martinmauger

Each to their own, of course, footie & rugby do nothing for me other than assessing whether a stadium could also stage speedway. Once went to Coventry, Brandon for a speedway nite wih a couple of stock car fans, who when turning into the car park about an hour befiore the start, both said almost in unision "oh no, it must be off already". It wasn't off, they were just used to seeing the car park beng full to busting. And Brandon has a more than decently-sized car park....

They were at it again yesterday, Boxing Day, this time with a few quads joining the local 'heroes'. Hopefully there were no children in the park at the time....

Stock Cars / Bangers: I 'get' it, guarranteed action rain or shine, prob hardly ever gets rained off, must get around to watching it sometime. Was recently having a chat about motorsoprt with a pal, and a pal of his mentioned he is really into drifting, which they stage on the inside at Kig's Lynn (can't call it centre green) among other places. Have to say I don't 'get' drifting. He was going on about the mega powerslides and performed mostly by Japanese sports cars in formation or singularly and how marvellous it is to watch, well they do that all the time in speedway whilst actually racing against each other. While I'm sure there is a lot of skill involved, spinning up ones tyres is not that difficult, even if one doesn't have a less grippy surface or an excess of power, pumping up the driven tyres to 60PSI or so will get you sliding. But whether I 'get' drifting or not, like stock cars, they get huge crowds....

I'd have settled for 10 acres of land with full planning permission for disruptive motorsport within 5 miles of Hull city centre. Didn't get it. Incedentally, at a local park, youths were riding loud motorbikes up and down for over 2 hours this afternoon, if only they had somewhere supervised and safe to ride without distrubing anyone. No point in calling the cops they're not interested. But - if you do 31MPH in a 30 zone or park for 10 seconds too long well that's different, sigh. All the best to everyone in speedway....

Same happened to Ray Morton way back in 1997 with formation of the Elite & Premier League. The limit for PL riders was 7.00, Ripper's ave was 7.01 so he was excluded from that league, as were (if memory serves) Andy Smith, Sean Wilson and defo Garry Stead, all 4 made deputations to the BSPA. Doubly Ironic as if Ripper had beaten one less rider, 2nd instead of a win, he'd have been eligble for a PL place. The rider he beat: Garry Stead, then riding for Bradford though he signed for Hull of course in 1999. As did Ray Morton.....

The Vikings did flipping great: Hull won the Premier Trophy, first 'cup' since Interleague KOCup in 1976. A good season for me personally for various reason. I was a good position financially to buy a season ticket, £250 if memory serves, so thought "why not?". Gained me free entry each week to at least 20 home meets including free car parking so was very good value indeed as Hull had good run in all competions. Also an ingenious cross-promotion meant season ticket holders were offered a "5 for £5" deal with greyhounds, which ran at Hull, Craven Park until mid-2003. Think the deal was entry, free drink, free racecard, £1 of bets (minimum was 25p) and maybe a bag of chips. Went to few 'dog night's had a great time, picking dogs with speedway-sounding names like 'Screen Machine' and picked trap numbers going by gate positions on the speedway track (!) e.g. inside traps / gates early on, then the outside traps / gates, then random. Me and the girlf basicaly broke even and thoroughly enjoyed our nights at the dogs. Was also able to do a lot more away meets than usual and got to know the riders a bit more....

So TWK, where do your loyaties lie: with the Rebellian (not the Somerset version) / Resistance or with the Empire / First Order, Light or Dark Side of the Force ?. Always loved Star Wars, don't mind Star Trek & Indiana Jones, Harry Potter is really for kids I but can't get into Lord Of the Rings. I'm told by Sci-Fi / Fantasy fans, more serious than I they are (!), that the arguments on the Star Trek forums have to be read to be believed. Still, wouldn't life be boring if we all liked everything ?...

Mine arrived today, Saturday, annoying for sure but to be fair post has been a week or more late in this area....

No, I have't been at the Chrimbo egg-nog already; that starts tomorrow. I hit the flicks and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, sees our heroes searching for someone to help them give the bad guys another kicking (no spoilers but it's actually to stop the bad guys wiping them out) when they travel to an up-market casino-planet where gambling is the thing and betting on the old space gee-gees is the way. Some action shows said space gee-gees racing around a oval huge track, maybe half a mile long, of loose surface with at least one enormously banked corner which woud be turns 3 & 4 as races were run clockwise. Can't say I noticed turns '1 & 2', but it looked one heck of a track. Meantime "just jump into an X-Wing and blow stuff up", and you all thought I'd just say May The Force Be With You.....

Plus, laters when you review a meeting or even an incedent comments like "Fell, hit fence, bike too damaged to contimue" I find it takes you back and you remember loads more. Returning briefly to F1, I know peeps who when playing video games on Xbox P Stations always do the full race distance: 70 or so laps over 1 1/2 hours, playing over a few weeks or so the full 18 races or so season. With the obligatory steering wheel and pedals game controllers. And some say speedway fans are anorak geeks; on the rare occasions I can be bothered I get bored playing racing games over more than 25 laps....

