Buster Chapman - Is He Good For The Sport?

[Danny Connor 351]

He's great. A worker. Doesn't sit back and wait for things to happen. It's easy to critique anonymously. This is a guy that loves the sport and wears his heart on his sleeve. It's the being open part that gives people sticks to beat him with. The sport isn't too bad right now. It's certainly better than it was last season and teams are beating teams all round. The odd bad meeting / problems to deal with but when won't that be the case. Threads like this are really frustrating because all that happens is negatives get magnified.

 

To mention 2011 is discraceful. Coventry and Peterborough were big time out of order. Imagine if teams hadn't moved up. Coventry and Peterborough would have blackmailed speedway into getting their own way to the detriment of the sport and Coventry had previous with that over mid season strengthening.

 

This year Coventry were doomed due to in house issues. It's a shame it happened and Coventry closed but if all the stadium sandu and Horton couldn't work it out it was never going to be.

 

Who wouldn't want Craig cook. As a lynn fan (who can be critical when it's deserved) I'd have been gutted if we had tried. It wasn't illegal. It was a verbal agreement. Worse things happen. Maybe if there wasn't a verbal agreement belle vue wouldn't have screwed over Richie Worrall .

 

People will only read the headline and the first few posts though so well done in the negativity. It's a reason why most fans don't bother with the forum because it's full of people who can only see the negative in everything. Narcissistically halfwits and lynch mobs.

 

Hard to start a topic on that though because everybody is anonymous.

[ch958 2,395]

I think one or two things are moving in generally the right direction - I think its a massive thing but its time we prepared for life after GP riders. We need one British League and a NL but the BL would have to be cheap enough for Scunny, Worky, etc to be able to exist in it.

In any case after Brexit it may be quite difficult to employ non UK riders while UK riders are available. There ARE enough riders IMO but there isn't we have to go to 6 man teams.

It really is time to face harsh facts, however local heroes are popular - I've never supported a top tier side it was always div 2 and nothing gave me more pleasure than watching Wilcock, Dixon, etc - and they weren't world class but were loved by Teessiders

[25yearfan 476]

Like all things in life, talking about something is the easy part, actually carrying out what your talking about is another thing!

 

While undoubtedly Buster Chapman has his flaws, probably doesn't delegate enough, will minipulate situations in his favour and will try to deny/ cover up faults, all common traits of those in management, his overall his contribution to speedway has been very beneficial.

 

I dread to think what state King's Lynn speedway, (indeed if there would even be a King's Lynn speedway now?) would be in without the hard working contributions of Buster!

 

That said its obvious this season that all is not rosy in the King's Lynn speedway garden. Buster needs to look at things and realise things are not what they should be and if they continue as they are then the long term future of speedway at King's Lynn maybe threatened.

Edited July 16, 2017 by 25yearfan

[THE DEAN MACHINE 4,755]

I like buster but the sport I love is a total shambles and I have never felt so detached from it ,It has no direction or fun and for a team fan no purpose , is buster to blame ? Well maybe not entirely but he is at the top so he has to take the blame

[The Cheese 2,025]

For someone who seemed to be hailed as the saviour of the sport when he got the job I think it's fair to say he hasn't exactly lived up to it. Nothing has changed, the sport is still in decline with no obvious plan to help and the same dodgy decisions are made especially in the NL where it seems there's a different rule for every day of the week.

 

The farce at Kings Lynn this week should be properly investigated but how can it be when the head of the BSPA also owns that club? It always ends in that same old answer of needing someone independent to come in and run it. Ideally they would observe everything for a year and work on a plan to take things forward before taking over at the BSPA (if they haven't been frightened off in that time!) but there is clearly no chance of promoters happy to be told what to do by an outsider so everything will stay as it is.

 

If it is true that certain riders refused to ride in that meeting then it is very poor that they seemingly have escaped without bans. It just sums everything up, you have a 16 year old kid in Jack Parkinson-Blackburn who was struggling in the Championship and quit Sheffield, probably in the heat of the moment, and he's given a ban for withholding his services meaning he also loses out on riding for Birmingham for a month. But here with senior riders deciding they've had enough halfway through a meeting creating another mess which will lose fans it gets pushed under the carpet and nothing will be said.

