Vince

Surely there are nowhere near enough riders to make splitting them into four groups possible. There aren't even enough for two sensible sized groups this year it would seem.

I don't think it is quite as simple as some of you seem to believe. For sure Motocross tracks are run in a farmers field but they are temporary so don't need planning permission if the site is only used a few times a year. I don't know what the current rate is but about 5 years ago it was around £500 for the day. As soon as you bring shale in you will need to get planning permission - you can expect that to take over a year and cost a few quid as well. Then in order to comply with the insurance conditions you will need a safety fence that complies with the regulations - another fair chunk of cash. Don't forget you will then need first aid cover at every training day and there will be lots more conditions laid down by the insurers. Insurance can be a major issue with new ventures expected to lay out the full years premium in advance. Motocross practice tracks find it worthwhile doing all this because a decent track will get 50 people on a bad day and maybe 300 on a good one. I know of a Speedway training day recently that had less than a half dozen riders and 50 would be a fantastic day. I think the only practical way would be to try and get one track each in North, South, East and West if possible that has suitable planning permission in place and find a way to finance a practice track within each place that could be open two or three days a week. Failing that another option might be to push Grasstrack as training for Speedway as you could then run the temporary tracks in farmers fields with a lot less outlay. You would still be looking at several thousands of pounds investment though.

I have ridden a 500 many times - none of them fast - and even a 250 Grass bike on the Speedway. In my opinion an excess of power is very rarely a problem, in fact it generally makes the bikes safer as when they are spinning too much they stay away from the fence. Again it is only my opinion but things start to go wrong with 500's when dad starts trying to get the bike to drive harder than junior can cope with. Already we are seeing very inexperienced riders with the new style back ends and the wheel shunted right forwards, then the timing is knocked back and low tyre pressures used. Additionally they may well be using an engine set up for a professional rider on slick tracks and you have the perfect recipe for a rider picking up and heading toward the fence at every small mistake. Possibly the 250's will give them a head start when it comes to using professional type set ups but I think they may well be a problem on bigger tracks for the same reason a 'soft' 500 can be. Personally I am glad that Sam was able to start on a 500 that was always left set up long and sharp (and still is in the main) so that he has to use throttle control to find drive. When he gets into trouble there is a good chance that a big handful of throttle will get him off the lowside.

Trouble is that if there isn't a CL match the Mavericks riders usually want a ride and by the time they have had a go all the track staff and first aid are ready to go home.

Ah but it's not so easy to find a proper bike these days, seems like every one you look at the engine is hanging out the front!

You need to talk to Peter Oakes. If you phone the SCB I am sure they will sort you out with contact details.

I thought it was quite an enjoyable meeting. There seems to be a larger range of ages and abilities than in previous years but while the gap between the top and bottom is bigger it seems that they break down into groups so that everybody has some competition (not sure that makes sense but I know what I mean!). Plenty of evidence that those starting in Grass track seem to have a better understanding and a head start on the others and that nothing brings the lads on like plenty of time on the bike. Christophers Dad left the 'kennel end' of the stand as if a Ginsters truck had arrived the other side of the pits when he was pointed out to the locals Enjoyed helping young Chris, seems he will listen to anybody except his dad which shows an amazing amount of common sense for one so young

Look on the bright side Pat, he's only 12 now and things will get far, far worse over the next few years before they start to get better

Put me down for the minority vote - I think that Nichols was going a lot faster than Zagar and reasonably expected him to take the wider normal line. Undoubtedly Zagar was hit hard enough to cause him to fall but it is difficult to see how Nichols could have avoided it. The Pederson / Iverson incident was one of those 50/50 jobs that could have gone either way and may be an argument for Refs not being forced to exclude a rider in all cases after the first corner. The race to the line was impossible to call from what I saw on the TV although my first reaction was that Bjarne had got there first I did have my doubts when I saw the replay.

Just spoken to Pat and Chris Bint has knackered his achiles tendon and is in plaster. Sounds a horrible injury but he's young and will heal quickly. Best of luck to Chris, Brendan and Jack and hope you are all racing again soon.

Be interesting to see how they enforce that, a lighter rod is going to require a strip down to check. Or how about honing and polishing standard items? Always very difficult to enforce such rules although the idea is good.

Scroll down this page and you can see that at least one tuner has already started working on them. Pretty good power for a 250 four stroke that has some torque as well.

The SCB handbook states the following (good news for Scatygirl I think) New Youth applications must be supported by an endorsement from an SCB Training Instructor while applications to upgrade must be made by a Parent/Guardian endorsed by an SCB Training Instructor and the GB U-21 Manager. No Youth will be registered to ride a 500cc until they are 14 years of age and successfully undertaken a formal competency test.

I have ridden most of the Motocross 250 four strokes and can't imagine any of them having enough flywheel weight for Speedway. I can imagine they are fine for Grass Track but they are pretty peaky and the fact that they race against 125cc 2 strokes gives some idea of the type of power they produce. I would assume that the use of a homologated engine in competition is to try and create a level playing field for all riders and can see how that would be a good thing. Seems like a good idea but all put into action in too much of a rush.

