Vince

I'd send him to open a school fete without a second thought, he looks exactly like kids expect an action sports hero to. To my mind it would be difficult to find a Champion to represent our sport better, the fact that I'm no fan of facial tattoos or silly ear rings is immaterial. For those of us who think the sport needs to be dragged into this millennium as a genuine extreme sport he looks and behaves the part. He rides on the edge, makes passes and shrugs off injury like it was nothing. For those of us bought up on Boys Own Annuals he has no hint of scandal following him, works hard for charity, has overcome adversity and made no secret that his success can be attributed to knuckling down and working hard. If he comes across as a bit cocky I think he's earned that right and even that will improve with age, he's just a lad remember. His mum must be immensely proud as would his father have been if he could have been here to see it. At this rate I might even end up being a fan!

Me, I didn't think he should be in the GP series last year which goes to show I know eff all. It would be good to know who made the decision to put him in as despite all the criticism of the GP series there are clearly some people involved who really know their business. I saw a lot of Tai when he was first over here and although he clearly had some ability I was never a fan and thought he would end up an EL second string. I was never a fan of his attitude either but the way he has conducted himself the past couple of years has really impressed me. A very worthy World Champion and it seems likely there are more to come.

Won't the inertia of the piston easily overcome the force of gravity and make it behave the same no matter what angle it's at? As far as I know the service limit on the old radial aero engines was the same for all barrels and they point every which way.

Woffinden, Holder, Ward, Iverson, Sayfutdinov, Zagar gating tarts? You really have to be kidding, have you watched any GP's in the past few years?

I thought it was a bad move and he was rightly excluded. The rest of it was just handbags and like it or not people will be talking about it long after the rest of the meeting has been forgotten. Like Boyce / Gollob where everybody remembers a single punch and most would have no chance of remembering who won the meeting including me.

I don't know how far back you have to go to know about this sport you used to watch? I can go back as far as the late 60's and can't say I remember the sport you describe. Sure I can remember some great meetings, some fantastic passing and some brilliant team riding. However I can also remember that these were exceptional and as far as I am concerned, with the possible exception of team riding happened less often than they do now.

I'm afraid it is, all depends how much speed they carried off the corner, the difference in potential straight line speed of bikes is minimal.

The skill of the tuner is being able to match an engine to a rider in such a way that he can make best use of it, outright power is not generally what they are looking for. Can't imagine anybody trying to get away with an oversize engine on Speedway these days. If any rider ever does 10mph more it's because of his skills not the engine, more realistically they are looking for fractions of a second per lap.

When it comes to sport you can drive a coach and horses through the regulations, when I looked into this properly a few years ago it wouldn't have been a problem at all. What the law actually says and what people assume it says are two completely different things in many cases.

You can buy special clips that hold some flat Perspex sheets on the front of the peak, they are still in use by a few riders when conditions are bad.

Roll offs are a bit of a nightmare when it is raining as they tend to stick to the lens, you can run a piece of fishing line underneath the film which helps but it is still hit and miss. You could get a battery powered roll off, not sure if you still can but they weren't very good. Best option in my opinion is still the old fashioned tear off. Speedway is different to most other sports in the fact that it is run under lights which makes a big difference when visibility is a problem. No doubt somebody will point out that Supercross meetings are run in the wet and under lights, while that is true it's also a completely different thing running brakes when you are struggling to see compared to Speedway. I'm not disputing that some meetings could be run if the will was there but the tyres aren't the issue in any way that I can think of. It just strikes me a bit strange that some of the same people who think the sport needs slowing down because riders are too brave and lacking in skill for their own good and getting injured then go on to say they haven't got the balls to ride in bad conditions. Seems to boil down to wanting the old days back and changing the argument to make sure those old days were better. I can tell you one reason that meetings are cancelled more often, the fans will not accept paying to watch meetings where riders can't compete because of a poor track. perhaps in the oh so wonderful old days either the fans were willing to accept less or maybe the riders and promoters cared less for the fans opinion.

Unless something new came out in the past week I have all the up to date goggle technology in my kit bag. Fact still remains that vision is far more of a problem than grip.

Which sort of tyre is it keeps your goggles clear?

