 14, and 15 where the top riders are nominated. This means the heat leaders have to win a race using their skill as well as their faster bikes to pass the slower and less able riders . Other sports have handicaps---- golf ,horse racing, American speedway ,Formula 1 racing where the fastest drivers start at the front and in fact in speedway, in 1963 the likes of Barry Briggs, Ove Fundin, and others were handicapped. Also our present system of Points Limits on teams is a form of handicap making all teams equal penalising the strong to help the weak. A lot of ideas sound good on paper but don't work in practice, but it would be interesting to see if two teams were willing to try it out.
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It would have better to run the Championship Shield as two groups rather than three thus adding two more home meetings
The continuing decline of Speedway
in Speedway News and Discussions
Posted
From my experience since 1968 ,the standard of racing is pretty much the same but it is a lot faster now and I think is resulting in a lot more crashes.