Leaderboard

When you are asking for the answer to the problem in ONE sentence I think that says everything we need to know about who is actually 'clueless'. The racing at Cardiff is at best average every year... yet 40,000 will descend upon it again this year. The racing at Belle Vue is of the top drawer, as good as even Hyde Road ever used to produce (some would say better). Yet even last year on their preferred race nights they weren't packing the crowds in... this year they've gone down the pan. You forget, racing from years gone by is readily available to view online. The racing was nothing to write home about. The sport has made many mistakes over the years, costing themselves fans in the process. As fans exit the sport the atmosphere levels drop. Good meetings become average ones, average ones become poor ones and so on. So continue to spout your nonsense, alas for you, there is absolutely no evidence to back up what you claim. Edited to add: Just to further refute your nonsensical claim, attendances have been falling for decades, not a recent trait. It just makes more of a difference the lower the crowds go.

I actually think the racing is at least as good as I have ever seen in the 49 years I have watched it.. The difference between all the riders on show is a lot less than it used to be in the days of '2 point reserves v World Champions', (particularly given that in every one of those races pre fixed gates, the 'World Champions' invariably chose the best gate positions!).... Machinery too is more of a similar standard than ever with even the 'lesser' riders using the best equipment and tuners. With only maybe those lads who ride in the top division in Poland having 'special kit' they wheel out on Sundays or Saturday nights in FIM events.. The biggest difference between 'then and now' is simply the lack of crowd, which means a lack of atmosphere.. No one will be surprised to see the racing at Cardiff will probably be nowhere near as good as an 'average' meeting at the NSS. How could it be? The NSS is a fantastic race track... However a full night of entertainment, on and off track, in front of 40,000 fans rather than just 1,000, will have everyone on the edge of their seats regardless of the fans' subjective opinion of the racing...... Even the 'worst track', delivering the 'worst racing' can be successful if 5,000 a night are there and the 'event' delivers the overall entertainment level that they want from their 'night out'... To digress a moment Craig Cook has said in this weeks Speedway Star he has invested "well over £100,000" in this season's racing... Yes, you read it correct. That's ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND pounds.....!! And if Craig is doing this, to compete with him (and to keep those machinery standards similar that so assists close racing), many, many others (even non GP riders) must be spending incredible amounts too.... THAT I would suggest is a far, far bigger problem for British Speedway than the current state of some tracks...

That is absolutely nowhere near the real problem.

Did you misspell Poole?

Unfortunately Poole are on the up whilst we have peaked! We gave them enough poo at the start of the season so now we have to accept it back. I can accept it off true fans like Shov and even that imbecile Starman. Just as long as MFF doesn't start chipping in then its all good. What is sport without rivalry?!

TBH i listen to Dean Felton more than anyone else on here because he talks sense and, more importantly, some of us may have dabbled but he's done it. He knows whats what

Traditional race sheet for 2018 British GP:- https://www.keepandshare.com/doc16/21191/gp-2018-5-pdf-39k?da=y

Presumably Klindt missed the gate in the final #GT

Spot on... You simply don't have a real team dynamic anymore in Britain, constantly eroded away over the past 20 years or so... So how the hell does British Speedway expect any new fans to 'buy into it' without that vital emotional attachment you need to develop to make a team 'yours'?... And why therefore, do they still try to 'sell it' to the populace as such?... The Sport over here, and to be fair, elsewhere too, is just a vehicle for lads to earn money individually (the difference is other countries still stick to team sport principles within those parameters which has helped fans stay 'attached').... What should be focused on is the fact that the Sport still has loads going for it to make it a success.... It seemingly just cannot be delivered successfully within a team framework over here.. Therefore, stop doing it and simply sell what is good about it.. ie. The racing itself, the noise, the speed, the smell (ish), the character and personality of the riders, the fact it is unique amongst all other 'town/city centre Sports, and the fact that those who watch invariably cannot do what they are watching the riders do. (Unlike other sports where most fans who watch can demonstrate at least some competence at it).. Make it a full night's entertainment, make the night an 'event', promote and market the riders, create a bit of hype about them individually, create 'feuds' (they don't need to be genuine), advertise a huge prize fund, (even if a little economical with the truth)... Make the riders 'stars', build the sport back up, and maybe over time intergrate in a team dynamic to see if it can be a success again.. The Sport has so much going for it... So surely its now time for the Promoters (who willingly invest so much into it) to concentrate their efforts on what is good about Speedway, dispense with all the ridiculous 'nonsense' that so undermines their genuine commitment and efforts, and start to deliver the kind of success a Sport, that can truly be uniquely breathtaking, should be delivering...

