Chris116

The photo on the BSPA site with the results from this meeting show a race with the riders lined up Red, Blue, White, Yellow at the gate. Did this happen or is the photo from another meeting?

When Race Video did the filming at Hackney and Arena Essex, I did the commentary for Russell Williams as I knew him through doing Stock Car commentating around the country. I always did the Speedway commentary live and I have to say it was far harder than doing Stock Cars! With my experience from back then I would be only too happy to do more for the cars but I think I would avoid the job when the bikes are racing!

Rye House took cash And cards, look how well it worked for them!

The late Chick Woodroffe, owner and builder of Arena Essex always said that you never delay the start of a meeting (stox or speedway) due to a queue outside BUT you make sure the introductions take long enough that all who were at the turnstyles three minutes before start time get to see the first race in full. You need a good presenter on the PA to make it work but with care it is a tight rope that promotions can balance on. That way those who arrive early do not feel they have been left waiting for people who arrive at the last minute. The nearly late comers still see all the racing and hopefully arrive a bit earlier for the next meeting. By doing things like that all the customers are kept happy and hopefully come back again as well as telling their friends what a good afternoon/evening they had at whichever track they have been to. If you get the reputation of starting late for a queue then you get more late comers as they feel they will not miss anything but if they only just make it and get to know that meetings start on time then they start to get to the stadium a bit earlier.

Is anyone on here actually at the track with a programme, so they can tell us who is listed or are they not allowed to open their programmes until start time?

A four team tournament with 12 riders and guests from the other three times to make up the lack of riders! I am, I hope, joking.

Anyone who wants race times needs to look no further than the Updates site which includes them in all the other details about the racing.

They tried that in Beach Volleyball, and without the high heels it works!

Too simple, this is speedway we are talking about.

A bit like the start of the cricket season!

If you get a better covering and it freezes properly then they could put spikes in the tyres and have ice speedway!

Where is it due to be held?

Can you even remember last week?

Sounded as though it was not Ged bailing out, more a case of being shown the exit door and being given a push to ensure he went through it.

As a former fan of Wimbledon, Hackney, New Cross, West Ham, Crayford, Arena Essex, Skegness and Rye House I would settle for any speedway near where I live and would be happy pay £17 for National League standard racing if that was my only choice.

Just put him on 15 yards for all his rides and save the cost of new tapes and the time spent after they are broken. If he gets a 15 point maximum he really will have proved himself!

There is that word again! PROMOTION. Last season I went to all but what turned out to be the last meeting at Rye House. They have a large advert just by the road entrance which had the next meeting date and time. Trouble was on all but two meetings when I arrived it showed the details of a previous meeting. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, surely changing that hoarding should have been the first job on the day following a meeting.

In the old 13 heat format the top five riders had four rides and the two reserves had three. With two extra races four riders will have an extra ride.

In all the leagues we need to happen to get back to a full season of racing instead of two or three times a month with all the postponed fixtures held in the last week of October. The easy way to do that with the current size of each league is to race home and away more times. Each round of fixtures to be run in a fixed month time slot. Such an arrangement would give 18 home league fixtures in the Premiership with each side racing home and away three times. First round in April and May, second round in June and July with the third round in August and September. In the Championship it would be home and away twice for 20 home fixtures. First round in April, May and June and the second round in July, August and September. The National Development League could run the same way as the Premiership with 21 home fixtures. KO Cup and other fixtures could be used to fill in any empty dates so every track is running every week through the season. Regular racing means supporters don't find something else to do and makes advertising much easier (if a track does actually advertise!) Last season at least one track had an advert just outside the stadium which was regularly showing the previous meeting when I arrived for a meeting, no wonder the crowd vanished and it went bust!

Wisbech went seriously downhill when South Brink Stadium closed and became a Tesco like so many Speedway and Stock Car tracks have done over the years.

Gordon was the star of the last ever appearance of speedway bikes at Wimbledon making the tarmac look as if it was a shale track on the bends. The video is on YouTube

I totally agree with you that a event held 60 years ago does not prove that it would not work now. Having followed both Speedway and Stock Cars for 60 years I have found there are very few people who are interested in both sports and most are very much against the sport they don't follow. Sadly I do not think mixing them on the same programme will work as many regular supporters would stay away as they don't want to pay for half a meeting they are not interested in and the families that might be attracted will not make up the loss of regulars! This discussion started with comments about Basketball, a sport I also enjoy and in the days of the Embassy All Stars used to watch a lot. I agree that the razzmatazz is good but sadly most only works indoors and most stadiums I have visited the sound system is so bad that they can't even get the music and presenters at a similar volume. Most of the time the speech alternates between deafening and so quiet that you can't hear the result! The music is just loud and the problem is that what one age group like others hate. Having being the commentator at hundreds of meetings I found that whatever music was played the only comments I got was how it was the wrong era. This was having played a mixture of top sounds from the previous 30 years to try and keep everyone happy.

Back in 1959 Harringay ran a Cavalcade of Speed which my parents took their young son to. It featured Greyhounds, Trotting, Stock Cars and Speedway. We all enjoyed the event but with only a Speedway type fence the Stock Car drivers were under strict instructions not to go near the fence or to push any other car into it! Apart from the cars all the racing appeared to be genuine but the followers of each sport did not appear to be interested in the others and my father years later said that it had not done the intended job of bringing new members of the public into the stadium. In the 1980's Arena Essex held an important Speedway meeting and with no safety fence at the time it was possible to run two Hot Rod races as pre meeting entertainment. They were two good races which I did the commentary for. But most of the Speedway fans spent much of the meeting complaining about having cars at "their" meeting. I know such mixes work in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa but many oval race fans are very limited in this country as to what they will watch, even to the point of some BriSCA Formula One Stock Car supporters at Long Eaton used to turn their chairs around so they had their backs to the track when any other class was racing. I know all this is negative but it does show that in the past some promoters did try but the paying public were not interested. I wish I could go to five or six tracks in the London area to watch two, three and four wheel motor sport but all the stadia have been pulled down so I console myself with the knowledge that at least I saw it in my younger days.

I used to think that was great until I got to my 60th birthday and can now do it for free!

Would never make it as an MP, answering a question is against their way of life.