mikebv

When you get an 'advert' for the Sport like you had on Saturday it must have brought a few extra people to the Stadium or maybe tuned in to watch on BT... They possibly would have thought "I'll give this another go"..... Bet they regret it now... I do sometimes think that if those in charge of the Sport tried to shoot themselves in the foot they would miss... (Just watching heat 8 and the rider in the Brown helmet is leading the rider in the Brown helmet, from the rider in the Brown helmet who is well in front of the man bringing up the rear in the Brown helmet)..

Maybe those new houses have got some taps that work? Rosco should knock on and ask for a bucket or two...

Cannot blame Morris... I would be out of there sharpish first chance too...

A deceptively hot Sun..

They have just took Nick Morris' helmet away.... Presume to fill it with water and put it on the track. ..

Ask Alan where the water is?

From Cardiff on Saturday... To Swindon on Monday... Exactly the same Sport... Sublime to the Ridiculous.... British Speedway...

If the fans and riders feel this is taking the pee out of them... Maybe they could use it on the track?.

Nick Morris.... Fair comments by the way lad... (You need to come in here buddy)

Fair call then given Wright locked up a little... Not as if Morris fell completely by himself a big distance away from second..

That's what I thought.... Or is it refs discretion? The track isn't good is it? You would have thought it would have been completely soaked and a bit 'slippery' for a few races.. Going to be a dust bowl... Have they not got the water?

Wouldn't surprise me if Robert Lambert gets excluded for that...

Sadly I had the same misgivings. .. No point in having a state of the art facility and no one turns up to visit it... When you analyse it, it's quite incredible to be honest just how many 'regular customers' British Speedway has lost in such a very, very short space of time..... Usually a 'shrinking business' will lose a certain 'few' percentage of customers gradually year on year over a period of time before it becomes a threat to its existence. Giving the ailing business time to re-assess it's operating and business plans and re group... Speedway on the other hand seems to lose double digit percentages year on year, and seems to do seldom different to stem the tide (never mind turn it).... My track it is suggested has dropped from 1800 average in the first year it opened to around 1000 average in its third... An incredible (and frightening) drop... Almost half its customer base gone.... The whys and wherefores for this have been covered off at length ad infinitum, so I won't cover old ground.... It is truly staggering though the deluge of unsolicited feedback given by fans (and more importantly possibly ex fans), to those who run the Sport by its plethora of online media, and of course the World's Best Selling Speedway Magazine, the Speedway Star... Staggering too is there appears to always be an abject refusal to listen and act on the feedback given... It is truly a 'Great Sport' (as BT showed over weekend with their various programmes)... Just so sad to see it ran in a way that cannot deliver the crowds the Sport deserves..

The way the bike compressed the top of his head when it hit him I would imagine great care will be taken...

Good bit of publicity for Robert Lambert too...

I've said before, set a £10k max payroll for the home and away matches.. 1000 fans paying £15 will cover it ex vat and leave a couple of Grand to help pay for other costs.. No superstars probably but then again, paying the top riders £3k a night (£6k for the home and away match) means the first 480 fans (including the VAT) pay just for him!! (Madness! And more than £3k a night can be paid out to some riders if various rumours are correct!).. Re the racing quality.. When I got back into the Sport circa 1992 I often went watching a lot of National League racing (Today's Championship). The reason was I found it better racing than the 'Elite League' as there was less disparity between the best riders on show and the least capable.. Conversely, I never missed a '4 Team Tournament' in the EL as every race was contested by the three heat leaders and best second string from each team. Hence the racing was regularly top drawer.. In short. Any level of racing will deliver great Speedway as long as the four riders in the race are of a similar calibre.. Nowadays the name of the rider hardly effects the crowd level therefore it surely must be time to set a maximum payroll spend and develop a format that brings four lads of a reasonably similar talent level to the tapes in each race..? Without breaking the bank....

