THE DEAN MACHINE

This is pretty much the only way now, there will be many who kick and scream and I’m sure some will walk away altogether but the sport is all but dead as a professional sport in Britain and a complete reboot is needed, i have often mooted the standard equipment route only to get shot down by the righteous, I’m not sure about club supplied equipment done by a ballot but it should certainly be looked into, the biggest challenge will be to convince the riders but really what choice do they have, in the meantime the bspa have got to do what they do best and come up with a short term solution and get rye house and the other teams through to the end of the season

Stoke didn’t call Saturday off the control board inspector did who I might add got sacked at a track for his track prep and it’s not changing machinery to suit promotors it’s for the good of the sport and to say your interested in rider safety but are fine to let use engines which are unnecessarily. Dangerous , that’s good sense and no I’m not particularly bothered about riders safety and neither are the riders ,they would happily use a product no matter how dangerous it made it as long as it got race wins, what I am concerned about is entertainment for the public and riders sliding off here there and everywhere cause they are riding bikes they are struggling to handle is not entertainment, I have not condemned stokes track cause the SCB have done there job and I have bothered to go and find out what’s going on not just speculate about the problems and put the boot in, I have nothing more to say on this but I will be thinking about you when your at a meeting that’s called off cause the track has a bit of rain in it or a bump or two and after kicking the floor for 30 mins the riders decide not to ride

That is correct about the riders so that’s why the sport needs to impose strict rules on machinery of which there are currently barely any,

What has happened to lebedevs ? He was a top rider last season and I thought deserving of a GP wildcard , this season started at Wroclaw and was so poor he was dropped, he joined 1st division rybnik and is struggling again, scoring only a couple of points today,whatever the reason he seems to have really lost it

What was going on with Mark Courtney at the end ??

I was referring to the CL, remember The meeting when they had to put the white line round a hole going into the third turn

there have ALWAYS been rough tracks and some that have bordered on dangerous, ask people about somerton Park Newport, Weymouth, Wimbledon, Carmarthen, buxton, Exeter, Plymouth, Coventry and loads more, the difference is the engines, riders are even complaining about Somerset now and remember Kings Lynn last year? Two Aussie’s saying the track was dangerous others said it was just grippy, they are made unracable by the bikes, I can remember a meeting I was in at stoke in 97 against hull and the track was rough and I can remember struggling to turn the bike in the first few heats but we got through it because the engines were more forgiving, we are heading down a very slippery slope in oblivion and the bikes are contributing massively to this , stoke are not the only one with track problems but hey instead of getting to the bottom of the issues let’s just close stoke and buxton and Somerset down because that’s going to solve everything isn’t it

No what I’m saying is if different engines and to a point tyres were used then even inexperienced riders would cope no matter what the track was like , the modern engine just isn’t fit for the purpose, as I said in an earlier post if you put NL riders out at Cardiff after 10 heats when the ruts apear it would be carnage, unless it’s smooth and dry they are a pig to handle ,speedway needs to address this problem which is far bigger than one track which you clearly have issues with

I’m not defending stoke’s track the other night, but rough tracks have been around for years and always will be but the modern bike just isn’t forgiving and this is the result, it’s also why there are far more rain offs because the engines are wrong, I spoke with a rider last night who was in the meeting in question at stoke v iow and his words were “the track situation was blown out if proportion and the meeting should of finished, he said some riders need to understand occasionally you need to ride rough tracks, they are not all smooth” his words not mine

That must really hurt

And yet you can’t see the difference between being unable to cope and to cope is the very engines being used

If you put national league riders out on a temporary track like cardiff after 10 heats when the ruts apear it would be carnage, the top riders lift and bounce around but it’s still raced because they can handle their bikes “just”

Yes it is happening everywhere , there are so many restarts in national league it’s ridiculous, I’m not blaming the riders but the modern bike is so unforgiving , you put young riders on them who haven’t been brought up using throttle control and what do you expect, I could point to loads of tracks that were a lot worse than stoke, somerton park Newport, dreadful track ,Weymouth ist year has ruts a foot deep Carmarthen ist year was like sand but all were ridden ok, I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a top official and he was talking about a well publicised recent event in which the track/promotion was blamed but even the main rider involved who is a huge name in the sport said the modern bike just doesn’t work on rough surface so what chance does young riders have ? I’m not justifying the stoke track but riders riding bikes that they can’t control is a far bigger issue than stoke

I suggest the sport should look into riders using bikes that they can’t control, tracks haven’t really changed some have always been rough, however bikes have and not for the better, but far be it from me to point out the obvious

100% correct

Brilliant mate , totally oblivious to the state speedway is in

I think he recently had eye surgery and is unable to drive at the moment

I agree with that point it is about money but most of the NL riders are not self employed and wont declare the money they get

Please explain what they are learning as the league is now that they wouldn’t if everyone was on £15pp? What they are learning now is that they expect to earn a living as soon as they get a bike now , this is not just me who thinks this, it is a wide spead belief around speedway and while we all agree riders should earn millions, the money isn’t there, there are not enough fans coming to watch and everyone who try’s to justify riders pay in all league is just making it harder to get things to change, I’m not sure how much longer we need to say this before people get the message but we are dying as a sport and we are causing the death ourselves

one of Eastbourne,s riders was asked to guest for a team last year and the deal he wanted and would of got(meeting rained off) was far and beyond acceptable for NL and it wasn't just the money but the point of all this is the bigger picture, it all good Eastbourne bringing on these riders if the league folds because of the "we are alright jack attitude" what happens to these riders then ? where do they learn ? people including riders have got to look at the bigger picture and see where the sport is heading and it has to be soon

There is more to the Leon madsen situation than meets the eye, not sure what’s the problem but I’m told other Danes don’t want to ride with him ,not sure if has something to do with silencers. A few years ago

I don’t get the drodz situation , he named at no2 but never gets a ride ,I understood when fricke was at no8 and scoring big points but now fricke has gone right off but drodz still gets no ride

I wasn’t actually referring to the speedway star but I guess you will have a good story at the end of the year

This goes back to the old problem in speedway of if you scratch the surface it always seems to come back to the same people, it’s like a spiders web and they are not going to upset each other are they

A sad fact is a good percentage of young riders don’t understand the importance of a good clean air filter but strangely think it’s important to have an anadized joker throttle