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Speedway Magazines Over The Years

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Take a trip 'Down Memory Lane' in regard to the various magazines that have covered speedway over the years.

Click on image for more information in regard to the publication.

https://www.speedwayfiction.co.uk/speedwaymagazines.html

 

​Weekly magazines not listed are: Broadsider, Speedway Reporter.

 

There were also Monthly publications: Monthly Speedway Star, Monthly Speedway World, Monthly Speedway Reporter.

 

Plus: Vintage Speedway Magazine, Classic Speedway, Backtrack.

 

::: Did any BSF Poster read any of these magazines - include the 'Speedway Star'. If so, which of them and what were their good and bad points?

Edited by Guest

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Take a trip 'Down Memory' in regard to the various magazines that have covered speedway over the years.

Click on image for more information in regard to the publication.

https://www.speedwayfiction.co.uk/speedwaymagazines.html

 

​Weekly magazines not listed are: Broadsider, Speedway Reporter.

 

There were also Monthly publications: Monthly Speedway Star, Monthly Speedway World, Monthly Speedway Reporter..

 

Plus: Vintage Speedway Magazine, Classic Speedway, Backtrack.

 

::: Did any BSF Poster read any of these magazines - include the 'Speedway Star'. If so, which of them and what were their good and bad points?

I used to like Speedway Mail and Speedway Star on the weekly front.

 

As for the Monthlies - Speedway Post and Speedway Express were my favourites.

 

These days Classic Speedway and Backtrack are my favourites - I have all of them to date and I have all of the Vintage Speedway Magazines too.

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I have every copy of the Speedway Star from 1952, it is fascinating to read and see the changes over the years, starting with just 16 pages and a regular duplication of photographs in the 1950's with a strange red "tint" of the front cover and centre photographs (I don't why the editor allowed this !) and the 1 page track reviews with very basic stats. Curiously in the late 50's the red masthead disappeared briefly to be replaced by a black and white one ! Moving into the 1960's the editions expanded the numbers of pages with much more photographs together with 2 page (and more detailed) track reviews and the appearance of the much loved "Seery's Statistics". (my favourite section). Onto the 1970's saw the blue masthead appear until 1973 before being replaced by a black masthead until 1979 with team and rider photographs appearing on the inside and back covers and the back page, Full colour appeared on the front cover for the first time ! The 1970's World Final pre editions were also expanded with more pages. Moving into the 1980's saw full photographs being used on the front with just "Speedway Star" name, before the smaller headlines began to populate the front cover. Alas in the early's 1980's Seery's Statistics was dropped to be replaced by just riders averages, later in the 1980's the rider/team photographs on the inside and back covers were replaced by text with the track reviews being increased to 3 pages with more stats. The Star almost went bust due to falling readership but thankfully the magazine survived, at this time there was no regular delivery day as the Star could appear anytime at the newsagents from Wednesday to Saturday ! Since 1990's the magazine went full colour from the late 90's, as the Star gradually introduced colour as well as black and white photos from the mid 90's and it's regular delivery day switched from Wednesday to the current delivery day of Thursday. Now of course, there is the regular 128 page preseason special which first appeared about 2008, increased GP coverage and special Xtra editions on the web. Now the track reviews cover 4 pages. A far cry from the 1950's !

 

I also have every copy of the Speedway Post and Speedway Express these are a great read. I managed to obtain all the Speedway Mail editions from 1973 to 1991, these are not a "patch" on the Star but they are still an interesting read as completely different photographs were included, alas the match reports particularly from the 70's and mid 80's don't have the same depth as the Speedway Star.

Edited by steve19620
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Magazines where I have been involved over the years circa 1952-2010 are:

 

WEEKLIES:

Speedway News

Speedway Star

Speedway Gazette

Speedway Mail

Speedway World

 

MONTHLIES:

Monthly Speedway Star

Monthly Speedway World

Monthly Speedway Reporter

PLUS:

Vintage Speedway Magazine

Classic Speedway

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Used to purchase (or my dad did!) the 'Speedway Star & News', 'Speedway Express' and 'Speedway Mail' when I used to go. Now I purchase the 'Backtrack' and 'Classic' (used to be Vintage) magazines of which both are great reads.