Spot on... Losing 400 regular fans from 3000 isn't really noticeable... Lose 400 from 1200 and their absence is obvious and stark. Giving an irrefutable barometer of a fading entity... And when any business has that reputation it really is a huge uphill struggle to turn this view around.. Each track has its own 'tipping point' I would suggest whereby the atmosphere drops to a level that then becomes sterile and mundane enough for those still attending to consider "is it is really worth coming again next week"? The vicious circle of low crowds/poor atmosphere, poor atmosphere/even lower crowds, kicks in... And not too many clubs it seems have managed to break this vicious cycle sadly, with it appears almost all currently going through it to varying degrees.. As we know. It doesn't matter how 'awesome' a Speedway meeting is if only 'one man and his dog' show up to watch it...

I actually think the racing is at least as good as I have ever seen in the 49 years I have watched it.. The difference between all the riders on show is a lot less than it used to be in the days of '2 point reserves v World Champions', (particularly given that in every one of those races pre fixed gates, the 'World Champions' invariably chose the best gate positions!).... Machinery too is more of a similar standard than ever with even the 'lesser' riders using the best equipment and tuners. With only maybe those lads who ride in the top division in Poland having 'special kit' they wheel out on Sundays or Saturday nights in FIM events.. The biggest difference between 'then and now' is simply the lack of crowd, which means a lack of atmosphere.. No one will be surprised to see the racing at Cardiff will probably be nowhere near as good as an 'average' meeting at the NSS. How could it be? The NSS is a fantastic race track... However a full night of entertainment, on and off track, in front of 40,000 fans rather than just 1,000, will have everyone on the edge of their seats regardless of the fans' subjective opinion of the racing...... Even the 'worst track', delivering the 'worst racing' can be successful if 5,000 a night are there and the 'event' delivers the overall entertainment level that they want from their 'night out'... To digress a moment Craig Cook has said in this weeks Speedway Star he has invested "well over £100,000" in this season's racing... Yes, you read it correct. That's ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND pounds.....!! And if Craig is doing this, to compete with him (and to keep those machinery standards similar that so assists close racing), many, many others (even non GP riders) must be spending incredible amounts too.... THAT I would suggest is a far, far bigger problem for British Speedway than the current state of some tracks...

I cannot help noticing a certain irony in a Swindon fan mentioning team changes and winning leagues through them.. *cough* Tobiasz Musielak *cough* A fine local lad who came up through the Sprockets I presume?... If Speedway wants to be taken seriously as a team sport then winning has to be the ultimate attainment.. And if you are not doing enough of it, then you either improve the performance of your current personnel or you change them....

Spot on... You simply don't have a real team dynamic anymore in Britain, constantly eroded away over the past 20 years or so... So how the hell does British Speedway expect any new fans to 'buy into it' without that vital emotional attachment you need to develop to make a team 'yours'?... And why therefore, do they still try to 'sell it' to the populace as such?... The Sport over here, and to be fair, elsewhere too, is just a vehicle for lads to earn money individually (the difference is other countries still stick to team sport principles within those parameters which has helped fans stay 'attached').... What should be focused on is the fact that the Sport still has loads going for it to make it a success.... It seemingly just cannot be delivered successfully within a team framework over here.. Therefore, stop doing it and simply sell what is good about it.. ie. The racing itself, the noise, the speed, the smell (ish), the character and personality of the riders, the fact it is unique amongst all other 'town/city centre Sports, and the fact that those who watch invariably cannot do what they are watching the riders do. (Unlike other sports where most fans who watch can demonstrate at least some competence at it).. Make it a full night's entertainment, make the night an 'event', promote and market the riders, create a bit of hype about them individually, create 'feuds' (they don't need to be genuine), advertise a huge prize fund, (even if a little economical with the truth)... Make the riders 'stars', build the sport back up, and maybe over time intergrate in a team dynamic to see if it can be a success again.. The Sport has so much going for it... So surely its now time for the Promoters (who willingly invest so much into it) to concentrate their efforts on what is good about Speedway, dispense with all the ridiculous 'nonsense' that so undermines their genuine commitment and efforts, and start to deliver the kind of success a Sport, that can truly be uniquely breathtaking, should be delivering...