Klindt needs to be roughed up on the first turn every time as he is a completely different rider without fresh air in front of him.

The points limit I think plays a part in the increased turnover because even when an enforced change is made, sometimes two changes have to happen. So in the current situation Sarjeant has probably lost his place for that reason. That is wrong and something should be done which protects the innocent party if he is a Brit. Apart from that, I think the only change which has been harsh is Newman. Vaculik and Bates never even started, Pqlm Toft was a temporary replacement (again the points limit lead to him not being retained when Bjerre was signed). Leicester reserves now should be Newman and Sarjeant. The 1-5 and the changes to it are mainly legacy of injuries to Vaculik, Bates and King. I recall in the 1970's White City going the whole season (and winning the league) using r/r for Dag Lovaas, Wolves doing something similar with a rider who never materialised (Johansson?), and Leicester in 1976 so shorn of riders that at Swindon they had 6 guests plus Doug Underwood. Then in the Rogers era there was quite a bit more coming and going - I think that Husczca came and went a few times. In fact you can also put the higher rider turnover down to the massive increase in use of foreign riders.

Cracking way to end the GP weekend , there will be a busload of us going to this on our way home from Cardiff to Glasgow . Might be a bit worse for wear by this time though haha

not just the lower end,its lost the mid range too, the back wheel is spinning about 1500 revs faster than it was 20 years ago but the bike speed is still pretty much the same, the light flywheels in a short stroke engine just makes it rev, it not all the engine the silencer has reduced the usable power a bit more, the bikes are relatively easy to ride no matter what the size of the track and on a smooth surface they behave but as soon as there is a build up of dirt or a rut they just take off, now imagine the bike takes off and you have to scrub that wheel spin off before you hit the fence , on a track like belle vue you not so much broadsliding as steering a skid, you need the bike to be going forward all the time but on a smaller track you have to turn hard and you scrub a lot of speed off, on really tight tracks your almost going backwards mid turn, so do we really need extra wheelspin to go the same speed?, the product looks the same, many of the people I have spoken too have said we should never have gone from upright to laydown, even hans Nielsen and peter karlsson said it but we did and the first laydowns were great as they had the handling of the laydown chassis and the performance of the upright engines but as short strokes got more popular we are just getting further and further away from a good bike no matter how much they shine

7 men make up a speedway team and yet just 4 months into the season, that's now 16 names on the Lions team sheet. Even allowing for the unfortunate injuries, that's quite a roll call... Martin Vaculik Josh Bates Danny King Krystian Pieszczek Hans Andersen Kyle Newman James Sarjeant Michael Palm Toft Kenneth Bjerre Todd Kurtz Ricky Wells Charles Wright Scott Nicholls Josh Auty Stuart Robson Connor Mountain A very long time ago (1969) Leicester Lions used the same 7 riders all season. We probably didn't realise it at the time but christ, those were the days. Even the odd change at reserve was greeted with a raised eyebrow and a visit to the track shop proudly showed photos of the riders that you'd be cheering on all season. Given the 'hire em fire em' culture of modern speedway it's easy to see why Matt Ford did away with team kevlars at Poole this season. Suprised any of them bother. The thing that bothers me, especially after reading the comments on the various Leicester Speedway Facebook pages, is that the fans now appear to have adopted the same mercenary standpoint taken by the promoters. It's become the norm and multiple changes are cheered. I think that's sad for speedway. I always used to think, and probably the main reason I became a fan as a young boy, speedway was superior to other motor sports because it somehow managed to embrace the 'team' ethic. You identified with the guys wearing your club's colours at your local track. They may as well just run individual meetings each week for all the value the word 'team' has these days.

well done guys . a great result for workington and yourselves . thanks for keeping up the tradition of good results in this event . ty and nicolai , the most underperforming riders in the league .. NOT .