Some fans do write down such things for other mortorsports; qualifying times, 'timed' & 'untimed' practice laps + lap times during the race actual: for F1, F3, F Ford, Touring Cars, Ginetta Cup, BSB, MotoGP, etc. Just think; lap times of each car for a full-distance F1 race, 70 laps or so, I know folk who do just that . A publication which would be a programme to speedway fans, they call a 'scoresheet' (or timing sheet, don't recall) and the actual 'race programme' is akin to a full-blown magazine. So it does happen in other motorsports. Filling in proggies is a choice for speedway fans but as a meeting is a 'flowing' competition with natural breask, between heats, it's difficult to keep track without a proggie if you are really following the scores....

This ^^^ (again), wouldn't take huge investment i.e. mostly none, to achieve most. Nail really getting hit on the head at the moment....

As others have already posted: but promote meetings. Its' all very well advertising 'entry for a tenner' when it's on TV once or so a season but then don't not promote anymore, it must be promoted each & every week. + too many rule changes, the rule book should really be torn up and start again form scratch. e.g. a riders average is 5pts because that is his average now, not from when he last rode 8 years ago for 5 matches 3 of which were away and were under some special dispensation or other. And run at night whenever possible, speedway always looks better under floodlites and going out anwhere at nite is always a little bit more exciting than during the day. I still watch live speedway whenever ever I can but I'm at the stage wehere the exact ins and outs of rules don't really intrerest me anywmore as once you get your heads around it, they change it again. I just go to enjoy the racing these days....

Never knew him, but defo heard of him, think he once had tiger stripes put in his hair once (and / or a tattoo) to commemorate something John Louis did; qualify for 1975 World Final ? Either way he was a speedway superfan. RIP....

It certinaly does. Assuming this a family forum: "round things to the wall, kick behind, guitar orientated rock and roll". Difficult getting kids into suff, they mostly can't be bothered. Friends run Operation Raleigh-type schemes, went into schools saying to kids if they wrote sponsorship request letters to big firms they would probably (definately) get some money (all of it) towards funding the trips. i.e just write a few letters and get everything, that's everything, paid for to do cool, worthwhile things and learn new skills, make new friends, in interesting countries all around the world. The take-up figure was around 10%....

And promoters don't seem to appreciate that with every unpopular rule, the ones promoters themsleves admit to then change, you lose fans who may never return. The latest less than popular rule being the 'one over the eight' rule for 8pt riders. Fixed race nights is good but then a lot of good is undone by that new 8pt rule, so the likes of NikiP, Woffy, Greg, Russkie Emil, NKI, etc can't return to ride in the UK even if they wish to...

Irrelevant, gotta actually get the kids in first. Though oldies may well bail, then you have next to no crowd. Ideally play a mixture of up to date chart stuff & some faster rockier numbers most folk will like, but as already mentioned, not the same blooming stuff every single blooming time. Knew a DJ who used to do that, he may as well have just put a mix-tape on....

I remember that ^^, but not May Each Day,. Was either prob already in the bar (under age tut, tut ) or made fast getaway for the supporters coach home, depending on time. The racing wasn't the greatest at Brandon in those but what a slick, professional show in a clean stadium....

As above, good to see Briggo looking well. His books BTW are very good read, the latest (the one he's signing) is a real adventure, almost 'Indiana Jones And The Speedway'. Barry Briggs is defo a 'man who's done stuff with his life'. Updated forum looking good too....

As above, a few years ago he may have been 'up for the job'. He's a very successful businessman , and good luck to him for that, and he certainly helped keep open / reopen many tracks almost for fun over the years and I can confirm he's given advice to others trying to do the same....

In addition to (almost!) Ole Olsen Barry Briggs, Egon Muller & Ivan Mauger World Champions at Hull, Boulevard era, in the Craven Park era we also had riding for us: 1989 World Team Cup Winner & 1991 World Finalist Paul Thorp, 1994 World Finalist Jan Staechmann, 1993 U21 World Champ Joe Screen & 1993 World Champ Sam Ermolenko.....

Feel those sentiments ^^. Heard from a couple of sources that Rye House's tractor & grader circa 1994 ended up at Hull, Craven Park for 1995 season....

Or the theme from Star Wars, which I do like BTW....

And please (please), only play Simply The Best when the team has won something really worthwhile, like winning against the odds a tough close match v local rivals or league leaders; Against All Odds by Phil Collins is also acceptable in that situation. And / or only play We Are The Champions when the team is i.e league champions / KOC winners. The one worthy time I've heard We Are The Champions played at speedway was when Hull won the Premier League in 2004, still sends shivers down my spine....

Used to at Hull, Boulevard too, quite popular with fans. In addition to afore mentioned tunes: We're gonna Win - Def Leppard Chainsaw Charlie - WASP (really). The opening of the differently-toned chainsaws starting up (ok they are moped-like 2-strokes) followed fast 120BPM heavy metal guitar, a bit like Motley's Kickstart My Heart, always reminds me of the a start a speedway heat. As an aside I Keep meaning to have a musician friend 'score' the sound of a speedway bike, i.e the exact key and note. And, please, if tracks must play songs by Kiss (my fav band) please (please) don't play Crazy, Crazy Nights. The band have been in existence since 1973 and have many, many more suitable, up-tempo tunes. E.g. Psycho Circus (welcome to the show), Detroit Rock City, Creatures Of the Night, King Of The Nighttime World, I Love It Loud (used a lot at ice hockey, a bit like We Will rock You), Tomorrow And Tonight, Rock And Roll All Nite, etc. I could go on (just did)....