But on the plus side.... If your telly went 'pop', you wouldnt have to buy a new one, you could simply borrow any of your neighbours' TV's every time you wanted to play... (And they might have a better telly than you so you'd actually be better off)... But you could only play every third or fourth week obviously. (Oh! And only on a Monday or a Wednesday)...

A big opportunity this... As the beauty of Speedway of course is that most of the fans there will have attended the very first meeting too...

Bingo!! I am prepared to go to £15 though... And my 15 yr old lad in for free obviously...

I have seen Speedway in America and it was a great night out... From sidecars to kids speedway racing, all the way through to the 'headliners'... I watched Ryan Fisher at aged 11 or 12 (him sadly not me!), blitz much older lads from a handicap of 30m and the crowd were going mental, latching on to one so young beating his peers.. I watched Dan Bewley last year in the Colts and one particular night he blitzed all the other riders and won every race by 30 - 40m. For the first two rides you were (as a seasoned watcher of the Sport) taken aback by how good this kid was.... However, by the third time you had watched him leave the rest for dead it got a little bit tedious and you longed for one of the others to at least give him a race... If someone else who had no appreciation of the Sport was there, they would have watched all his races with complete indifference I would have said.. Putting Dan off 30 or 40m that night though would have had everyone there on the edge of their seats I would suggest as he fought his way through the field... Maybe it is time for a few individual meetings to liven up the Sport?.. Handicap racing? 'Devil take the hindmost'? Speed trap award for fastest MPH at a certain point of the track? Two Riders starting via lights at opposite sides of the track like in velodrome cycle racing eg Bewley and Cook at the NSS would split the fanbase too and maybe have the fans shouting on their favourites creating some atmosphere!? Maybe Sidecars? Kids racing? 8 man races with two starting gates? and off track entertainment too, the usual bouncy castles, face painting, fanzone, photo ops, poster giveaways etc, etc, (basically lots aimed at kids).... Even raffle off tickets for the next 'Team' meeting' and flog some discounted tickets if the crowd is healthy... Run the scratch event maybe nationally with points being earned through the year track to track with a BIG final at the end of the year (with a BIG prize) for those who qualified.. The level of rider on show would stretch from heat leader to junior I would suggest, particularly if the handicap racing is to deliver... In short, the Sport when done really well is a cracking night out, and has all the ingredients for any 'layperson' to find entertaining.... It's current crowds are pitiful... But given the 'raw materials' it has to work with, they really shouldn't be....

That really is the final inevitable end game though Dean... And let's be honest, 'Team Speedway' is now a misnomer in GB (and maybe everywhere?).. It's just an avenue for riders to earn money riding all over Europe and no more than that.. How many times do riders get interviewed on TV and get asked about the score line and they haven't actually got a clue as to what the score is? During interviews that seems to ask more questions about their next individual meeting than the actual meeting they are in that night!!... Cook and Harris say they cannot make ends meet without racing in more than one team over here, and I don't dispute that as these are the lads 'living the dream'... Unfortunately, no matter how you desperately try and ensure none of their teams are effected by clashes, it will be inevitable. So fans will suffer, and the actual credibility of the match they miss will suffer too, which ultimately then means the League itself suffers from a lack of credibilty... (Therefore who cares who wins it?) Surely therefore it would be better for these lads financially to ride five or six times a week individually at different tracks? At least the events the tracks put on will have credibility, no guests, no R/R, on nights that they want to open to bring in the best crowds.. 26 Venues could deliver a lot of Speedway over a season to a lot of riders... The bottom line is a simple one though.. If you cannot run 'Team Speedway' properly then you are better off not running it at all as you can 100% NEVER make it successful.. And you can never run it properly if riders cannot make it pay representing one club like a 'proper' team Sport would allow.... And you can never run it properly with riders having to regularly miss their teams' matches to ride individually elsewhere.. Surely its got to be better for the actual growth and success of the Sport overall (and the riders too), to have the Sport looking professional, running it with credibility, and delivering to the fans what their expectations of a 'proper' Sport is...? Rather than the current cobbled together adhoc operating model, masquerading itself as a bona fide 'Team Sport' concept... An operating model that does absolutely no one (Promoters, Riders, Fans and the actual Sport itself), any good at all... (And never can or will)...