E I Addio

I wasn’t criticising mate , simply highlighting the apparently incorrect and misleading comment before yours. We don’t really know why the stocks are going ahead and not speedway. mikebv set out a likely reason a few posts,back.

Trolling is not assessed by the number of posts made. It is defined by the content of the post. The forum rules are that you attack the post not the contributor . Your previous post was nothing to do with the subject under discussion, but was a personal attack on myself. Not that I could care less about your opinion, but was merely highlighting your childish comment and your inability to contribute anything of value to the discussion.

Up, comes the troll again , unable to make a sensible comment on the subject matter resorts to the old grudge he can’t get over.

If you had prefixed your previous posts with “opinion “ that would have thrown a different perspective on it, but it was, at the time presented as fact. However be that as it may we are entitled to ask what you base your opinion on. We don’t actually know why Ippo is not running speedway meetings. It might well be that the Ipswich promotion we’re prepared to run but we’re outvoted by the other promotions who didn’t want to, or couldn’t run for whatever reason. They could hardly run a viable league if most of the other tracks wouldn’t run. Personally I think Old Bob at Herne Bay UK Martin and Mikebv have put forward some very persuasive and cogent arguments. The big worry is how many fans find other things to do and don’t come back and how many quality riders find other jobs.

No, it was actually Hawk 127 that started the ball rolling by say bangers and stock cars could run because they are classed as amateur sport. He then said you couldn’t make it up but he obviously did because it appears not to have been true. Then Bandit 59 seemed to have r believed it’s done you jumped on the band wagon by saying it was the Government The guidelines are indeed a little complicated to the layman and we may or may not agree with them but make something up and then politicise it on a sports thread is both misleading and out of order.

I’ve just looked at the Governments guidelines but as far as I can see it doesn’t draw a distinction between professional and amateur sport. As far as I can see the guidelines are all about crowds and social distancing . Even the British Speedway website talks about October being the target date for crowds, not because it is an a professional sport. I looked at the Ipswich Stock Car website and that says advance tickets only so obviously social distancing is relevant there. I might have missed something so can you give us a link to where it says amateur sport is allowed but not professional.

If the bikes are checked every GP that is not every meeting . My understanding is that only the bike on which the rider completes his last ride goes into the parke ferme, but he still has two others. Theoretically the top three finishers are liable to be “checked “ by which I mean stripped down, but I think ( and I stand to be corrected if it is otherwise) that it rarely happens . Think about it a rider spends an arm and a leg on tuners getting it right them some F.I.M bloke strips it down and leaves it for the tuner to put all back together at great expense. Some riders are better than others, some have enormous talent, far above the rest. That’s what makes it so difficult to pin point anything. I am not pointing the finger at Madsen or Bartosz or anyone else. I am only going by what I have heard from riders. Two ex GP riders have told me that you wouldn’t be competitive in Poland if you didn’t have “something done “ to the engines . I didn’t ask them to enlarge on what “something done “ meant. All we do know is that odd ones here and there have been caught cheating so it does happen at least occasionally. Anything beyond that is speculation.

But are the bikes checked every meeting ? I don’t think they are unless someone lodges a protest. The answer is we don’t know and probably never will know if he is cheating. It was Jason Crump that coined the expression “ Polish Fast” years ago . The suspicion of cheating has been around for years, nor necessarily referring to Madsen. But then this is speedway and who knows what to believe about what we hear ? At one time I used to think Darcy Ward must have an oversize engine judging by the amount of acceleration he could generate from nowhere, but I eventually came to the conclusion that it was sheer talent ant nothing else.

Another piece of history gone.The sport has a lot to thank him for.

I haven’t been to a meeting since Lakeside closed . With each passing week I miss it less. I was my intention to go to occasional meetings but there are such a bunch of cowboys in charge I don’t feel motivated and have found plenty of other things to do. There must be thousands like me. Great memories of the sport, but it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the great days are gone and won’t be back.

Possibly because it is true.

