2017 - 1 Or 2 Fixed Race Nights And When?

[ColinMills 1,728]

top riders using Britain in march/april, because its convenient to them. nki is ok to start season at kings lynn, cos its convenient.

theres no passion from these riders to dedicate themselves here, and british speedway still looking at all ways to accommodate these people.

yes, I get fans want to see these riders, and if clubs want to change there historic race nights to accommodate them, go for it,

but I personally think the biggest reason speedway has dipped is the sharing of riders. its pathetic riders have two clubs, and guest in another 6+ race jackets throughout a season..bank holiday fixtures going to be a mix n match day, with riders double booked!

[topsoil 2,498]

Since some clubs are struggling to sign good enough riders that get them up to the team building limit of 40.5 how are they going to find riders that get them up to a higher limit ?

Sometimes riders are attracted to riding part of a season later on in the year, look at Greg Hancock at Poole and Emily Sajfutdinov at Coventry.

top riders using Britain in march/april, because its convenient to them. nki is ok to start season at kings lynn, cos its convenient.

theres no passion from these riders to dedicate themselves here, and british speedway still looking at all ways to accommodate these people.

yes, I get fans want to see these riders, and if clubs want to change there historic race nights to accommodate them, go for it,

but I personally think the biggest reason speedway has dipped is the sharing of riders. its pathetic riders have two clubs, and guest in another 6+ race jackets throughout a season..bank holiday fixtures going to be a mix n match day, with riders double booked!

One of the biggest faults of the sport is doubling up and even riders competing in several countries. I would love to see the sport get to the situation where it had enough riders to go round so that each team had its own seven. For that to happen the sport must make a concerted effort to get more riders involved. If each club was forced / encouraged to have its own youth set up would be a start.

Then you might eventually get to the stage of having teams full of local riders and not relying on the cost of flying riders everywhere.

Pie in the sky stuff but I can dream.

[ColinMills 1,728]

its an amateur status sport in the current format. world cup, GP, formats work, but league racing doesn't.

[E I Addio 15,845]

Sometimes riders are attracted to riding part of a season later on in the year, look at Greg Hancock at Poole and Emily Sajfutdinov at Coventry.

to.

Greg only went to Poole because he lost his job in Poland when his team went out of the play-offs in the last few weeks of the season. He went to Poole because they could afford him and we're trying to get into the play offs. A club struggling at the bottom of th table by the end of July are not going to make the play- offs and are unlikely to splash out on a rider like Greg. I don't know about Emily Sajfutinov but as I recall her brother Emil only did a few weeks and missed a few meetings anyway. Emil wants a big wage upfront and no club struggling are likely to be able to afford it. He is very unlikely indeed to be seen riding for a British club.

[FAST GATER 853]

Greg only went to Poole because he lost his job in Poland when his team went out of the play-offs in the last few weeks of the season. He went to Poole because they could afford him and we're trying to get into the play offs. A club struggling at the bottom of th table by the end of July are not going to make the play- offs and are unlikely to splash out on a rider like Greg. I don't know about Emily Sajfutinov but as I recall her brother Emil only did a few weeks and missed a few meetings anyway. Emil wants a big wage upfront and no club struggling are likely to be able to afford it. He is very unlikely indeed to be seen riding for a British club.

I don't see this as a way to bring back the big names at all if you want that just pay them enough to come here which the league can't afford .This idea may work with riders who can't find places at start of the season because of averages and end up waiting for injuries to happen .There are lots of permutations here for using riders without the expense of squad systems or ones that can only/want to ride at a certain time in the season.

Edited February 19, 2016 by FAST GATER

[topsoil 2,498]

Greg only went to Poole because he lost his job in Poland when his team went out of the play-offs in the last few weeks of the season. He went to Poole because they could afford him and we're trying to get into the play offs. A club struggling at the bottom of th table by the end of July are not going to make the play- offs and are unlikely to splash out on a rider like Greg. I don't know about Emily Sajfutinov but as I recall her brother Emil only did a few weeks and missed a few meetings anyway. Emil wants a big wage upfront and no club struggling are likely to be able to afford it. He is very unlikely indeed to be seen riding for a British club.

Haha whoops didn't see my typo. Try Emily, she might be a bit cheaper than Emil.

[magnificentseven 236]

Monday and Wednesday make sense given the main issue we have is double up riders missing inflicted from our own rules - no PL on these nights!

 

It therefore defies logic that two teams moved from guest free home nights to Thursday and friday this year!

 

The biggest issue in British speedway now is teams with missing riders. A team without identity is the result!

 

There is an issue with the Danish League on wednesdays but we are not talking a lot of riders there.

 

If you look back to the league 10 years ago, how different it is!

 

2006 - 11 teams, 20 league fixtures plus play offs cup and Craven Shield, plus opening challenges

2016 - 8 teams, 14 league fixtures plus play offs and teams that frankly would struggle to get 30 points in 2006.

 

If fixed race nights raise the quality of riders and mean less are missing, its a positive step. Otherwise I would say a 21 team Premier League (at current PL level) sounds the next best bet at least with quantity of meetings and diversity.

 

 

Once again we are being dictated to by other countries and are limited by their calls on riders.

 

It's far too late to accommodate everyone.

 

Poland ride Sundays and possibly Fridays now.

 

Sweden ride Tuesdays and Thursdays.

 

Denmark on Wednesdays.

 

Fridays are affected by travel for qualifiers and the like.

 

Saturdays by the GP's and qualifiers.

