British Championship Series

[iainb 4,992]

With the announcement this week of the cancellation of the British Leagues it got me thinking about how to stage meaningful Speedway. Who on here would attend an Individual British Speedway Championship Series? Or is it team Speedway only for you guys?

I don't know how many British riders there are these days but you could run with say 2 or 3 groups of 16 riders with the top 16 after each round being split up  to "headline" at each track for the next round of 3 matches all leading to the top 16 at the end of the qualifiers to ride in a final at the end of the season at the NSS.

[cityrebel 2,960]

1 hour ago, iainb said:

With the announcement this week of the cancellation of the British Leagues it got me thinking about how to stage meaningful Speedway. Who on here would attend an Individual British Speedway Championship Series? Or is it team Speedway only for you guys?

I don't know how many British riders there are these days but you could run with say 2 or 3 groups of 16 riders with the top 16 after each round being split up  to "headline" at each track for the next round of 3 matches all leading to the top 16 at the end of the qualifiers to ride in a final at the end of the season at the NSS.

I'd go anything at the moment. The boredom is becoming unbearable. Hopefully Non league football will start soon, add to that the odd speedway or grasstrack meeting before the year is over.

Edited July 23, 2020 by cityrebel
Mistake in post

[iainb 4,992]

Just me and you then cityrebel 

[Ben91 1,743]

15 hours ago, iainb said:

With the announcement this week of the cancellation of the British Leagues it got me thinking about how to stage meaningful Speedway. Who on here would attend an Individual British Speedway Championship Series? Or is it team Speedway only for you guys?

I don't know how many British riders there are these days but you could run with say 2 or 3 groups of 16 riders with the top 16 after each round being split up  to "headline" at each track for the next round of 3 matches all leading to the top 16 at the end of the qualifiers to ride in a final at the end of the season at the NSS.

Suggested something similar way back at the start of lockdown. Would be a great idea, makes a lot of sense to me. The only stumbling block would be that if fans are only allowed in from October then time may be against it. 

It wouldn’t be hard to whittle 64 down to 16 with meaningful qualifiers and a final. 

I think a British Championship series should be looked into going forward anyway. Qualifiers in March-April with a series running from May til July for example. A meaningful competition that would also give fixtures to a lot of tracks. We should be finding ways to fill fixture lists with interesting competition, not just two home and away meetings in the league. If the Cardiff wildcard is the big prize for being British Champion then the champion can take the wildcard the following season. Simple. 

[Ringitsneck 348]

12 minutes ago, Ben91 said:

Suggested something similar way back at the start of lockdown. Would be a great idea, makes a lot of sense to me. The only stumbling block would be that if fans are only allowed in from October then time may be against it. 

It wouldn’t be hard to whittle 64 down to 16 with meaningful qualifiers and a final. 

I think a British Championship series should be looked into going forward anyway. Qualifiers in March-April with a series running from May til July for example. A meaningful competition that would also give fixtures to a lot of tracks. We should be finding ways to fill fixture lists with interesting competition, not just two home and away meetings in the league. If the Cardiff wildcard is the big prize for being British Champion then the champion can take the wildcard the following season. Simple. 

Name 64 British riders of championship standard and above?

[cityrebel 2,960]

3 hours ago, iainb said:

Just me and you then cityrebel 

British youth championship at Scunny, £6 inc prog. Can't be bad, I've got my ticket!

[mikebv 10,262]

48 minutes ago, Ringitsneck said:

Name 64 British riders of championship standard and above?

Running with the concept, I would just run with 16 riders over four or five rounds depending on how many tracks can make it happen.. 

The top 16 riders will invariably be mainly the ones who DU and will have spent the most so it gives them a chance to earn some money...

It also means most on show will be of a similar standard so should mean the racing is decent..

Wild card to the winner for next years GP..

£100 a point on average would need £12k a meeting to cover it if using a traditional 20 heat formula, so circa 1000 fans needed at say £15 in, to pay the prize money and VAT..

Circa 1300 needed to pay all the costs in total maybe?

Surely a Speedway starved populus would generate at least 1300 or so? (If those numbers meet the % criteria at the time)..

And there are several venues around the country with tracks fairly 'local' to them so could pull in those fans too who are desperate to see some live Speedway..

Gives the riders a few quid, gives the fans some bona fide Speedway to watch rather than some contrived septets in a challenge, and, if sold properly, could get some publicity for the sport thus keeping it view..

 

[Ringitsneck 348]

34 minutes ago, mikebv said:

Running with the concept, I would just run with 16 riders over four or five rounds depending on how many tracks can make it happen.. 

The top 16 riders will invariably be mainly the ones who DU and will have spent the most so it gives them a chance to earn some money...

It also means most on show will be of a similar standard so should mean the racing is decent..

Wild card to the winner for next years GP..

£100 a point on average would need £12k a meeting to cover it if using a traditional 20 heat formula, so circa 1000 fans needed at say £15 in, to pay the prize money and VAT..

Circa 1300 needed to pay all the costs in total maybe?

