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Hawk127

Use of Stadium/Speedway and it’s failing to win support

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Each to their own, of course, footie & rugby do nothing for me other than assessing whether a stadium could also stage speedway.  Once went to Coventry, Brandon for a speedway nite wih a couple of stock car fans,  who when turning into the car park about an hour befiore the start, both said almost in unision "oh no, it must be off already".  It wasn't off, they were just used to seeing the car park beng full to busting.  And Brandon has a more than decently-sized car park....

Edited by martinmauger
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5 hours ago, MattK said:

Just out of interest, how often do Ipswich and Kings Lynn host bangers/stockcars and what kind of crowds do they attract?

There was a track near where I used to live (Standlake) which hosted bangers every week and the few times I went there couldn't have been more than 100-odd spectators. The vast majority of the people there were involved in the meeting in some way (drivers, mechanics etc.)

I think people  may be cherry picking the attendances to once-a-year top stockcar meetings and comparing them to weekly league speedway, but I may be wrong.

In Newport we have banger racing (St Brides) and Autograss (Magor) and like you say, if there’s more than 100 there then I’m amazed, and also like you say it strikes me that it’s mostly the competitors family.

Been to both, they drag on and it’s boring and tedious. How I imagine speedway newbies feel.

Stock cars at Coventry and Birmingham Wheels is something else though. Enjoyed it both times but it’s not just local fans, because there’s so few stock car meetings in the U.K. people travel for miles. If speedway only had 4 speedway meetings a month then I’m sure 10-15,000 would turn up where ever it was taking place that night - mostly a weekend too.

Edited by SCB

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1 hour ago, SCB said:

In Newport we have banger racing (St Brides) and Autograss (Magor) and like you say, if there’s more than 100 there then I’m amazed, and also like you say it strikes me that it’s mostly the competitors family.

Been to both, they drag on and it’s boring and tedious. How I imagine Jo speedway newbies feel.

Stock cars at Coventry and Birmingham Wheels is something else though. Enjoyed it both times but it’s not just local fans, because there’s so few stock car meetings in the U.K. people travel for miles. If speedway only had 4 speedway meetings a month then I’m sure 10-15,000 would turn up where ever it was taking place that night - mostly a weekend too.

Correct...

Belle Vue race in front of around 20000 fans in around 18 meetings.

The Stox race in front of around 20000 fans in around six meetings at the Greyhound track..

If anyone attended just one meeting per year at both events then they would think that Stox were significantly more popular...

Both sports have a huge % of their crowds as 'die hards' who attend regularly.

Edited by mikebv

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10 hours ago, mikebv said:

...Belle Vue race in front of around 20000 fans in around 18 meetings...

Wow. That's more than even the top Polish teams attract. 

OR do you mean it takes 18 meetings to accumulate a total of 20,000? If so, you're cheating as most will be the same people week after week.

Edited by uk_martin

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21 hours ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

They only get prize money ,but stock drivers don’t believe the sport owes them a living , speedway riders do , it’s ok for the top guys but these days get a licence and string 4 laps together and suddenly you think your a professional  ,

Not really true ...

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1 hour ago, *JJ said:

Not really true ...

Really , then why won’t they ride for £10 pp in national league ? It is true , some people might not like it cause it’s a little to close for comfort but doesn’t make it not true ,.it has never been easier to get a national league place and once they are in they start demanding alsorts 

Edited by THE DEAN MACHINE
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In the ACU Sidecar series, (at Leicester, Somerset, King's Lynn & Belle Vue) the entrants all paid a fee to race, and were paid a set amount per point gained during the meeting.

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On 27/12/2017 at 12:26 PM, MattK said:

Just out of interest, how often do Ipswich and Kings Lynn host bangers/stockcars and what kind of crowds do they attract?

There was a track near where I used to live (Standlake) which hosted bangers every week and the few times I went there couldn't have been more than 100-odd spectators. The vast majority of the people there were involved in the meeting in some way (drivers, mechanics etc.)

I think people  may be cherry picking the attendances to once-a-year top stockcar meetings and comparing them to weekly league speedway, but I may be wrong.

At Ipswich it is roughly once a fortnight except for speed weekend.

It is not just bangers but a range of cars from stock cars, hot rods etc.

To get an idea of attendances at Ipswich, take a look at the face book page for Foxhall Stadium. I think it may also depend on who is running the meetings. Spedeworth run Birmingham, Arlington, Ipswich, Mildenhall, Great Yarmouth, Northampton and Aldershot. They run at a few other venues. Ipswich speedway would certainly like the level of punters that turn up for the four wheeled motor sport and given the number of speedway meetings likely in 2018, attendances on a like for like basis based on frequency of meetings will be easier to judge.

I am not comparing one sport against the other but was simply saying if you look at the numbers turning up for the four wheeled sport they seemingly are generating greater revenue than speedway hence from a business perspective why would you battle with the way speedway is run with dwindling numbers through the gate when you can probably derive greater benefit with less aggravation from running stocks, hot rods and bangers.

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I've already recounted the story of a former speedway promoter handing out the fivers to his stock car racers so won't bore the forum with a repeat. I had to get involved in stock car racing (banger racing is popular but often minor aspect of the sport, depending on location) in the early 80s and it was clear that crowds were quite superb for it, despite the lack of media coverage, and respect from the outside world. I'd go to speedway tracks and see them full for the car racing : Belle Vue, Coventry, Long Eaton for example.  Even the smaller,. more remote locations like Aycliffe, Taunton, St Austell and Newton Abbot had crowds that would have been the envy of speeday promotions, even then. 