 

It would be far better to go with the idea of a larger league with riders who can commit and want to ride over here rather than trying to fit in with riders who have showed they don't really want to be over here.

 

A bigger league with more teams and more variety but maybe at a,lower level seems the more sensible route.

 

The majority of fans already pick and choose their meetings, and there has been a lot of discussion amongst Wolves fans about the once a fortnight EL meetings at Monmore this year.

 

Putting the whole league on such a footing just night be the final straw for many fans.

 

 

Wolfie

[Gemini 4,894]

 

 

.....Wolfie......It would be far better to go with the idea of a larger league with riders who can commit and want to ride over here rather than trying to fit in with riders who have showed they don't really want to be over here.

A bigger league with more teams and more variety but maybe at a lower level seems the more sensible route.

I've been hoping for that for years but each season just when you think things can't get any worse the following year unfortunately they do. I think by the time there is one big league I'll either not be capable of getting to meetings or dead. Personally I'm hoping it's the former so I can at least carry on moaning about the state the sport is in.

[FAST GATER 853]

 

I've been hoping for that for years but each season just when you think things can't get any worse the following year unfortunately they do. I think by the time there is one big league I'll either not be capable of getting to meetings or dead. Personally I'm hoping it's the former so I can at least carry on moaning about the state the sport is in.

 

Would that mean an equal share out of Sky money rather than the chosen few deciding what happens with it !

[Daniel Smith 5,666]

Looking at other League's it looks like Thursday's could be a problem for some rider's in the UK.

 

Just gone through the Swedish Allsvenskan 2016 teams and there's some strong rider's within those teams/squads. That league runs on Thursday's 🙈

[dontforgetthefueltapsbruv 10,706]

Agreed.

Makes sense to have consecutive nights.

However why would Kings Lynn move from Wednesday to Thursday if Wednesday is one of the suggested days?? Makes no sense.

SKY have covered quite a few Wednesdays even some Tuesdays however Monday is still seen as Speedway night on SKY.

 

It would be nice to hear from the BSPA and promoters engaging the fans to see what days they prefer but I doubt we are a consideration!

Sky losing Champions League football will have an effect on their scheduling plans.

How Speedway fits into that could be a factor in the racenight choice/s .

[stevebrum 6,824]

Sky losing Champions League football will have an effect on their scheduling plans.

How Speedway fits into that could be a factor in the racenight choice/s .

Remains to be seen if SKY are pro altering speedway night.

I doubt the BSPA would want to lose or alienate them either.

[T.N.T. 355]

I like the idea of a window at which point any club can strengthen their team up to the highest average in the league.

Wouldn't work unless it's at a time when clubs have ridden all the A fixtures and equal matches. This is one thing that one fixed night would help with and prevent one team having ridden 12 meetings and another just 6 and unable to get new averages.

[Humphrey Appleby 13,960]

Or how about a transfer window where teams can strengthen up to a team average equal to that of the league leaders? At the moment teams can only go up to 45 or whatever the limit is, so if a team at the top is riding to an average of 50 or 55, a team at the bottom still cannot in theory match them.

 

Where are these riders to strengthen the teams going to come from? All it'll lead to is teams poaching from others in the middle of the season.

 

The point of the point limit is ensure that one team can not be built vastly stronger than another at the beginning of the season, and to ensure the better riders are somewhat shared around. There's nothing wrong with riders improving during the season - that's part of the skill in picking a team in the first place - but it'll just make a farce of the competition if you then let teams build to the level of another team that has improved.

 

I would agree that the points limit as it stands is a bit of joke, and has become an exercise in average manipulation and trying to sign riders on artificially low assessed averages. There's also no encouragement to actually develop a side, but that's a failing of the implementation rather than the concept.

[T.N.T. 355]

Most if not all the world's top riders have been asked about riding in Britain again and they all would consider returning if it was feasable to fit in with their frantic schedule of racing in Sweden, Poland and other events.

 

It's understandable that British Speedway comes bottom of the list of in priorities due to various race nights, amount of meetings and obviously the lower pay rates. However if Britain wants an Elite League and the exposure to sponsors of the top names they have to reach some kind of deal that will see them return in some sort.

 

Less meetings

Regular race night

Flexibility of movement to fixtures

 

At present all Premier League tracks operate from Thursday to Sunday while the 8 current Elite League tracks operate on FIVE different race nights with just Poland (Sunday) and Sweden (Tuesday) being kept free.

 

Mondays are the night Sky want for live meetings but the top riders don't want consecutive nights so Wednesday is the most promising night for the Elite League with Sky still showing one meeting on the Monday night.

 

However if Ipswich and Sheffield can be tempted to move up or switch race nights, it could be run on Wednesdays and Thursdays, hopefully with 10 teams. Coventry would be in a new venue and could switch to midweek and the same could be said of Lakeside. Belle Vue and Leicester can ride any night without problem so two race nights can happen.

 

Teams would only meet once home and away giving you 14 or 18 meetings in total. This would mean only 7 or 9 home meetings but at present there are only 14 any way so it could be two home and two away or all tracks enter a British League giving Elite League tracks an extra 6 home meetings (2 groups) and Premier League tracks an extra four home and four away at the Elite League tracks who in British League meetings would not use heat leaders and use their number 8 and National League riders instead.

 

 

It's not as complicated as you think and gives more variety in the fixtures. The Premier League would remain the same as meetings like Berwick v Newcastle would be both a British League and Premier League meeting.