THE DEAN MACHINE

sorry to hear karl is retiring , always been a fair and friendly rider, all the best in whatever he does in the future

well i dont ride for the isle of wight its buxton and i dont work 9 to 5 hours ,i work any hour day or night, week or weekends and who else does my bikes ?,on a sunday i get back from buxton around 7pm and my bikes are washed and prepped before i go bed and just for good measure i also work for hynek stichauer as mechanic (but he was injured in august ), i will admit i dont get much time for anything else but i fit it in , i do sacrifice pretty much everything else in my life , and if you are that interested in my work habits, on race days you will see that most of the time i working in the area of the track im riding at ,be it plymouth ,weymouth or wherever,yes im lucky in that respect but its still work, also about commitment of SOME youngsters im not trying to get people to agree with me im just saying what i see ,if you dont agree with me then thats fine

1st i agree about the silencers,dirt deflectors and so on they will all be used ,it was just a suggestion,2nd yes you do need a decent engine but why couldnt you make that decent engine yourself ,a press would cost around £200 and the timing equipment and the bits and peices around £100, if it needs more extensive work yes you need more machinery but for serviceing that £300 should be enough , once you know how to do valve timing ,i dont think you will get it wrong ,and i dont know a rider who hasnt got an engine back from service and its blown on 1st race or sometimes on warm up , it a race engine "it happens "

im not saying rider x should ride for less money ,my point is if rider x did his own engines and learnt to do them as good as tuner x (which is not difficult) and which has been done many times before ,he would be a lot better off finacially from speedway , and could some expert out there in speedway land tell me what is so tricky about buxtons track , i will tell you ,riders come to the track and they are already beaton before they even ride it ,and you can pay for the best engines in the world but if you got that attitude you wont go far in the sport , i am only trying to help in a small way but if you know better then thats fine ,i am being open and honest about how i see NL speedway from a riders point of view, and just to throw a spanner in the works , who would win a race GREG HANCOCK using my engine V any premier league rider ?

im happy someone gets my point ,

i am not putting any rider down ,ash ,simon or anybody ,i just used them as an example as to prove a bog standard engine is good enough for NL racing ,they have got rides in PL through talent and im not disputing that , its not inexpensive at all ,it just could and should be cheaper than it is if you could do your own engines . im not pretending to have the answers to speedways problems, but at NL level im just trying to give some advice to some of these younger riders who are struggleing to make ends meet in speedway , if they choose not to take it then so be it

well i work 60 hours plus a week and some weekends and i stll find the time ,it comes down to dedication at the end of the day ,do you want to be a speedway rider ?, no one said it was easy ,and the national league dosent owe you a living ,i understand that statement goes against the grain but speedway is the only motorcycle sport that pays you to compete , and i feel very lucky that it pays me to do something i love

what people think is, the engine tuners are rocket scientists and the engines are full of magic parts that only they can fit ,its just not true most tuners are ex riders (not really known for the brains ) ,but they understand how an engine works ,what different cams do ,what different flywheels do ,compression etc etc, there is nothing magic in a speedway engine it is proberly the most basic combustion race engine in the world today ,the main point im making is you would save a fortune by doing your own engines and you would learn how to make them faster , there is no reason why a rider couldnt do an engine fast enough for elite league ,i know 1 ex rider who riding didnt really get above NL standard but is doing engines for premier riders and a couple of elite, its the end of season now ,a rider could go and buy a cheap engine strip it, service it ,play about with it ,learn about it and by march be competant enough to be riding his own serviced engines, the lesson is there but i doubt many riders would take it

well sam is proberly right when you get into premier and above but at national league a bog standard engine is more than good enough ,i have no idea what ashley birkes ,simon lambert ,jon armstrong ,john oliver ,jay herne have special in their engines or who tunes them or how much they pay for the tuning but i have beat them all in the last 2 months on a bog standard 6 year old engine and a clutch that noah sold me off the ark

speedway in general is not cheap and parts are not cheap but it could and should be a lot cheaper if you work at it and understand the bikes you ride , another bit of advice is listen to the older riders like jeremy doncaster ,bruce cribb,alan grahame ,riders like that ,they understand their engines , i learnt a hell of a lot from listening to paul pickering and martin dixon and jan staechmann about bike set ups ,and when i was having my engines done by bloomfeldt and bullet and diesel dave i was learning listening askin questions ,untill i thought i knew enough to have a go myself ,imagine my pride and excitment when i won my 1st race on an engine i had done

unfortunatly some riders would rather buy the latest phone than a primary chain or cables for their bikes ,it would only be around 10% of NL riders who have a clue what goes on inside their engines ,stripping and engine serviceing and rebuilding it and understanding how it all works is not something you need a degree in ,it is quite straight forward , one of my work customers who used to make engines for motorcross and trials in the 70s laughs at speedway engines because they are basically the same engine that were used in the 60s ,nothing has really changed , its just got lighter ,but its still the same parts ,there is nothing special in there, it is a overhead cam combustion engine ,thats all, set your self up with a press and the tools ,then buy an old engine off ebay or wherever and spend the winter learning about striping it down and rebuilding it, valve timing etc , you will save a fortune in engine repairs

