Mr. Clemens 646 Posted July 3, 2005 I was an active follower of speedway between 1972 - 1987 attending meetings on a weekly basis at Halifax and Sheffield Speedway tracks. Since watching sky sports my interest has been rekindled (though it was never lost) and in recent months I have begun attending meetings again accompanied by my nephew. We consider ourselves as trackless supporters visiting tracks and meetings as the mood takes us. Having never seen conference league racing and with Scunthorpe within 1 hour of our home town we decided to pay the track a visit. We enjoyed our first meeting and decided to go see the under 15's riding there today 3rd July. Being aware of the importance of young riders coming through the various training courses and succeeding as professional riders was our motivation to go watch these young people ride. The reason I was motivated to join this site and make comment was that we were priveleged to observe what we thought was a most impressive moment which took place this afternoon and for my nephew and I the highlight of the day. In the first race the rider in green named Witman happened to fall coming out of the first bend the rider in blue immediately behind him Brendan Johnson laid down his bike instantly. I observed to my nephew that the way he laid down his bike was has expertly done in a manner has to rank with any laying down of a bike that I had seen in all my time watching racing. This event brought to mind an incident at Halifax where the leading rider fell and one after the other the 3 other rides laid down their bikes in a manner reminiscent of synchronised swimming. What you might call 'poetry in motion'. An unforgettable moment that for us was Johnson's achievement this afternoon and as I said the highlight of our day out. I read in the speedway star in the last year or so that one columnist stated that it seemed that the art of laying down a bike seemed to be lost to this generation of riders. In the opinion of myself and my nephew Brendan Johnson certainly understood that art. It is not unreasonable to say that if Johnson had not laid down his bike instinctively and instantly that he would have most certainly run into Witman, something that I think Johnson was fully aware of himself hence his expert laying down of his machine. We then decided that Johnson was the rider we were going to support this afternoon. Unfortunately he didn't score in his first 3 races but managed 2 second places. Overall we were very impressed by the young riders on show. We had to keep reminding ourselves that these lads were under 15 because when watching them ride it was natural to see them as aged 17 +. Josh Auty was flawless in his performance and Jarvis, Hopwood and Ben Taylor performed well as they got used to the track and there was some genuine competitive racing taking place as the meeting went on. Ben Taylor had an impressive style indicating that he knew how to move his body around on the bike when entering particularly the third bend (we were stood in the middle of the back straight). The fact that we were given a fine dusting of shale every race didn't detract from our enjoyment of the meeting. This was our first visit to see under 15 racing. Kudos to all the riders they did very well and we would have no hesitation in going to see them again at some point. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MONKEYBOY 2 Posted July 4, 2005 Thank you for saying this about me i new i had to lay it down to avoid him thank you for supporting me!!!! If u want to follow my progress visit my website www.bdjracing.co.uk Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wildcat Willie 4 Posted July 5, 2005 What an excellent post Mr Clemens. Nice to see a positive post on here, get fed up of all the twit for tat slagging off that goes on between people of different clubs. All these young riders deserve a pat on the back when they manage to get the bike down so quickly. Brendan is excellent at laying his bike down, I'v seen him lay it down when winning a race , whilst second, whilst third and even when he's on the track on his own Only joking Monkeyboy, well done. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Greg 123 Posted July 5, 2005 how dose the leader borad look now please somone Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SCB 0 Posted July 6, 2005 The one thing I noticed at Cardiff was that there was something 'missing' which I couldn't put my finger on at the time. Later it came to me that it was that the old 'family atmosphere of belonging together we had' that was missing. It's a shame you got an idiot like you described next to you. I can however assure you that Cardiff does still have a great sense of 'belonging'. Every year I have got to Cardiff early afternon and wandered around (the last 3 years I have met people form this very forum) and had a laugh, chat and bit of banter with any number of people, including a Stoke fan I once met at Stoke and got chatting to (we both recognised each other about 3 years later!). Only last year I sat in the stadium on the back row and in front of us we had a group of Poles, again, we had a chat (in very broken English) and we let them know what we thought of the different Polish riders. It seems you have been unlucky, next year you'll have to find out where the people on this forum are meeting as I can assure you, you'll have a great time, my parents both enjoy coming down to Cardiff to have a chat with the fans from this forum and they hardly know any of them. Last year they actully went down to Cardiff for the pre-meeting meet up and then went back home to Newport to actually watch the GP on Sky. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wildcat Steve 33 Posted July 6, 2005 how dose the leader borad look now please somone <{POST_SNAPBACK}> From the other thred Greg by scunny stag 1. Joshua Auty 17-17-17-17 51 2. Ben Taylor 15-15-15-15 45 3. George Piper 11-13-14-13 40 4= Ben Hopwood 12-8-13-13 38 4= George Jarvis 9-12-12-14 38 6. Daniel Greenwood 6-11-11-9 31 7= Ben Thompson 9-10-7-8 27 7= Adam Wrathall 13-14-X-X 27 9. Brendan Johnson 4-10-10-6 26 10. Dan Kirkman 10-3-X-10 23 11=Joe Haines 14-4-X-3 21 11=Scott Meakins 5-6-10-3 21 13 Rickylee Beecroft 4-8-4-X 16 14=Ryan Googer 7-X-X-8 15 14=Kye Norton 4-X-X-11 15 14=Chris Widman 4-3-8-3 15 17=Jack Butler 4-X-4-1 9 17=Tom Davies X-3-X-6 9 19 Aaron Baseby X-X-7-X 7 20 Richard Franklin X-X-2-4 6 20 Ben Johnson X-6-X-X 6 22 Ben Reade X-X-5-X 5 X - signifies a rider didn't take part in that round with the scores being in round order (Buxton, Armadale, Weymouth, Scunthorpe) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TTRacing 0 Posted July 7, 2005 7= Ben Thompson 9-10-7-8 27 Steve Ben should be 10-10-7-8 = 35 and best three rounds 28 Paul Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Scunny Stag 72 Posted July 7, 2005 7= Ben Thompson 9-10-7-8 27 Steve Ben should be 10-10-7-8 = 35 and best three rounds 28 Paul <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hi Paul, Sorry if I have them wrong. I have the Buxton results as: Name Race Points Pos Champ. Pts Joshua Auty 15 1st 17 Ben Taylor 14 2nd 15 Joe Haines 13 3rd 14 Adam Wrathall 11 4th 13 Ben Hopwood 10 5th 12 George Piper 10 6th 11 Dan Kirkman 9 7th 10 George Jarvis 8 8th 9 Ben Thompson 8 8th 9 which up on double-checking suggests I had short changed George Piper but he has since had three better scores. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wildcat Steve 33 Posted July 7, 2005 which up on double-checking suggests I had short changed George Piper but he has since had three better scores. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> George was short changed at Birth...... he has me as his Father Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