[mikebv 10,292]

For someone who seemed to be hailed as the saviour of the sport when he got the job I think it's fair to say he hasn't exactly lived up to it. Nothing has changed, the sport is still in decline with no obvious plan to help and the same dodgy decisions are made especially in the NL where it seems there's a different rule for every day of the week.

 

The farce at Kings Lynn this week should be properly investigated but how can it be when the head of the BSPA also owns that club? It always ends in that same old answer of needing someone independent to come in and run it. Ideally they would observe everything for a year and work on a plan to take things forward before taking over at the BSPA (if they haven't been frightened off in that time!) but there is clearly no chance of promoters happy to be told what to do by an outsider so everything will stay as it is.

 

If it is true that certain riders refused to ride in that meeting then it is very poor that they seemingly have escaped without bans. It just sums everything up, you have a 16 year old kid in Jack Parkinson-Blackburn who was struggling in the Championship and quit Sheffield, probably in the heat of the moment, and he's given a ban for withholding his services meaning he also loses out on riding for Birmingham for a month. But here with senior riders deciding they've had enough halfway through a meeting creating another mess which will lose fans it gets pushed under the carpet and nothing will be said.

One of Busters most laudable pledges when he took over was his mission to improve the integrity within the Sport, so I am sure riders walking out from meetings will be seen by him, quite correctly, as 100% totally unacceptable and there will be some severe disciplinary action taken against those responsible..

 

Just like there would be when this situation happens in all properly ran Sports...

 

😨😂

Edited July 16, 2017 by mikebv

[Ghosty 500]

The BIG problem with the Kings Lynn track is the excessive amount of clay in the track, This suits the stock cars but but not solo Speedway. It would appear that the stock cars are the money making side of Buster's business & that's why the track is prepared the way it is!

[Trees 2,814]

There's loads of good promoting being done this season at different clubs. It's great to see it all being shown on twitter and facebook.

[foamfence 2,917]

The BIG problem with the Kings Lynn track is the excessive amount of clay in the track, This suits the stock cars but but not solo Speedway. It would appear that the stock cars are the money making side of Buster's business & that's why the track is prepared the way it is!

I think most people already know about the clay content but other tracks eg Scunthorpe, have a very heavy usage of all kinds of track racing and produce better racing than that. There are also claims that KL isn't as good for racing as it was several years ago.

[cityrebel 2,960]

The task is too big for him, and the rest of the promoting clan. It really needs someone totally neutral to come in and sort the whole mess out.

[False dawn 2,298]

When a senior rider leads the call for a meeting to be stopped and refuses to appear on track, serious action is called for.

I have this from someone who was in the pits last Thursday. I was on the terraces and I was ashamed of the sport I've followed all my life. I know about rider safety but I also know when riders have put themselves in danger by riding a track timidly. If every track has to be the same, we'll all be watching billiard tables with no shale. If a track is unsafe, it's the ref that makes the call to halt proceedings.

Hang your heads in shame, those that let us all down last Thursday.

[screm 8,057]

I was delighted when Buster became chairman as I thought he would be the one to bring real change for good, he said in an interview in Speedway Star that he would throw away the rule book and start a new, sadly we are still waiting in fact of anything the rules are more confusing now than they were when Buster took over. I still believe he`s the right man, but how you bring significant change when you need the backing from the rest of the promoters is posing to be a problem.

[ch958 2,395]

When a senior rider leads the call for a meeting to be stopped and refuses to appear on track, serious action is called for.

I have this from someone who was in the pits last Thursday. I was on the terraces and I was ashamed of the sport I've followed all my life. I know about rider safety but I also know when riders have put themselves in danger by riding a track timidly. If every track has to be the same, we'll all be watching billiard tables with no shale. If a track is unsafe, it's the ref that makes the call to halt proceedings.

Hang your heads in shame, those that let us all down last Thursday.

 

maybe if the bikes weren't rockets (something fans don't give a toss about) then they could cope with less than perfect surfaces

[THE DEAN MACHINE 4,755]

 

maybe if the bikes weren't rockets (something fans don't give a toss about) then they could cope with less than perfect surfaces

although that's not the answer to speedways problems there is a hell of a lot of truth in it

[OveFundinFan 4,143]

I just got the latest Backtrack magazine through the post yesterday and it lovely to see an action picture on the front cover showing an upright Weslake 4-valve in action - just bring those days back.....that would be a good start to getting speedway back on the right tracks.