Speedway is torn apart by some for lack of credibility yet I lost count of the number of World Finals I would meet in oval car racing. It seemed every promoting group had its own World Championship for its various formulae, although at the higher levels BriSCA and Spedeworth managed to keep their world finals unique.

Okay, so crowds were higher and costs lower, despite often 50-60 cars racing, many of which cost five figures to put on track. By contrast some other 'Banger' meetings featured cars dragged off the scrapheap, only to return after a few crashes. One other key difference from speedway was the lack of foreign racers. In fact in the cheaper formulae such as 'Stock Rods' or 'Saloon Stock Cars', outside championship events the drivers would all come from roughly a 40-50 mile radius. Even the 'World Finals' would often include just a handful of foreign racers, a few from the Dutch tracks and drivers from South Africa or Australasia imported for the event to drive loaned cars built to a different formula than their cars back home.  As you can imagine the World Champions tended to be British.....

So we have a sport with limited credibility, little international competition, almost zero media coverage, but with minimal costs attracting huge crowds.

Why?

I expect much of the crowd just wet to watch crashes and ignored the race order, nigh-on impossible to follow without lap charts and a commentator with access to them (I certainly didn't). The public didn't seem bothered by results. 

There was a following for 'names' on a national scale with both BriSCA stock car formulae and Spedeworth's Hot Rods having a troupe of travelling stars but I do suspect the attraction was simply action and entertainment. A society that drives far more cars than rides motorbikes is perhaps inevitably attracted more to four-wheeled racing.

You could see though that this was a sport that simply got on with it outside the media spotlight, didn't waste a fortune attracting 'names; in from all over Europe, with competitors tracing for the fun of it, not the money, put the saved money into advertising, and one that stood no nonsense and just put on what the crowds enjoyed.

There was one shining example of this. I went to Crewe just after the speedway had folded. Stock cars crashing on that track tended to stay crashed. The promoter had a way to deal with the mayhem after each of the several races. He had effectively a truck with a fork lift on the front with which he just picked the cars up and dumped them on the old cricket pitch and got on with the racing as soon as possible. It was astonishing to watch. No messing about and no taking the paying customers for granted by having a huge gap between races. 

Perhaps instead of sneering at Stock Car Racing or treating it as a destructive cuckoo in the nest speedway might find it useful to take a look at what it gets right. If they need to know when the next meeting is try the local paper which may well have a full page colour ad in it to inform them......

It made me realise that importing up to about a dozen riders from all over Europe and Australasia to race for big money in front of a crowd as small as a minor non league football club was insanity. It still is. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by RobMcCaffery
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I wasn't knocking bangers / stock cars BTW, I realise there are different classes i.e. 'demolition derby'-type events v different classes of racing with different rules & regs.   I meant folk wanting to see crashes and smashes are virtually guarranteed this action, wheras with speedway there is not guarrantee of the quality of racing, though personally I'd enjoy watching one rider going round a slick track on his own.  Been meaning to check the stox out, a pal went to Scunny once, forget why I coudn't make it last minute, but he said "it was difficult to follow at times, but boy was it entertaining and the big Chevy V8's (?) were brilliant, the sound of those big engines was awesome"....

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20 hours ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

Really , then why won’t they ride for £10 pp in national league ? It is true , some people might not like it cause it’s a little to close for comfort but doesn’t make it not true ,.it has never been easier to get a national league place and once they are in they start demanding alsorts 

Well, my own experience has been helping a rider in the development leagues (you may have seen me in Geoff's) and I suspect that we would have accepted anything ... the fact is, that the gap between MDL and NL is just as big as the gap between NL and CL, and just as difficult to cross. What I meant previously was that I didn't agree with your starement that anyone who can last four laps will get into the NL. You have, in fact, to be pretty good to go professional.

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12 hours ago, RobMcCaffery said:

It made me realise that importing up to about a dozen riders from all over Europe and Australasia to race for big money in front of a crowd as small as a minor non league football club was insanity. It still is. 

 

And that is the reality of GB Speedway when you think that only three clubs did not make a loss in 2017.

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7 hours ago, martinmauger said:

I wasn't knocking bangers / stock cars BTW, I realise there are different classes i.e. 'demolition derby'-type events v different classes of racing with different rules & regs.   I meant folk wanting to see crashes and smashes are virtually guarranteed this action, wheras with speedway there is not guarrantee of the quality of racing, though personally I'd enjoy watching one rider going round a slick track on his own.  Been meaning to check the stox out, a pal went to Scunny once, forget why I coudn't make it last minute, but he said "it was difficult to follow at times, but boy was it entertaining and the big Chevy V8's (?) were brilliant, the sound of those big engines was awesome"....

This is so true. I still wonder how they are allowed be so loud when speedway bikes have to be muffled to death. Grrr.....

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On ‎26‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 11:29 PM, Hawk127 said:

. Even Ice speedway appears to get better support if you watch some of the Russian qualifying meetings.  Time to wake up and see what is wrong and stop tinkering with the irrelevant. Speedway deserves better.

Todays 1st leg of the Russian Final in Togliatti was pretty poorly supported.Very sparse crowd there

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