 

Vaguely remember something called 'Five-One' but it didn't catch on.

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I thought Speedway World packed a lot of information into its mere 8 pages. I recall it gave a decent amount of coverage to the SAL and Open-licence teams.

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Used to purchase (or my dad did!) the 'Speedway Star & News', 'Speedway Express' and 'Speedway Mail' when I used to go. Now I purchase the 'Backtrack' and 'Classic' (used to be Vintage) magazines of which both are great reads.

 

Vaguely remember something called 'Five-One' but it didn't catch on.

That title also springs to mind for me now. And a couple of years ago I remember a publication - I think East Angia based - that also appeared for a time but now seems to have vanished. Or could that have been 'Five-One'? :unsure:

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Two more titles that have been brought to my attention relate to

SKID MAGAZINE

and

SPEEDWAY NOW.

I think both were from the mid-2000 era but could be very wrong in regard to SPEEDWAY NOW which may have been earlier.

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I have all the copies of "five one" magazine, this was from the publishers of the Speedway Star and was sort of an updated version of the old Speedway Express monthly. It ran from 1995 to 1998 or 1999. I do recall that the later editions were not available at the newsagents and could only be purchased by subscriptions. This was a glossy magazine and had several interesting articles on exriders and teams.

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I have all the copies of "five one" magazine, this was from the publishers of the Speedway Star and was sort of an updated version of the old Speedway Express monthly. It ran from 1995 to 1998 or 1999. I do recall that the later editions were not available at the newsagents and could only be purchased by subscriptions. This was a glossy magazine and had several interesting articles on exriders and teams.

The Swiss Motorsport mag,Speedweek which deals with motorsports in general,though had quite a good speedway-longtrack section started out as a newspaper style mag in 2008,then went to a glossy mag the year after.But has been an online only magazine since 2012.Currently has the good news for us in Germany that all the GPs can be seen live on youtube :t:I did make one or two contributions to Speedweek.A photo of Arthur Sissis doing a wheelie in Denmark springs to mind

 

http://www.speedweek.com/bahnsport/

Then there is the long running Bahnsport Aktuell,which i think gustix had dealings with way back

 

http://www.bahnsport-aktuell.de/

Edited by iris123

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I have all the copies of "five one" magazine, this was from the publishers of the Speedway Star and was sort of an updated version of the old Speedway Express monthly. It ran from 1995 to 1998 or 1999. I do recall that the later editions were not available at the newsagents and could only be purchased by subscriptions. This was a glossy magazine and had several interesting articles on exriders and teams.

I think they did an article on me in one of the editions- don`t know which one though !!

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Also must give a mention to the excellent Finnish mag,speedwaysanomat,to which i made many very good contributions to over the years for speedway and ice speedway.The guy that runs it does an excellent job in keeping the sport publicised in what is one of the back waters,not only of track sport,but of the world :P

 

http://www.speedwaysanomat.fi/


I also made a few contributions to the Australian mag

 

http://www.peterwhitesspeedwayworld.com/

 

Not only bikes in this though,but a lot of car stuff

Edited by iris123

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Also must give a mention to the excellent Finnish mag,speedwaysanomat,to which i made many very good contributions to over the years for speedway and ice speedway.The guy that runs it does an excellent job in keeping the sport publicised in what is one of the back waters,not only of track sport,but of the world :P

 

http://www.speedwaysanomat.fi/

This sounds like a love-in to me. where is the FIN/ENG option :lol:

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This sounds like a love-in to me. where is the FIN/ENG option :lol:

The editor once gave me a bottle of Koskenkorva as a gift.Now that is something to be fondly remembered :party:

 

And i have to say,he has my utmost admiration because over the past year or more he has been heavily involved in building a new speedway track in Finland.Now that has to be worth a little love-in :t:

Edited by iris123

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