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Gresham

Speedway's Twisted Mentality...

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They all seemed to get on ok at the SEC round earlier this year in dreadful wet conditions, in fact the racing was made very interesting by it. A lot goes into perfomrance on the track, not just engines or their power but also riding styles, experience of the rider, the track, weather of course. If you've never ridden on a wet track you will struggle to start with.

 

I also agree with Danny Smith earlier in that i don't think the positioning of the engine makes any difference to unpredictability - however a short stroke is definitely more unpredictable than a long stroke engine and unfortunately many riders now use these. I think there should be some way to reduce the speed of the bikes because for me that's not the sole attraction of speedway, it's the combat.

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I read a interview the other day with Tai Woffinden, where he said bikes were very hard to control these days and they were very often just hanging on.

 

So if the world champion is saying he is just hanging on and has less control, what does that say about our sport?

 

He mentioned that it was like driving a car on marbles.

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I read a interview the other day with Tai Woffinden, where he said bikes were very hard to control these days and they were very often just hanging on.

 

So if the world champion is saying he is just hanging on and has less control, what does that say about our sport?

 

He mentioned that it was like driving a car on marbles.

I recall an interview with the late Kelly Moran some years ago when he was quoted as saying that he had difficulty riding a lay down engine.

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I recall an interview with the late Kelly Moran some years ago when he was quoted as saying that he had difficulty riding a lay down engine.

It's the high revs, the back wheel spins so fast, it almost needs a perfect track to get traction.

 

Notice how much a rider in turns 2 and 4 has to lean over, but push the bike out with his arms to keep it more upright, often with the right leg off the peg....all because the rear wheel needs to find more traction....otherwise it just turns 360.

 

The Sport is out of control. at least with F1 they real things back in...Speedway has just been led by the manufacturers and tuners.

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Peter Johns made some good points in SS a while back. The important thing is transferring power from the engine to the track via the back tyre and Johns suggested changing the tyre compound to make it less grippy so tuners would then be forced to "soften " the engines other wise they would just be spinning up all the time.

 

Sounds a good idea in theory but would need some careful thought. I seem to remember many years ago they played about with tyres and just made all worse. However technology has moved on and it is perhaps worth some thought as long as they (the tyre manufacturers} can get it right.

Edited by E I Addio

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Excuse my ignorance (know very litle about bikes).

Are there different types of tyres that could be used for different weather conditions?

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Technology has indeed moved on...producing ever more powerful engines, producing ridiculous amounts of Revs, on the limit of breaking point, engines that need to be serviced after very few laps...of course PJR are going to say that, it's in his interest.

 

I'd point you in the direction of his website, and what he recommends for looking after an engine, it's ridiculous when you read it...but it seems he's let his domain name expire, so his site is down.

 

As for tyres being less grippy, that is the most stupid thing I've ever read from an engine tuner. Riders are constantly manoeuvreing their body shape on the bike, fighting to find more traction, as like Tai Woffinden said recently, it's like driving a car on marbles.

 

Engines need to be less powerful and have more restriction on them, as they have now outgrown most speedway tracks and surfaces.

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Technology has indeed moved on...producing ever more powerful engines, producing ridiculous amounts of Revs, on the limit of breaking point, engines that need to be serviced after very few laps...of course PJR are going to say that, it's in his interest.

 

I'd point you in the direction of his website, and what he recommends for looking after an engine, it's ridiculous when you read it...but it seems he's let his domain name expire, so his site is down.

If you can remember the website URL, perhaps the https://archive.org/web/ archiving caught this, enabling the site content to still be read...?

 

Edit: found it myself...

In fact https://web.archive.org/web/20150119020933*/http://www.peterjohnsracing.com/ shows 4 snapshots of the website.

Edited by Tkdandy
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Technology has indeed moved on...producing ever more powerful engines, producing ridiculous amounts of Revs, on the limit of breaking point, engines that need to be serviced after very few laps...of course PJR are going to say that, it's in his interest.

 

I'd point you in the direction of his website, and what he recommends for looking after an engine, it's ridiculous when you read it...but it seems he's let his domain name expire, so his site is down.

 

As for tyres being less grippy, that is the most stupid thing I've ever read from an engine tuner. Riders are constantly manoeuvreing their body shape on the bike, fighting to find more traction, as like Tai Woffinden said recently, it's like driving a car on marbles.

 

Engines need to be less powerful and have more restriction on them, as they have now outgrown most speedway tracks and surfaces.

Let the rider skill be the difference not what is done in the workshop

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Excuse my ignorance (know very litle about bikes).

Are there different types of tyres that could be used for different weather conditions?

There's currently one standard tyre but there was a move to introduce a 'wet' tyre and some testing was done but no conclusion reached.

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There's currently one standard tyre but there was a move to introduce a 'wet' tyre and some testing was done but no conclusion reached.

Tyres have been a constant source of debate going back decades. Pirelli, Barum or Carlisle to name a few. It's been argued that some are too narrow/wide, soft/hard, deep/shallow treads etc etc.

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The White Knight, on 29 Jul 2016 - 3:29 PM, said:

Like the Avatar Dave. :t:

 

Who is it?

 

It's early/draft artwork from a forthcoming children's book series. I can't say any more than that, except I'm neither the author nor the artist.

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It's early/draft artwork from a forthcoming children's book series. I can't say any more than that, except I'm neither the author nor the artist.

Thank you Dave. :t:

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Technology has indeed moved on...producing ever more powerful engines, producing ridiculous amounts of Revs, on the limit of breaking point, engines that need to be serviced after very few laps...of course PJR are going to say that, it's in his interest.

 

I'd point you in the direction of his website, and what he recommends for looking after an engine, it's ridiculous when you read it...but it seems he's let his domain name expire, so his site is down.

 

As for tyres being less grippy, that is the most stupid thing I've ever read from an engine tuner. Riders are constantly manoeuvreing their body shape on the bike, fighting to find more traction, as like Tai Woffinden said recently, it's like driving a car on marbles.

 

Engines need to be less powerful and have more restriction on them, as they have now outgrown most speedway tracks and surfaces.

As always, you dismiss out of hand any comment that doesn't suit your agenda. Peter Johns has put forward an idea but you don't think it's worth even a second thought. Why ask for thoughts in OP if you don't really want any that don't back your own idea ?

 

As for saying engines need to be less powerful and have more restriction on them, that is an easy thing to say but much more difficult to apply in practice and even more difficult to police unless engines are going to be stripped and examined after every meeting. Unless you can put forward a clear and coherent technical argument as to how you make engines less powerful without scope for cheating and without affecting the quality of the racing your argument can be dismissed as readily as you dismiss Peter Johns suggestion.

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So we have a Poole Promotor that wants to bring in approx. 25 home meetings in per season. One home meeting a week. How many of them are going to get rained off at first attempt or even second attempt? How is it possible to run a bigger fixture list in a season, with the bikes we have, with the weather conditions common to Britain?

 

What percentage of rain off's have we had this season?

 

Imo, it's the amount of rain offs we have, and the irregularity of speedway meetings being on, that is the problem...as people get fed up of travelling miles only to be told it's off.

 

I personally enjoyed seeing riders battle the elements as well as one another.

 

Perhaps that's why County Cricket, Lawn Tennis and Speedway suffer falling attendances...because they can't deal with the normal conditions of the Country we live in.

Do Cricket and Tennis have quicker balls than 30 years ago?? :D:wink:

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