Humphrey Appleby

Does 'pretty well run' apply to subsidising the event as well?

I think BSI only promote the Copenhagen and Gothenburg GPs themselves in addition to the British GP. I think Cardiff is certainly their money spinner, although it would seem unlikely they'd want to subsidise loss-making events on a ongoing basis. This said, it must be questionable whether Gothenburg makes any money these days.

Not within the stadium itself, although there's theoretically plenty of space around it. The stadium is situated in the corner of a big showground. That's never stopped the FIM. They've progressively made the permitted dimensions shorter and longer to accommodate GPs, and I'd imagine if Costa Mesa were daft enough to put up the asking fee, BSI (erm.. I mean the FIM) would find a way of accommodating it. If you can host a 'longtrack' on a normal speedway track these days, then clearly anything goes...

Commentators wittering on that speedway is most popular sport in Poland doesn't make it so. Football still attracts far more fans in aggregate terms, and I'd suggest there's wider interest in basketball than speedway as well Speedway draws reasonable attendances in certain parts of Poland (and good by the standards of speedway), but only in certain parts. It's a bit like rugby league in England - popular in Lancashire and Yorkshire, but not much interest elsewhere in the country.

How many Poles are really interested in speedway though? I've met very few outside of speedway circles, and whilst speedway is well supported in some parts of Poland, that support seems to be very localised. Poles are also too busy working to waste their money on leisure activities.

I suspect it's all been heard before and it's one of these believe it when you see it things.

I seem to remember the cheapest tickets for the 1990 World Final at Bradford were GBP 17.50, and that was considered quite a hike at the time.

Seems people are happy to pay grossly inflated prices for average accommodation, and to watch racing on poor tracks though.

Arguably the major costs of such publications are writing the content and to a lesser extent the DTPing. These are 'labour intensive' tasks so costs will be higher in some countries compared to others. Nevertheless, there will undoubtedly be a huge mark-up on a 10 quid programme.

Not really. Although I enjoyed the 'one big league' in 95-96, it was doomed failure as it raised the costs of the former NL/BL2 teams too much. The simple fact was that even if the top riders had been more evenly distributed around, some of the teams in the league simply couldn't have afforded them. The cracks were already starting to show when teams started drop out, and moves were made to re-create the old NL. It's clear that a two division structure at the very least is needed to accommodate the different economics of different tracks.

I think finances in speedway are too fragile to go down that route. Promotion and relegation only really works where there's more demand for places in a higher league than can be accommodated, and where there are sufficient replacement teams to replace any that financially fall by the wayside. Speedway teams need to be able to race at the level most appropriate to their economic situation - the sport can't afford to lose any unnecessarily.

Long overdue, but undoubtedly motivated by what will happen if the Sky largesse stops (as appears quite possible). Can't really see one big league being viable though - more like two equally sized leagues pitched somewhere slightly above and slightly below current BPL standard. A business can only pay its employees what it can afford, and whilst you can speculate to accumulate in the short term, the experience of the past 20-25 years is that the 'top stars' simply aren't pulling the crowds and justifying their earnings. The sport simply won't survive if it continues to haemorrhage money, so sadly some tough decisions need to be made. Personally, I always thought cheaper admission, a regular and more varied fixture list, and rider continuity from week-to-week would be a far better strategy for speedway than splurging money the sport doesn't have on teams of itinerant journeymen.

A few thousand isn't much in the context of 40,000 - assuming that is the actual attendance at Cardiff. I'd have thought speedway historically has a higher percentage of programme sales than most other sports, simply because a race card makes things easier to follow, so there must be a tipping point between squeezing the punters and ultimately diminishing sales.

In that case, charge a tenner for the Speedway Star and see how many you sell... It needs to be understood that speedway is not a premium product - never has been and never will be - so price points are very important. Ten quid for a programme is an outrageous price, and I simply would not pay it even though I could afford it.

My thoughts exactly.. Bottom line though, is that printing is a fairly automated process these days, so labour costs are probably relatively negligible from country-to-country. I also know that Denmark used to have some of the cheapest courier prices in Europe for some reason...

Why are you printing stuff in Denmark?

Well, you might say that, but... Yes, but the potential disaster was of the organiser's making, and even after they had the nerve to commission some cant about how the shale was 'environmentally controlled', 'carefully monitored', 'nothing left to chance' etc.. etc.. I'd agree the track was not the worst I've ever seen, but this is speedway's premier event of its premier series and they've been doing it now for 13 years for goodness sake. Neither is it the first time they've had these problems, so you'd have thought they'd have learned by now.

It's not even so much that the shale got wet, but cobblers that's apparently been spouted about it...

Must be more than 40 truckloads then. Maximum truck weight is, what?, 44 tons of which the tare would be something like 14 tons leaving a payload of around 30 tons. So 40 trucks (or truck loads) would be 1200 tons and that's being generous as the tippers they'll likely use would probably be more like 30-tonners... Regardless though, it would take a lot of standing water to soak that amount of shale.

In all seriousness though, it seems hard to believe that sufficient water could have accumulated on sloped tarpaulins to waterlog many tonnes of shale when they were removed (I guess 40 lorry loads could be nearly 1000 tonnes). Sounds like the water could have been seeping in over a longer period, which would suggest the pile wasn't as well monitored as suggested.

So the 'environmentally controlled storage facility' really is an outdoor hard standing where the shale is piled up under a tarp?

Cost is not unreasonably always going to be an important factor, but it may well be that taking longer to lay the track or storing the shale in a shed wouldn't make a great deal of difference. The cock-up seems to be the shale getting wet, and not for the first time, which is simply down to ineptitude at the end of the day. If the shale was indeed stored outside (which is not necessarily a problem in itself as plenty of tracks do it), then just be honest about it. Telling porkie pies that it was stored in sort of state-of-the-art facility isn't going to convince anyone who could see the result with their own eyes...

So the shale is not kept in a 'climate controlled facility' at all?

I did actually wonder whether the 'climate controlled facility' was actually a shed, with the 'moisture measurement' amounting to a bloke sticking a spade in from time-to-time. Do we know where this supposed facility actually is, so at least we can establish its credentials...

In years gone by, rumours would still have spread and at least can be more quickly addressed with instant communication. It's totally unrealistic to expect in an era where everyone has a smartphone, that stuff isn't going to get out. Perhaps rather than lamenting social media, the powers-that-be should embrace it rather than expecting the fans to handle their corporate communications.