Vince

I'm biased because I know Lewis and like him although I've not seen him for quite some time and have no idea of the reasons behind his current actions. What I can say for fact is that when you race motorcycles of any sort and it's going well injuries are the furthest thing from your mind and it's great fun. However there are days, especially after a lay off when everything is difficult and you feel like an accident waiting to happen. You might have spent days or weeks really looking forward to racing then when it gets there you can't do anything right and just feel like you could be hurting yourself or somebody else at any moment. Mostly these things are shrugged off and the next time out it's all back to being fun. However if you went out and in addition to feeling like you were a danger to yourself you started remembering your mates and others who were killed and badly injured I would say that is the time to stop. Could be that in time you'll find a way past it or maybe not but to continue racing would be stupid. No idea if that's the reason but it could explain why he could race for a long time before he was so badly affected. But much easier to criticise the bloke on guess work than look for a reason.

On second thoughts you won't want to come and say hi if I ride like I did yesterday!!!

There is a full programme of British Championship Short track racing at the Motor Cycle News festival at Peterborough this weekend (16th /17th May). The meeting is spread out during the day with different classes running different times, the pro and restricted class being last of the day at 4.30. Additionally there are some Transatlantic Trophy races featuring Road Race GP legend Kevin Schwantz as well as 'On any Sunday' flattrack star Dave Aldana against a British team. If anybody is there I'm No 95 so come and say hi.

Either one of those riders would have to be suicidal to put themselves on the outside of the other during that!!!

Pete Seaton is trying to get F2 Speedway up and running and has so far used Honda, Kawasaki, BMW and now the WK engines that I know of. It isn't intended to replace professional Speedway but be a low cost, low maintenance entry into the sport http://f2speedway.com/ The old Godden engine was a cracker so lets hope this one is as good.

Rye House have cancelled practice tomorrow so anybody know of anywhere else running in the Midlands or South? Monday would be OK if nothing Sunday

But nothing happened to those who did because the acu were stopped from sanctioning riders for taking part in events outside their remit decades ago. For some reason there are still those in the acu feel it's ok to issue empty threats, or possibly decades ago is about as up to date as some of them are!

No wonder this forum is so disliked by most of the riders and promoters, there are some seriously nasty pieces of work on here. Nobody is trying to make anybody do anything, I'll put it in big letters as that seems to be the preferred method Contribute if you want to, if you don't that's fine but it won't involve you in any way so you don't need to comment.

I think the lack of oil going into the shale these days has made consistency more difficult for trackmen.

Helmets are more or less round for a good reason, to my way of thinking there are safer places for cameras.

I once had to rub down and hand paint the chassis and wheels on a 40' trailer rather than leave it a couple of weeks until it was refurbished because the ex Speedway rider I worked for wouldn't have anything green even parked in the yard!

Make it a team offence. Yellow card for the first offender red card from then on means that rider is disqualified after the race?

Think we've found the winner of the most inappropriate name choice award!

Reider Eide was the stand out rider at the first Speedway meeting I can remember watching and Christer one of my all time favourites. We were all sure that in many races at Poole he was on a bonus to make last lap passes!

Briggo, he was great value for the sport in the way he could attract good publicity let alone his skills as a rider. Keith, I have to admit to being a bit disappointed to hear this about Kyle. All those years of listening to good solid p*** taking I would have expected something a bit more original than specsavers

I think this is something that a lot of people haven't taken seriously enough over the years, including myself. Have seen concussed riders still racing many times and shrugged it off as being something that happens in motorcycle racing. With the benefit of hindsight it's something I now believe I got very wrong. Most times I am all for letting riders decide whether injuries are OK to ride with but anybody who is concussed isn't fit to make that decision and I now think those around them should be stopping them. I would also be in favour of a mandatory 14 day rest after any concussion and perhaps a longer spell if a rider is concussed twice within 30 days or something along those lines. There was a radio programme about it on Tuesday that I've not had chance to listen to yet but it's available here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05102tf

Was racing against my uncle in the 50's, still going in the 70's and running training schools at Weymouth in the 80's. Then when my son started riding Speedway in 2004 he was still around offering help and advice. He must have ben best part of 90 last time I saw him wandering around at the Talmag Trial and that's a pretty good walk at any age. One of life's good blokes and will be missed a great deal.