Nobody cares what you think. You don’t support a team or go to matches. You are irrelevant.

Don't he always..... Brilliant when he gates, but disappears when he don't....

Would like to know how much Cook invested to compete in British Speedway to get to his level.! probably would be shocked! .While riders deserve all the can get ,the money is running out.Harris another one complaining about money.What are Cook and Harris earning when they are riding in Uk,quite a lot IMO .

...or Oxford Team Manager Bernard Crapper who used to have a go at the ref on the start line phone and when I questioned Bernard many years later he said he was only passing the time of the day with the ref but felt that the meeting needed spicing up!

I was at the meeting as I was spannering for Ben Morley & I think you'll find it was Alfie Bowtell who fell in Heat 15 as Ben was not even in the line up and as for Heat 1 Ben was riding as you say through the dirt and was leading comfortably until he picked up some grip upon hitting a hole going into bend 3 on lap 4 & by the time he gained some control he spun his back end around. He sustained a badly twisted knee resulting in him pushing ( limping ) over the finish line. Ben spoke to the clerk of the course & the referee to see if some track work could be done before racing commenced only to find that the hole would be filled, which was pointless as it appeared again the very next race. This was a quick fix so that racing could continue. There was further falls from other riders during the meeting & even Plymouth captain Henry Atkins spoke to Ben after Heat 5 when they met each other to say that he felt the track was rough after both himself & Ben had lifted coming out of bend 2 after avoiding the fallen Callum Walker. After chatting with Ben during the meeting we were only to happy to get through the meeting unscathed. I can appreciate that the sun & heat we are experiencing at the moment negates getting moisture into the track but the track that night was not great and a rider of Ben's experience does not come off his bike that often. Dave Longman ( Ben Morleys mechanic )

I think at the end of the day, it is the whole 'industry' that needs to get together to sort out the sport in the UK. All those that have 'skin in the game', promoters, riders, managers and manufacturers/tuners etc. Really, everyone in the sport that has a financial interest. After all, if the sport completely dies, so does their livelihood. For us, the fans, yes we would feel a bit sad and 'empty', but not out of pocket. The industry needs to hire a conference centre and have a serious brainstorm with all those mentioned above. Will speedway do anything resembling that? I wouldn't put money on it!

Good post. How about letting the riders or team manager onto the centre green when protesting to the ref about something or in some cases appearing to protest when they were actually asking the ref how his holidays went. In the "old days" it certainly stirred the crowd up in a friendly hostile way and created some interaction.

yeah its hard to tell the difference down berwick

this is a different one . its about the meeting at sneffield

Great work from Lee Kilby bringing in New sponsors, and getting out into schools, fetes and fayres promoting the club. Excellent article from El Tel in this week's prog, and the current shambles in the sport, and the continuity and regularity of fixtures.

I cannot help noticing a certain irony in a Swindon fan mentioning team changes and winning leagues through them.. *cough* Tobiasz Musielak *cough* A fine local lad who came up through the Sprockets I presume?... If Speedway wants to be taken seriously as a team sport then winning has to be the ultimate attainment.. And if you are not doing enough of it, then you either improve the performance of your current personnel or you change them....

I think that if you carried out a survey of supporters you would find that the majority wanted a winning team and not to be beaten or run close week in week out. If Leicester had managed to keep the original 1 to 7 riders then we would have easily made the playoffs. Promoters really can't win. People moan if changes are made, people moan if changes aren't made. In fact, people moan full stop. If we had kept the team, as it was, against Kings Lynn we would be bottom again come the season's end. I'm not saying we will make the playoffs with the changes, but we have more of a chance of collecting some much-needed points.

I see Shovlar is on one of his usual wind ups, just wait for them to get beaten again.