So what if they don't handle deep dirt so well, if they can use the modern day tracks in much the same way older bikes used deep tracks what does it matter? It's easy to think that it was deep tracks that gave good racing but the truth is that it's always been pot luck whether you saw a great meeting or not, the only difference is that the rose tinted glass brigade have now got more places to complain about how much better it was in the 'old days' The old days being whenever you started going to Speedway with the enthusiasm of a newcomer. When I first went in the 60's I was often told how much better it was in the 50's, my son never saw a meeting until the 90's and was treated to any number of people telling him how much better it was in the 80's, for some who complain the 'good old days' are actually the 00's. Try looking at Speedway without the bias and it's still a fantastic sport with good races and bad like any motorsport. It's easier to talk it down though. Forget uprights, black leathers, 2 valve engines, rolling into corners, one day world finals (where the best rider often didn't win) and so on, those days are gone. Accept modern Speedway where the lads are giving 100% every corner and they are riding closer than ever, overtaking just as much and just fractionally faster than they were a few years ago and it's brilliant at it's best and still a bloody good sport even when it's not a great meeting.

I would think they would go a long way to resolving the issues with the silencers as well.

No different to when you reach the limit now, every engine gets to a point where it dies off. Big advantage to my way of thinking would be the possibility of going back to heavier flywheels and engines producing more torque which I think would be more predictable and therefore safer.

I agree that something needs to change but going back to uprights isn't any sort of sensible answer imo. Is it really the bikes or speed (the actual speed difference is miniscule between the upright era and today) that causes more injuries (if there are more)? Not in my opinion, it's the way riders push harder in every race and given the comments on here if a rider plays safe the spectators are never going to accept any less on that score. Whatever happened to the rev limiter? To my mind there is a huge opportunity there to make small changes to the limit year on year that could eventually result in far less money spent on engines.

I can't see that changing to upright engines would do a thing apart from cost money and cause more injuries. The engines have been improved and developed so would make the same power, the riders have learned to ride in the modern style and enter corners harder and would continue to ride in that way, tracks have evolved to suit modern bikes and nobody has the money to spend on shale to change that. Added to that there will be some significant outlay in changing engines plus throwing away all the frames and forks while Jawa and the others may or may not re-tool to make uprights so the new frames will be more expensive. All for something that might slow things down but then again might not. If you want to save money and create an equal playing field then to my way of thinking you have to either standardise engines or the ancillaries that are put on them. My opinion is that if you standardise engines it will be a nightmare to police and inevitably some engines will be better than others. If you standardise carbs, ignitions and clutches there is a better chance that you could come up with something that would make excessive tuning worthless, would be relatively easy to police and create a more equal playing field. As for slowing things down, I just can't see it will ever happen by more than the smallest fraction unless you put everybody on 125's or something.

Go to a training day when there are sometimes riders not using deflectors and you might be shocked at the difference.

Is that the club or one person enforcing his own opinion on everybody else or bullying as it could be called?

Being what feels like 100 years old some days I can remember standing on bends pre dirt deflector days and have to say I believe there is a noticeable difference in the amount of shale thrown over the fence. That's not to say that I think dirt deflectors and their spare parts should cost anything like they do.

It's not a collection I would contribute to but those who have done so haven't been forced to, have known and understood exactly what the money is being collected for and how it is to be used. So what's it got to do with anybody who didn't contribute? What right has anybody to know what the Polish have or haven't contributed? I think we all get that you don't agree with it but there must be something that actually affects you that you could obsess about.

Second round of the National Dirt Track Championships takes place at Coventry Speedway on Sunday May 18th. There will be somewhere around 50 races. Riders range from the best in Britain (and Europe) through to complete novices and kids. Bikes rangebetween official teams from Kawasaki, Honda and Suzuki through a new vintage class and the thundrbike class where many bikes are converted from road going machines. Up to 12 riders on track at one time ensures there will be some very good racing during the day. Spectators get in FREE, racing starts at noon and the café and bar will be open. If you aren't too embarrassed to be associated with him after seeing him ride say hi to No95!

The BSPA, whether you like them or not, are just about the only people willing to put money into running the sport. Just how do you go about getting rid of them and keeping the sport? I can see the logic of having a neutral person to oversee the rules but the owners are never going to hand over all control of their businesses and who can blame them.

How many more fans will they lose if they leave postponements to the last minute in the hope the forecast is wrong and then get rained off? That just costs the club and it's fans a lot of money, far better to err on the cautious side generally I think because then fans know there is a good chance the meeting will run and be more willing to take the chance. As you say it's a professional sport and as such wouldn't want to be seen to leave all it's decisions to the last second on a wing and a prayer. The professional way is to look at all the information available and if possible save fans a great deal of time and money on a wasted trip. Fans might gradually find an alternative when faced with a rain off, they most certainly will find a better way to spend their money if they turn up several times and don't see any racing.