Vince

I think Scunthorpe have their attitude exactly right but can't help a wry smile when I remember Rob Godfrey's criticism of Newport's CL team being to weak after they were whitewashed at Scunthorpe when Newport were a second team and Scunthorpe a stand alone. To be fair a the time he was a new Promoter and from what I've seen his attitude has changed very much for the better since in many ways. Going to one of the amateur meetings at Scunthorpe is an eye opener for anybody like myself who believed that there wasn't enough interest in kids getting into Speedway. The sport is absolutely thriving there so proves that if the opportunity is there to get on a bike on a regular basis kids will jump at it. Knowing the chance is there to move all the way through the leagues can only increase interest more and Scunthorpe has to be one of the most positive things happening in British Speedway. To those who say they won't go to watch them ride I say you're the one's missing out, they might lose but they won't wobble around miles off the pace and the chance to see kids improve year on year shouldn't be missed.

I don't think that having all the top riders in the Elite league would make very much difference to crowd levels at all. People who like Speedway already go to meetings, if they don't it's because of the cost, distance, illness or whatever. I can't imagine that there are many who don't go just because some of the top riders don't appear here. People who aren't interested in Speedway don't know who the top riders are so it won't encourage newcomers along.

I started watching Speedway in either 67 or 68 and despite already spending every weekend watching motorcycle sport I fell in love with Speedway immediately. However I am entirely convinced that the Speedway I have seen in the past 10 years is a much better spectacle. Apart from crowd levels I would take Speedway today over the 60's and 70's every time.

I can only apologise for being so stupid and having the lack of understanding in depth of Polish Speedway that you do being an insider. How it escaped my attention that the pairs and European Championships combine to make a total of just over half the meetings of the GP series I have no idea. I can now see how the Pairs event you mentioned would need the same input as a full GP series. I can only thank you for enlightening me. But you're still only guessing

No not for certain, we know he is owed a considerable sum of money and he has said finances are a problem at the moment. Knowing he is riding for a team owned by the person running a series alongside the World Championships isn't the same as knowing that he has had pressure put on him not to compete either. In fact I would have thought having the riders at the top of the World Championship chase riding for your club and in your individual series would be beneficial to the gates. Racing in a one off event or even a small series can't be compared to the investment needed to compete in a World Championship GP series so it's irrelevant whether he does or not. The only thing we do know for sure is that you are guessing just as much as I am.

Possibly but countered easily by the idea that one rider is toward the end of his career and looked totally uninterested during some GP's last year while the other is known to be in financial difficulties and returning from injury. The truth is that we'll probably never know and will all have our own opinion, mine is that it's a conspiracy theory and that Emil will one day be World Champion.

Possibly he was still hopeful of getting what he was owed or had a potential sponsor that didn't work out. Personally I think this is one of those conspiracy theories that has just enough background to seem plausible but has no real evidence behind it.

I might be guilty of stating the obvious but when you go into the bends don't you lean over which moves the footrest away from the fence and then you slide as well which means the back wheel would touch the fence long before anything else?

Perhaps Sayfutdinov just plain can't afford to commit to running a full GP season at the level he needs to in order to have a chance of winning. It's a big chunk of money that he has been let down on as well as last years injuries hitting his earnings very hard. Possibly he sees a year out to rebuild his finances as his best option for becoming World Champion.

How I hope you one day get a neighbour who makes a din at 3am just a few times a year. The people who are complaining are in the wrong but you are doing a very good job of making them seem like the sensible one's.

Glen Phillips, really sound bloke who will see you right. http://www.gpmouldings.co.uk/index.html

Whatever the rights and wrongs you have to wonder if the judges verdict might have been more favourable had there been no noise during the middle of the night!

I work permanent nights and would never expect anybody to be quiet during the daytime because of it. However if my neighbours had thought it fine to play loud music at 3am when my kids were little they would have found out that I really don't think that is reasonable. The majority of people still sleep at night and in my opinion have the right to some peace, drinking establishments and supermarkets are well known to be open at unsocial hours so people could be expected to know that in advance. Moving in to an area near a motorsports venue it would be reasonable to assume that midnight to 6am at least the site would be quiet. If I think like that having been a motorsports fan all my life then it seems sure that noise at 3am would seem twice as bad to somebody with no interest. All the time we want to indulge in noisy pastimes we need to accept that others will hate the noise and have to be seen to take all possible steps to behave responsibly and with regard to their interest. Do that and we have an argument, bury our heads in the sand and carry on doing whatever suits us and we are as bad as them and will lose it all.