So does anybody know when the 2018 Leicester press & practice, and meet the riders event is happening?

Rockerfeller! There's so much I could say about this, I thinks it's a rather simplistic view and an analogy that can't be made... but to keep up the analogy... Imagine this restaurant you own is in a state of disrepair, the paint is peeling off the walls and you're ankle deep in p155 when you go to the toilet but people still keep coming because at heart the food is so damn good but then you are told by the council you can only open on Monday and Wednesday nights because that's what all of the other restaurants in the area have agreed even if you didn't and then all of a sudden one night the chef doesn't turn up because he's working at a restaurant down the road but it's ok because the council have arranged for one of the burger flippers at the local maccies to be sent in his place... but hang on this isn't a one off, it keeps happening, a lot of your customers stop coming but some continue to do so, you haven't changed your prices, you're still charging restaurant prices for fast food. One night you go out and ask one of the customers tucking into his Big Ace and ask him why does he keep coming, because I remember how good it can be here and occasionally it still is he replies. I'll go and ask some customers that used to come you think to yourself, only you step outside your restaurant and can't find any of them, they're all doing something else now. At this point you send the burger flipper back to macs, tell your chef he cooks for you and nobody else, you stick 2 fingers up to the council and take them to court for restriction of trade, you paint the place, mop up the p155 but do the customers return?

I note the statement on the Birmingham website about the incident. I trust those who criticized Buxton and Jayne will now be offering apologies

The press conference is on social media for all to see/hear and realise if they didn't know already, that you are a troll.

A big opportunity this... As the beauty of Speedway of course is that most of the fans there will have attended the very first meeting too...

as I said spend some time in Poland, they have some real crap tracks that are in fields, did you watch the SEC FROM gustrow at the weekend?, a small track similar size to buxton that has a similar black type shale and was rough, completely the opposite to belle vue but there was some really good racing on it especially in the first half the meeting, the size of the track doesn't matter, all the size does is make the tuner more important

Crowds are in double digit decline YOY. Its massive. The majority of fans may go for the team element but what is the majority now? 1k on average per top flight team? Its dropping like a stone so if I was developing this sport I would instantly change the dynamic. Speedway isn't adapting. You can't sell a product if the product isn't right. I've ran my own pubs/restaurants throughout my career. Without blowing my own trumpet, I'm very successful with it. My guest is KING. Absolutely nobody leaves my businesses unhappy. What the customer wants, the customer gets. Period. As a consequence my trip advisor ratings are through the roof. That is the basis of any business. Stability in the foundations. Make sure the product you sell is bang on the money and then you start to promote and sell/expand. This is where speedway fails every single time. You can't sell a team aspect if the racing (the core product/foundation) isn't right. I'm not saying the team element isn't important, it is, but it will stand for nothing if the main event doesn't capture your customer. I'll say for the umpteenth time, ask ANY neutral with a minimal knowledge of this sport how they feel about it, and they will all give the same answer. They are going to tell you they were bored. They are not interested in the team element. They only come once, because the main event didn't sell. If one of my restaurants started showing any sign of decline or poor guest feedback I would immediately pull the plug on any marketing or sales driving until I identified the issue and fixed it. That is called being counter productive and will do more harm than good trying to grow something that isn't working. If one of my businesses was in the same level of decline as speedway, I wouldn't be listening to the remaining guests I had telling me everything was fine, because it quite clearly isn't. Just because those minimal fans that attend speedway say they go for the team element doesn't mean that the team element is right, because your declining like crazy! It's an utterly stupid logic and displays a basic lack of common sense. A lot of supporters still in this sport are the same ones as 20/30 years ago. Speedway doesn't know how to capture a new audience and like it's core, declining fan base, is stuck in 1985. Society has moved forward. For speedway it really isn't difficult. The speedway is the hook, the team element is the sell. In that order.

NO. we like Kyle . a gusty wee fella and he is a Marra

Financial advisor?