I tend to agree with that. In my memory Barry Briggs is the greatest ever, but thinking back to an impressionable age I suppose his reputation went before him and he was probably a great rider in my imagination before I actually saw him ride, based on what I had read in Speedway Star. The reality is I probably only saw him race a handful of times, not enough to form an objective opinion, but I suppose Briggo to me represents that adolescent age when we have our hero’s and nobody else will ever come close to them.

Was he the one billed as “ The Man aWith A Month To Live “ because of his spectacular style ?

My view entirely. Jason was a bit of a hothead early on but as you say he really had it all in the finish . Personally I would put him among the all time greats

I don’t suppose you will get a much on that. Nobody is going to admit anything even if the rumours are true ( and we all know about the rumour mill in speedway) However the version I have read claims that levBreton caught Riggs back wheel which I suppose could have been contrived but a number of riders have been killed or injured clipping another riders back wheel , eg. Lee Richardson and Darcy Ward. Very difficult when one considers the media were generally less inclined to give all the details in those times.I suppose it could have been intentional but very unlikely. It is , though, the sort of crash that could start the rumour mill gossiping..

Still unable to contribute to grown up debate then ? Still unable to comply with forum rules not to amend another members post. Prat.

They had some quad bike racing at Lakeside a few years back. It was a very wet day but they didn’t seem to do a lot of track damage. However they have more bulbous and less nobly tyres and less powerful engines than speedway bikes, so the power is being transmitted to the track entirely differently. Quad bike racing like side cars are unbelievably boring on a speedway track.

Modern solos do enough damage, especially at the start. Side cars are carrying twice the weight.

I’ve never heard of sidecar racing ever being staged at Custom House, and certainly no fatalities. To the best of my knowledge there were four fatalities, all solo riders, two in the mid sixties and two in the early fifties. Three, I think fell and were hit by following riders, and of course Teo who hit the safety fence. Of course there were those who died in the Lokoren tragedy. That hit me very hard. I really thought Peter Bradshaw and especially Martin Piddock had big futures in the sport. Peter had a beautiful classy style that I loved watching. Martin was already a quality grasstracker when he came to Custom House and I really felt he was going to be a second Malcolm Simmons.

....and Olle Nygren, Christer Loftquist, and Tony Clarke in later years !

My thoughts entirely , but on the subject of Knutson, are you aware of the actual reason he retired so early norbold ? I’ve heard people speculate on it and based on ah interview in SS I formed the impression that he felt he had had a good run, reached the pinnacle of World Champion, and came through relatively unscathed apart from a broken arm, so he decided to quit while he was in front, but that’s just my impression and I’ve always wondered about the real reason .

I agree with that, but the more intriguing question is whether Mauger would have won six world titles if Knutson had carried on riding or indeed if Harrfeldt had not suffered his serious injuries. Both were closer to Maugers age than Briggs , Moore or Fundin who were all slightly past their best when Mauger was reaching his peak. Harrfeldt’s record certainly proved he had the talent to take a one off title but I can’t help feeling that Knutssons best was still to come.

Those two are precisely the reason, IMO , why the One Day Final had to evolve into the GP series in a changing world. If I you look at all the winners prior to Szczakiel , luck obviously played an small part in their wins but you could say that if they were not the absolute best in the world at that time they were pretty close to it. I don’t think you could genuinely say that about either Muller or Szczakiel, and I very much doubt whether either of them would have won if not on their home territory. From ‘73 onwards some riders were getting onto the podium who were, good riders on the day but not really worthy of top three in the world by any objective test. The GP system was fairer by the time it was introduced , but I can’t help feeling even that has now run its course.

The Lemon Drop Kid ! Never a great star but IMO a very underrated rider. One of the reasons for speedways golden era was not just that there were some outstanding riders at the top but there was also a strong second tier of riders to keep the top dogs on their toes. I stand to be corrected but I think PLJ never made a British Final let alone a World Final, or if he did he didn’t do very well, yet he was really a very good rider. That was the quality of the sport in this times. oh, where did it all go wrong ?

According to Classic Speedway , Spring 2012, Norman Hunters average from official BL and KO Cup matches in 1965 was 9.67.