Im with TNT on this, there will always be somebody willing to cheat in any sport however there is nothing to say that there is wholesale cheating in British Speedway anything like that suggested by the opening poster. After all there would be little advantage to nitrous or a 590 motor around Eastbourne or Ipswich! Could be different on the bigger tracks abroad but it seems to me that most cheats get caught pretty quickly. As for wanderers spare fuel tank, tap and don't forget the give away line to the carb I think that would be better used to keep the spare power bands in.

The fixture list not being released until late used to be a major issue for us when my lad was riding. I used to have to book all my holiday and then rely on other people swapping with me in order to make the meetings. This is one place where Speedway loses out to other motorcycle disciplines when it comes to ease of getting into racing for newcomers. They can buy a bike and practice and race amateur meetings at weekends like other sports. However when they want to step up to NL it suddenly begins to get very difficult to fit in around most jobs. There's not much that can be practically done about it but it does remain a difficulty for Speedway that other motorcycle sports don't have.

Nitro stinks so I can't imagine anybody getting away with it these days although I do know for a fact it has been used in the past. I know it used to be put into the fuel but also can see no reason why a sponge couldn't be put inside a round slide where the venturi effect would suck it in. However I also suspect that most of it would be gone long before the tapes went up so any benefit would be psychological. There were most definitely practices before the old World finals. Apart from the things Gustix calls gamesmanship we have the silencer episode which was stopped fairly quickly and an advance/ retard switch that was also stopped as confirmed cheating. Otherwise we have lots of rumours and nothing to really support what I read as the opening posters claim that cheating was currently widespread.

Be interesting to know what these cheats are doing, easy to say and with the silencers it would seem likely but what is it that Wanderer thinks is going on now?

Have to say that in my experience the costs of engine servicing (we did our own engines but even paying somebody the same would apply) was small fry compared to the cost of travelling and time off work. Running all Speedway on Saturday or Sunday would result in good savings for many riders and allow many more to take up the sport I suspect, pity it's completely impractical really

The covers you found on Ebay are nowhere near up to the job and for something that would be you are looking at nearer £10k then you need to add in the cost of finding a way to fix it sensibly. I can say this with some confidence as a friend of mine who is an amateur rider owns a company that deals in materials used for yachts. Therefore he understands about UV resistance and the damage caused by repeatedly rolling sheets etc and he spent some time coming up with a way to cover a Speedway track. His idea was similar to that described by SCB with the outside permanently fixed to the top of the fence and a fixing system on the centre green. It would be a time consuming job putting the covers on and off as they would need a considerable amount of tension applied in order for the water to run off what would be a relatively shallow angle. That would also require that the outer fixing point be very strong. His idea was that the track would be prepared and watered heavily as soon as possible following a meeting and the cover put on only to be removed on the day of the meeting for final track prep. The thinking being that this would allow consistent track conditions no matter the weather, the track wouldn't sweat so much because there would be air flow from both sides under the cover. All great but you're probably talking a £14k investment with the material needing replacing every 5 to 7 years depending on location and the sport doesn't have that money spare especially on a system that is theoretically sound but unproven.

Without looking at the book I would say that you have to run methanol so would need to adapt for that. Think it has to be air cooled as well. I just can't see any significant advantage of the 2v jawa, certainly not any worth giving them a monopoly.

To be honest Ray I think you are way off the mark, the off road market is important in it's own right to the Japanese manufacturers. They put a lot of money into running teams and affiliate programs in the states. The influence of Motocross success is minimal on the road market. I couldn't find figures for Honda but to give you some idea of the scale North American sales of the Yamaha YZ450F for 2011 were 69000. That's just one model alongside that there is the WR450 Enduro bike which is almost identical and then the YZF and WR 250's as well as the YZ125 and that's just from Yamaha. Sales for Honda will be considerably higher. Worldwide the MX market is pretty big although dwarfed by the market for scooters. I have no idea of the market for Speedway engines but I can't imagine it being much more than 1000 per year which is why I say that the Japanese would have no interest in developing an engine. Should F2 Speedway ever take off I would imagine one of them might well be willing to supply engines only though.