80cc bikes are only any good on suitable tracks - which we don't have over here. Apparently the parts needed to convert a 500 to 250 are too expensive to make it worthwhile. However a 350 can be converted reasonably easily and there should be a few cheap 350 engines about from the grass track. It means relocating the crankpin - which has also to be stepped and re-sleeving the barrel. Not a 5 minute do it yourself job but I would have thought a whole lot cheaper than a new 250.

I have everything except the result of the final round at Mildenhall. May 3rd Weymouth: J Auty, S Waldron, S Campos May 8th Armadale: S Waldron, S Lambert, K Hughes. June 6th Sittingbourne: S Lambert, J Auty, G Cottham. July 4th Buxton: J Auty, 2nd = S Waldron & S Lambert. Sept 6th Sheffield: J Auty, 2nd = G Cottham & M Bates. Sept 19th Carmarthen: S Waldron,J Auty, 3rd = S Lambert & G Cottham. Oct 3rd Mildenhall: Final top 3 J Auty, S Waldron, S Lambert.

Tim would have started the meeting early if need be but as I say that would take it into the new season which wouldn't be very satisfactory. Brighton might not be the ideal as it is a bit of a novelty track but it does put the lads in front of a good size audience and get the meetings completed. At the end of the day it is a good compromise solution. Couldn't run at a training day as they wanted it run alongside a SCB / BSPA authorised meeting, that's why it didn't run at Newport with the STRA. No problems with charging admission to a training day but you aren't allowed to charge for the U15 meetings.

I think it has to be run in conjunction with a BSPA regulated meeting. Next chance at Newport would have been the Classic but I guess that would then be 2006.

Seems he won't need another operation. He now has six weeks in plaster and another two in a more flexible support. The Doc reckons 4 to 5 months to be OK but Sam said that actually means two and a half to three months. I won't let him do anything too silly though. Once he is out of the cast I will take him up to Brian Simpson and follow his recomendations. Pictures of his war wounds and x-ray here Thanks Mark and Sam, seems minor compared to your injury from last year. I'm sure I can find enough tape even for a gob that size Stressed! Jamie - you should kick him when you next see him, he's been no help to you whatever in this Academy League

Sam's finally had the op and is now home. They put two screws in the tibia which are fine but they think the screw they put in the fibula might need re-doing but we won't know until Monday. Sam is in good spirits though and still says he will be riding by Christmas.

Operation was postponed last night and is now due later today.

Sam said thanks to everybody for the concern and to Brendan for the offer of the frame but he thinks Nu-Trak will sort him out. He was eventually transferred to Southampton, arriving about midnight last night and is waiting to go down for the operation now. Apparently both tibia and fibula are broken and it is all pretty unstable so will be held together with a mixture of plates, wires and screws. Sam is in good spirits and says he will be riding again before Christmas.

Just popped in home to drop the sponsors off. Sam is in hospital at Stockport and they are planning on operating in the morning to put some screws in a fractured tibia. We tried to bring him home and will try again tomorrow to get him back to a local hospital for the operation. Shouldn't be too bad anyway and Sam is already itching to ride again. The ambulancemen reckon he has an exceptionally high pain threshold, and seeing what he was like at the track today I can believe it.

The price of equipment in standard form just isn't a problem - it's very cheap. However to run at anything above (and for some, including) CL level gets more expensive as you move up the ladder. There is an inevitable need to 'keep up with the Jones' so more money has to be spent on better equipment. To be honest it is exactly the same in any motorsport, I would think that finding a way to fund it would be easier than stopping it. I think a standard Jawa engine is about £1300 but to buy something from a tuner that will be competitive in the PL is double that at least. The standard engine would probably do a whole season in the hands of a wobbler between services but the tuned one about 10 meetings at PL level and a more highly tuned version about 6 meetings at EL standard. So it goes on until GP engines are set up and run for the one meeting. But if you look at any motorsport it is much the same - Formula Ford to F1 the spread is far greater. The difference is how much sponsorship is available to F1 and Speedway has to be a better product than that!

I think there is a bit of a misconception that a smaller/ less powerful engine is better for novices or youngsters. Generally a powerful engine that spins easily is much safer. Ask any of the kids who have made the step from 125 to 500 which is easier to ride fast. For sure lowering the compression ratio can make a bike very difficult to ride as it wants to drive all the time, when an engine is set up like that the throttle has to be kept on which is exactly what novices don't want. It is engines set up the same as professional racers that cause the problems. A quick and easy fix would be to make all kids run 12lb of air in the rear tyre or harder rear tyres. The bike would always want to spin and the kids would have to learn throttle control to make it go forwards. It would do away with bikes lifting and the crashes would mainly be harmless lowsides. Ask any motocross rider whether a 250 four stroke is cheaper to run than a 500. The answer is a definite no, all the parts are much the same price but the engine has to work harder so wears more quickly. Smaller engines are really only good on small tracks. The 250 might have been great at Buxton but it wouldn't be so good at Sheffield. I think the perfect answer would be to have tracks of 150 to 200 yards for kids to work through 80 -125 -250 and then step up to a 500 for full size tracks. However as there is a lack of such tracks available I don't think that the current set up of having riders on a 500 when they are capable is at all bad.