THE DEAN MACHINE

it does nothing at all for identity and thats the issue , all it does is try to justify the mess that speedway has created for itself , it is another plaster over the ever deepening wound that speedway has , for god sake why cant we just accept we have balls up and put it right , i with many diehards have stopped attending in the last year ,Workington struggling to get 350 people , Scunthorpe happy to get 500 people , how loud do the alarm bells have to sound before people realise , the sport has to radically change and now

I honestly think they are a waste of time as the sport stands at the moment , buster as well meaning as he might be cant say right for doing wrong , the sport in Britain is undefendable , it is a shambolic mess and until we accept that fact and do something about it we are finished , changing names of leagues and even race days isnt going to change anything , riders need their pay cut by 1/4 , stop all the add ons riders get , the days of the proffesssional rider below the top is a distance away and they need to be made part of a team and made to understand what that entails, make them understand that fans matter , stop trying to be a poor mans F1 ,speedway never was and never will be that, change the engines if we have to to help the riders ,is speedway a £10 sport ?? Well it definately isnt and £18 sport ,speedway the family sport ? Where are the familys ??

£20, although the power did fail twice the main delay was waiting for the county ambulance after Shelby Rutherford crashed

Congratulations Jason Doyle

Ive turned up to a few meetings to ride and someone has been signed in as my guest , most of the time it was another rider but there has been a couple of times when I have no idea who it was , something my Mrs gets angry about is if I go to stoke I am made to pay, I dont really mind but stoke owned my contract for about 18 years and made enough in loan fees from me and I rode for them for 5 of them and also they still owe me for the pride of the potteries meeting in 2011 but they still take my money on the gate everytime we go there which isnt a lot these days and it Winds my misses up

i rode with Neil at stoke and les at Glasgow , you wouldnt believe they were brothers ,neil was not easy to get on with until you knew him , we doubled up a couple of times in his van to away meetings but I still wouldnt say I really knew him , les is one of the great team riders like jan staechmann, always there for advice and would team ride with you for 4 Laps, I remember him teaching me about rolling the throttle off mid turn to get the back wheel to gain traction , in general very friendly and approachable ,peter was before my time but we have crossed paths a few times more recently through collecting old bikes

is this a wrsa pass or a bv pass ? As I said I read this about him in backtrack and could of been writ before the wrsa pass

i read about Taffy Owen in backtrack

I recently read a similar thing about tadfy Owen .he still lives by Belle Vue but cant afford to go as he has had some finacially hardship and they wont let him in for free which I find sad

yes , I believe mick Powell had my jacket as it had his name on the back

no unfortunately , Im missing my Carmarthen , Weymouth , buxton and Glasgow ones

similar to me I have 5 weslake bikes, 1 GM upright and a 2v jawa ,Ive just sold a rotrax Jap and a weslake to a guy in Australia, I also collect my own stuff from my career , I have my race jackets and I have the bike that I crashed in my final race of my career

no your not right , they are being trialed in Poland , they are being used on grasstrack and longtrack and in Britain there is a few at lower level and they are working , to be honest was Freddie any better when he went back to a GM , he led the world on a GTR he never got that high after he went back to a GM , we get you dont like them or the bspa involvement but your not right , far from it ,

there is no optimum performance because what works for 1 rider wont work for another , how many riders brought an oval port GM to find they didnt work for them , how many brought a baby offset when they first came out and found they were rubbish in Britain , or what about riders who had a good set up with a british tuner but decided they knew better and went with a foreign tuner and then struggled , its a race engine not a Ford Focus , if everyone was on them you would all be in the same boat but as you say results matter and while you experiment your sacked

Freddies engines were out the box but its how you set them up , they need different jetting/gearing- valve timing to conventional thinking and with Freddie not giving that out you were on your own but the engines were the same

but they are competitive , reliable and economical , they are just hard to set up and without being disrespectful to the riders some are not known for their technical ability and without the help which was not there they were not able to make them work ,other top riders like hancock tried them and said they had similar performance to a GM, Nicki Pedersen used them up till his injury but unless an engine hits the ground running it will never succeed as results matter , the concept is right despite what the nay sayer say but it need enforcement then no one gets the upper hand

I have just read Somersets press release about cancelling their end of season party ,one bit that really stood out was the following - then you have the riders that for one reason or another dont want to attend or want to be paid to attend . wow really ?😳

yea I was there 1999 and 2000 ,I did ok , yes moggo was there

the wise ones set themselves up with a business or a future income while riding ,I know a couple of riders who brought property while riding and have or are doing ok from it, I dont think anybody has thought speedway is a way to get wealthy, there are easier less painful ways to make money and if they set out and choose speedway as a way to set yourself up for life well they will be disappointed

i know 👍🏻

I have no idea what it takes to get to the top as I never got there or even close but I made it so speedway didnt bankrupt me and in general at all levels riders waste money but its their choice ,

i cant say I was wealthier but there were times when I was making a bit like in 2003 , I think I did about 75 meetings that year and certainly in my last Few years I became a lot wiser about equipment and even though I was only getting £10 a point I saw it as I was getting around £120 to have a bit of fun on my bike in a Sunday but I made my business and my speedway work hand in hand and often I did deliveries on the way to meetings , I never thought speedway owed me a living and felt very lucky and privileged to be a rider but up till about 10 years ago I think most riders had other jobs , it was the norm, sponsorship was always appreciated , I got a sponsor in 1996 at long Eaton and he stuck with me for 21 years , its a 2 way thing but I see some riders are very Ungrateful , I have a friend who sponsors some current riders and quite frankly the riders treat them like dirt

also with pay in Poland you are expected to turn up for training , visit schools and do all sorts of promotional work for the club and you can be fined a substantial amount for something as trivial as your mechanics top button was open on his club shirt when in official capacity

there are riders using them with big service intervals , the problem wasnt its reliabilty or its service costs it was its performance or at least how to achieve the performance ,I understand that there are some using them in longtrack/ grasstrack in Europe , its obvious you dont like them and are finding some enjoyment in their failure to take off in Britain and in the bspa failure if there is one ,they could of been a answer but sadly it doesnt look like thats going to happen now

and then they had the gift of tomasz gollob who pretty much brought Poland to the front of speedway world, we have a similar sort of thing in British speedway called tai woffinden who does the opposite