Surely a Speedway starved populus would generate at least 1300 or so? (If those numbers meet the % criteria at the time)..

And there are several venues around the country with tracks fairly 'local' to them so could pull in those fans too who are desperate to see some live Speedway..

Gives the riders a few quid, gives the fans some bona fide Speedway to watch rather than some contrived septets in a challenge, and, if sold properly, could get some publicity for the sport thus keeping it view..

 

I almost stopped reading this when you mentioned £100 a point, you obviously haven’t seen standard BSPA rates for individual meetings. It goes on positions and not points and the winner of a meeting will be lucky to get £1200.

Individual meetings lose the promoters money, always have , spectators prefer league racing and your not going to get 1,000 crowd at any championship track and even less so in October. The better riders are not coming out of enforced lockdown to ride in a couple of meetings at best.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Ringitsneck

[iainb 4,992]

I was thinking of something little more inclusive to ALL British riders, obviously depending on how many riders and clubs would want to take part... so for example have a pool of say 32 or 48 riders

Round 1: Held at 3 tracks in week 1

Round 2: The top, middle and bottom riders in the standings then split over the next 3 tracks in Week 2, So split the top 16 into 6,5,5, middle 16 6,5,5 and bottom 16 6,5,5. So the riders appearing at Track 1 in Week 2 would be 1st, 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 20th, 24th etc in the series, Track 2 would see 2nd, 5th, 9th, 13th etc. 

Round 3: Same format as week 2 and then repeat for how ever long the series/season would last for, could be 4 rounds in October or many more depending how many tracks would want to run and how soon they could start.

Finish off with a Top 16 Shootout at the NSS, winner take all.

This way all British riders could earn some money and keep their hands in. Also would be a lot cheaper to run with no GP Stars and expensive foreigners... maybe the shape of things to come, who knows?

Edited July 24, 2020 by iainb

[Ben91 1,743]

1 hour ago, Ringitsneck said:

Name 64 British riders of championship standard and above?

They don’t have to be of Championship quality or above. The qualifiers open the competition to the top 64 British riders and then it’s about how they perform in those qualifying rounds to see who reaches the final. The likelihood is the qualifiers will be 16 of the better riders of the 64 but there is room for upsets. 

I remember David McAllan qualifying for the British Final in 2005 when riding solely for Sittingbourne in the Conference League, he ended up doing reasonably well too. There’s no reason the British Championship can’t be open to more than 16 or so riders. 

[iainb 4,992]

3 minutes ago, Ben91 said:

The likelihood is the qualifiers will be 16 of the better riders of the 64 but there is room for upsets. 

Holding it over multiple tracks and rounds weeds out the home track specialist winner also

[iainb 4,992]

... Or even a similar series run along the lines of a Southern, Midland & Northern Riders Championships with the top 5 from each series going on to a British Final? Something... Anything. Should be relatively easy to organise. I'm surprised the BSPA didn't have a contingency plan really, the message seems to have been we've cancelled the leagues... you can all do what you want.

[Ringitsneck 348]

2 hours ago, Ben91 said:

They don’t have to be of Championship quality or above. The qualifiers open the competition to the top 64 British riders and then it’s about how they perform in those qualifying rounds to see who reaches the final. The likelihood is the qualifiers will be 16 of the better riders of the 64 but there is room for upsets. 

I remember David McAllan qualifying for the British Final in 2005 when riding solely for Sittingbourne in the Conference League, he ended up doing reasonably well too. There’s no reason the British Championship can’t be open to more than 16 or so riders. 

So now you water down the product to include National League standard riders to make your 64 up and expect the likes of Richard Lawson, Danny King and Charles Wright to race against NL reserves and call it a competitive championship?
Mr. Wright is unlikely to pack his full time job in on the building site to compete in 2 or 3 meetings to ride in that sort of meeting for the going rate (peanuts.)
which tracks do you see cueing up to stage these ‘ competitive’ ( loss making ) meetings ?
 

[Ben91 1,743]

11 minutes ago, Ringitsneck said:

So now you water down the product to include National League standard riders to make your 64 up and expect the likes of Richard Lawson, Danny King and Charles Wright to race against NL reserves and call it a competitive championship?
Mr. Wright is unlikely to pack his full time job in on the building site to compete in 2 or 3 meetings to ride in that sort of meeting for the going rate (peanuts.)
which tracks do you see cueing up to stage these ‘ competitive’ ( loss making ) meetings ?
 

The standard gets worse year on year. And it isn’t watering the product down. At the start of the season there would be four qualifiers. The top four riders from each of those meetings would then move on to the championship series. 

The standard of Speedway here all riders should be competing as a hobby and working a real job anyway. The sport cannot support giving riders a full time living but rather than accepting that we let them double up so they don’t have to face the reality that Speedway isn’t that popular. And why should riders be paid to compete in their national championship too? Expenses yes, but they should do it for the opportunity to be national champion. 

[00000 1,279]

The decision whether to open, run meetings and the type of meeting is down to individual promoters.

Personally, I don't see this proposed travelling 'circus' as a crowd puller.