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Aces51

Belle Vue v Somerset KO Cup Semi Final 2nd Leg 19.9.18

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Another cracking meeting at the NSS :approve: highlighted by a stunning heat 13 that surpassed even the much hyped one from a couple of weeks ago.

Best sight for me was Craig Cook at his very best. After a poor start in his first ride, he was just brilliant whether he was out of the gate or not.  Those who suggest it is time for him to move on have got it very wrong for me.

While I accept that Belle Vue's attendances are better than most, it is still disappointing to see the grandstand half full when it has been two thirds or three quarters full in the past. There were mitigating factors last night, but it still doesn't make it much less disappointing.

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1 hour ago, Halifaxtiger said:

Another cracking meeting at the NSS :approve: highlighted by a stunning heat 13 that surpassed even the much hyped one from a couple of weeks ago.

Best sight for me was Craig Cook at his very best. After a poor start in his first ride, he was just brilliant whether he was out of the gate or not.  Those who suggest it is time for him to move on have got it very wrong for me.

While I accept that Belle Vue's attendances are better than most, it is still disappointing to see the grandstand half full when it has been two thirds or three quarters full in the past. There were mitigating factors last night, but it still doesn't make it much less disappointing.

Why is it disappointing though HT?

Speedway is just a tiny minority Sport in the UK..

I think we as fans need to adjust our expectations of what crowd levels the sport should get..

The Sport is on a level (at best) with Ice Hockey in the UK and maybe even smaller than that considering they managed to get 7000 at the play off final at a neutral venue. (Speedway couldn't do that I am sure)...

And the downward trend in crowd levels historically each year would suggest in five years or so a half full grandstand would be seen as a positive thing as circa 100 or so 'regulars' seem to drop off annually...

Considering hardly anyone virtually on their doorstep could name who the club is and what it does, never mind name or recognise any of the riders who ride for them, the crowds are not that bad...

(For Speedway)...

Edited by mikebv

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11 minutes ago, mikebv said:

Why is it disappointing though HT?

Speedway is just a tiny minority Sport in the UK..

I think we as fans need to adjust our expectations of what crowd levels the sport should get..

The Sport is on a level (at best) with Ice Hockey in the UK and maybe even smaller than that considering they managed to get 7000 at the play off final at a neutral venue. (Speedway couldn't do that I am sure)...

And the downward trend in crowd levels historically each year would suggest in five years or so a half full grandstand would be seen as a positive thing as circa 100 or so 'regulars' seem to drop off annually...

Considering hardly anyone virtually on their doorstep a could name who the club is and what it does, never mind name or recognise any of the riders who ride for them, the crowds are not that bad...

(For Speedway)...

If it can, in fact, live financially on such low crowds on a regular basis - so be it. 

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18 minutes ago, waytogo28 said:

If it can, in fact, live financially on such low crowds on a regular basis - so be it. 

And that is the fundamental issue...

Crowds for such a tiny Sport that considering that it has virtually zero marketing on any decent scale, are in most places 'OK'...

The costs are the problem...

All historical evidence suggests that crowds won't grow (and will decline further) hence costs need to come down..

Not likely to happen though..

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Heat 13 now on belle vues Twitter and Facebook pages  

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I’ve now seen both heat 13’s and in my opinion I preferred the first one.....but both cracking adverts for the sport 

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I preferred the race from a couple of weeks ago but that may be because of the extra camera angles and watching it ‘live’. However last nights was still an incredible race going by the video. Must be a nightmare leading a race later on in an NSS meeting with both opponents all over you, impossible to know where to ride as there are so many lines of attack.

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16 minutes ago, Rob B said:

Heat 13 : 

 

Great race, what a race track NSS is,and whoever prepares it seems to know what they are doing.Lots of grip all over track and evenly spread.It must be this special shale that all the other promoters and track men are unable to find ,when they make their excuses.:rolleyes:

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NSS still has it's faults  for some reason again the 1st half dozen heats were FTG then it kicks in. Very rare for us to have good racing early on 

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A good meeting with some excellent racing, we could have pulled this back and can point to a couple of instances like Covatti beating Tungate and Lawson nicking 2nd in heat 14 but the tie is run over 30 heats and yet again we failed in the away leg. Congratulations to Somerset you cant take anything away from them. As for the obsession with crowd sizes if we were still at Kirky Lane it would probably look a decent crowd, in the wide open spaces of the NSS it looks poor. Monday should be far better and next season get away from Monday nights and i think that will result in an increase.

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Adrian Smith said in his programme notes that crowds have improved but I suspect that could just be the school holidays affect. The material difference between this year and last is the Monday race night. We must get back to racing on Fridays.

11 minutes ago, Phil The Ace said:

NSS still has it's faults  for some reason again the 1st half dozen heats were FTG then it kicks in. Very rare for us to have good racing early on 

You see that at many of the best Polish tracks, you have to wait for the dirt to move out to create the racing lines. I've always thought they should put on a few junior races first so that the dirt will have moved out by the time the meeting proper starts.

Edited by Aces51
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16 minutes ago, Phil The Ace said:

NSS still has it's faults  for some reason again the 1st half dozen heats were FTG then it kicks in. Very rare for us to have good racing early on 

That's like most top tracks.  We always have good racing to be fair but it just gets better and better as the meeting goes on.

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Great to see B V fans offering congratulations to the opposing team, a pity another play off clubs  fans aren't so generous !! 

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1 hour ago, Phil The Ace said:

NSS still has it's faults  for some reason again the 1st half dozen heats were FTG then it kicks in. Very rare for us to have good racing early on 

All tracks like that, if you had great racing in first few heats the racing will be poor later on as won't be any dirt left on the outside. Doyle did pass Fricke in heat 1 last night.

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