I have been around motorcycle sport for all of my 52 years and if I bought a house near to a track I would be genuinely shocked if they were still making noise at 3am. While I personally wouldn't care it would be reasonable expect the hours of midnight to 6am to be quiet I would have thought. It would be like having a next door neighbour who worked shifts and played the drums, it would probably suit him to practice at 3am after finishing at 2 but in that instance I would care very much! We cant afford to fall into the trap of believing that allowances should be made because it's something we personally like. You have to ask yourself if the noise you hate most in the world would be acceptable to you for the hours and times you want to run. Hard as it is to believe for some people engine noise is a horrible din :-) I detest nimbyism in all it's forms but the way to defeat it is to prove that what you are doing is reasonable to anybody with a normal attitude, you will only do that by making and being seen to make every effort to minimise nuisance.

Standing up to them for your right to make noise in pursuit of your sport is absolutely the right thing to do. Trying to claim that right to make noise at 3am is absolutely the way to make sure that you never succeed. People will never, ever accept motorsport on their doorstep if we aren't reasonable in doing what we can to minimise the nuisance. Some people will never be happy but the silent majority will turn into keen objectors if you insist on the right to make as much noise as you want whenever you feel like it.

The more detail they get immersed in and the longer they can drag things back and forward without either side being successful the more money they make, exactly opposite to most jobs! Common sense and the law will be strangers for as long as lawyers are allowed to keep it that way.

Perhaps Mr Coventry just ran out of money to get really good legal advice, no idea if that's the case but it's possible. It's also possible that we are paying the costs of the whinger!

That is still different to establishing that people have a right to make noise for their entertainment. If you could establish that x amount of hours noise a week couldn't constitute nuisance in law the issue would be solved for ever. There are individual cases all over the country where tracks have been allowed to carry on, with or without restrictions, despite noise complaints. That is a different thing though and largely relies on local councils. One that I was involved with was granted 7 day 24 hour opening. That was solely because the local village had a couple of people going around getting everybody to sign their complaint every time the track was used. However when we noticed that there was a complaint for a day when nobody was on site every person who had signed lost the right to have their complaint heard, which was everybody who complained. By then being sensible about days and times of use there have never been any more complaints made. The typical thing there was that there were a couple of very vociferous people who took to the cause and the majority just went along with it because they didn't care much either way and couldn't be bothered to argue. What won't be very popular is that I also believe that motor sport should be seen to take all reasonable steps to keep noise to a minimum that is compatible with their sport and that will change with development in bikes and cars. To my way of thinking the new noise limit on Speedway is justified even if the way it has been achieved might not be.

I have been saying for years and have probably done so on this forum that all motorsports need to band together and take a case like this to court but to establish the right to make some noise. It would cost a fortune but the body of people who want to make a noise in pursuit of entertainment is vast and would be an extremely powerful lobby if they worked together. If you could get pilots, gun owners, model car and plane owners and everybody else whose hobby is noisy on board as well no government could afford to ignore them. All these people have various authorities running their sports, it would take a huge effort but I can see no reason why it couldn't happen if the will was there.

I have heard of all those things but that's not what his argument was in the post you quoted, in fact he made the point that taxation should cover essentials and therefore nobody is disputing any of the things you list. I would even argue that there absolutely should be a discount for disabled badge holders and a carer if they need one. You attributed something that wasn't there to two posts in short order yet profess to know the opinion of the majority with whom you have no contact, that's why it makes me laugh.

Always makes me laugh when somebody insists the majority share their view - how could you possibly know that?

Great news that Kawasaki join Honda and Suzuki in backing riders entering the British Flattrack Championships. http://www.dirttrackriders.co.uk/#!Team-Kawasaki-Dirt-Track/c9we/8952BB3F-FCF9-464C-9A47-6EEBA211AC3A

Some years ago my lad attended a training school run by Nicki Pedersen. You would never meet somebody who is so different to his public persona. He clearly enjoyed working with the kids and couldn't do enough to help, he worked on bikes, push started kids and explained everything really well. All this in some pretty horrible weather, shame to ruin the image but he is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. Bloody ruthless on the track but one of the riders I would always be happy to pay to see ride.

I really don't like Darcy Ward but he is one of, if not the, most naturally talented and skilled riders I have ever seen. Ole Olsen was my pet hate as a kid after he nearly took my arm off slamming his car door when I tried to get his autograph. I was a kid so the fact he had just had a terrible World final was no excuse in my eyes, nowadays I think he deserved a bit of slack :-)