tyres are not really an issue in the NL ,cause you dont have to use a new one and i have only used 1 new one all year and that was sponsored by someone , motor sport is always going to be expensive to a certain degree but just a bit of engine knowledge goes a very long way in speedway , my advice to any NL rider is learn about the bike you ride ,dont just buy something cause englebert smith,s got one and he is a good rider, A 10 year old GM/JAWA crank case is just that ,its a crankcase there is no power or performance in it at all,it goes exactly the same speed as a brand new one ,learn that the power is all above it ,same as a old wheel ,put new bearings in and it spins at the same speed as a new one, dirt deflectors should be scrapped cause they do a little less that sod all ,there,s a £200 saving straight away , maybe only 1 type of carb can be used ,such as a bz , maybe you can only use NEB/JAWA clutch plates in national league £10 each as opposed to harushi plates £40 each ,im sure paul bennett wont mind me saying this but if you put mine and his clutch plates together you wouldnt make a good set between them and we both got a maximum in buxtons last meeting ,

a few points i wish to say are, 1 ,the worst track ive rode this year was by far mildenhall when buxton were there it was dreadfull, but a track is there to be ridden , on the bikes issue , there is no need for almost any tuning in the NL , i know some national league riders who spend a fortune on engines ,they pay fortunes on tuners and there is no need when if they just spent a bit of money on an old engine strip it apart and learnt how it works and how to so called tune it ,it is not rocket science but it will save you a fortune untill you move up to premier league,there are more components in a meccarno set , this is a fact, i brought a GM engine from a rider for £100 ,it was siezed up , i put a second hand piston in and brought a barrel for £100 ,£200 in total , i started using that engine half way through the season and ive beat nearly all the no1,s in the league at buxton on it(some ride in PL) , i service it myself at a cost of £40 parts ,and did that 3 times all season , if it blows up so what it was peanuts ,ill just get another and do the same ,i also have a expensive GM but it dosent get used and i also service that myself , a bog standared engine is easily good enough for NL ,if im crap somewhere its not the engine its me , and some riders buy new seats and gaurds and covers and all the bling instead of chains ,cables ,bearings and so on ,the things that really make the difference ,my point of all this is speedway dosent have to be expensive at NL level if you use your brain and learn something ,3, speedway is the only real motor sport that pays you to ride ,ride motocross,road racing and see how much travel expenses and points money you get there , nothing ,sod all ,NL speedway dosent owe you a living , and personally i think it amazing that i get £10 a point for doing something i love

as ive just said im a 5 point rider on £10 a point and didnt lose money this year, i do have a couple of sponsors but they are not money sponsors

ive done ok out of riding NL this year ,wouldnt say ive really made alot but it hasnt cost me money

its dry and breezy in wolverhampton

dudley promotion do a great job with the supporters but the fan base has always been there even when there was no hope of a track return , 2 things matter in dudley ,a mosque or should i say the not building of a mosque and the speedway , go into any town/city and search for a speedway link ,its hard to find ,even before the rebirth of dudley you dont have to search for long , its in the media everywhere ,its in the black country museum and talk to anyone in the black country, its a big part of what put the black country on the map and that is not the case in other towns around the country, go into any town ask any one to name a speedway rider and they will say barry briggs or ole olsen if they have even heard of speedway ,ask the same question around dudley and its penhall, gundersen ,although the track closed in the 90s the club never did and thats why its successsfull today

i said this at the begining of the season ,dudley works for a different reasons ,if you live there you would understand ,it is an area that dosent have sports teams to follow and is very proud of its industrial history and its history in general ,i dont think there is another ex track that can realisticly be sucessfull at another track ,but also wolves is a short car/bus even walk to get to from dudley all these factors are what make dudley work and hackney or any other team not really work .i really dont think teams riding at other tracks is the way forward for speedway ,although i fully support people tryng to resurect their ex teams ,on a tuesday night at wolves it is not all the wolves fans plus a few cradley fans that have come back to the sport ,it is all cradley fans and most of the wolves fans dont go, i really hope that dudley get a new stadium cause the heathens back in the top flight speedway riding against wolves really is what speedway is all about, i was at lakeside last friday and the crowd didnt look to bad for a national league meeting ,just another quick point, as big as dudleys crowds are i know of some cradley fans that wont go to watch dudley cause they think that dudley have pinched the heathens name , i hope the hackney name is not lost to the sport but i dont see it working any where else except at hackney

only 2 things need changeing in the swc ,1st it should be made prime time viewing on every channel around the world cause the final was the most entertaining sporting event anywhere in the world this year ,it made crap like pompass tennis and cricket and bloody golf look like party political broadcasts and 2nd ,team GB need to win

and that is what makes gollob a legend,he knows how to make his bikes work ,when sky show gollob in the pits in a gp or swc he is on his knees changeing the bike set up himself

ward does imply it in interview and as batchelor comes back in pits after fall boyce does say something to him ,and batchelors reaction is a pissed off one , but why make a pass and then nearly fall and nearly go over white line ,an over locking bike is not a way to throw a race ,its a way to break a collarbone if the bike suddenly reacts and throws you over ,so i dont think it was on purpose ,but boyce made a bad call not using the joker earlier

the elderly women was my mom ,and yes the poles were drunk but really apart from chanting and waving flags they well behaved ,it was constant throwing of bits and pieces for about 20 mins by the so called fans on the back row that just got worse and worse ,untill a full pint was thrown by the british fans then the poles retaliated, dont blame the poles for this incident

the polish fans were not to blame for the brawl ,the british yobs were throwing beer over the poles for a few races ,yes the poles were noisey but were having harmless fun ,the shamefull british few were just looking for trouble

not the best gp by a long way but still better tv to watch than some puffs kicking a ball round , thought jan was very good cause he gives you mechanical insite to whats happening with the bikes where kelvin talks like he has never rode one and blue gate 2 start girl was definatly pick of the bunch and well done greg