Strange place Leicester, having been there half a dozen times, it still difficult to offer an opinion of the track. I've seen many races won from the gate, but I've also seen some terrific wins from the back. I was of the impression if you wanted it enough, you could find away past, but then I've seen races where the rider behind has given his all and cant find a way by. Strange track... The biggest difference I've noticed on my visits is the state of the track, some times there's loads of dirt, whereas other times there's hardly any at all. Some days it very wet and others its as dusty as hell. There never seem to be any normality in the preparation. Must be very difficult for their own riders to set their bike up not knowing what the track will be like. Them wonderful days we used to go to Blackbird Road seem a million miles away. Such a brilliant race track that every rider loved to race. What the sport would give to still have those racetracks today...

What a good nights racing all riders giving it there best. It was good to see them use the inside to pass instead of the blast round the fence one behind the other route.OK IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A COUPLE OF SECOND SLOWER but the racing was good congratulations to all and special well done to the winner Conner Mountain and Sheffield for putting it on

We all know what Ben is capable of, so maybe it's his equipment that is letting him down, which is a shame , when you know he has so much more to offer .

Here are 4 tracks 2 of them, Sheffield and Peterborough renowned for good racing, Wolves also can be pretty good... and Leicester. Sheffield and Peterborough seem to be more rounded ovals where Leicester seems to be shaped more like Wolves. Wolves is 264m, Leicester 300m, Peterborough 336m & Sheffield 361m. Leicester does have a lot of weird off camber banking though. Pick the bones out of that

Positive stuff first. Good debuts for mark and coty and both contributed to a entertaining meeting. Despite Wallinger not scoring it was very refreshing to see him practicing after the meeting and trying to improve and learn the track. Our riders need to be aware of where their team mate is on track. Cam impeded Rory several times and Rory done the same to Nico. Now for a moan. When a ten year old lad asks a rider for his autograph and gets told to wait til after the winning parade and then the rider failed to even look at this lad and give his autograph even though he patiently waited for ten minutes. Its hard enough to attract younger people but to treat them like that is very poor. The riders need to remember who pays their wages because soon there will be nobody left. A quick signature means so much and the riders become heroes with these youngsters but this experience has left a very sour taste

Based on what I saw tonight, I hope he is paying us for the pleasure of having a few laps around Foxhall.

True story this. Scouts honour. I can't remember which meeting it was, but I took one of my staff to the NSS a few weeks ago for the first time (to any speedway meeting). I remember the first half of the meeting being pretty much gate and go and I was sitting there thinking I don't believe this. It had been roasting all day and they had overwatered the track. As it dried and went slick, I think it was heat 7, it was like someone flicked a switch. All of a sudden the racing was top banana like it always is at the NSS. He said to me on the way home that he loved it. He was on the edge of his seat. Last week he came back! That's right, back! True story! Morale is, the racing (eventually) got him. That's the hook. So now of course, I'm giving him the sell last week about teams, how the general principle of it goes etc. Again he really enjoys it, he can see himself getting into it so he's coming with me to the next meeting. The sport sold itself to him. 4 men on 4 bikes doing 4 laps having a race. Pass after pass and of course your right on top of it at the NSS. No fancy stuff, the sport did it all by itslef.

I think it shouldn't matter where the R/R is. At all times the No8 should come in at No6 or No7 and everybody else moves up in the team.

YES! And please don't let it be under the control of BSPA / SCB.

Well you go away for a few days and come back to find a new team! Bjerre - the epitomy of dullness, to be fair he was signed to fill a gap at short notice Krystian - a great shame the early promise has faded, he didn't seem to be much of a team-man though Kurtz - don't know how he lasted so long, another stopgap Sarj - maybe another time I think the new line up has much more of a team feel to it. I can understand why they went for Nicholls and hope that Connor Mountain gets a fair run and not binned after one month.

Bumchickawowwow!!! The Abbey to televise the reigning champions 69th.Anniversary meeting is the place to be, thousands expected

Ok cool but the pairs is at Somerset. Cakewalk for the Monarchs. Natural order being restored.

Excel scorechart for live gate stats or pdf for fans of pens https://app.box.com/s/fzngmofjdpxqb3ycqmkihyjmezg8mepe