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Why are you not signing the petition, gustix?

Why are you not signing the petition, gustix?

Why won't you be signing the petition, gustix?

"Everyone looks forward to watching him race and speedway is not the same with out him" I can't say I really noticed his absence in the last five GPs. P.S. If everyone's so confident that Darcy will get off because the F.I.M.'s case won't stand up thanks to an off-duty policeman and wrongly calibrated instruments, what's the point of the petition?

I would have put Coventry and Eastbourne at nos. 1 & 2. That's why I mentioned them earlier. Forgot about Sheffield though. There was a meeting at Eastbourne in 1953, The Championship of Sussex, won by Ron Barrett. It was the size of the crowd for this meeting that encouraged Charlie Dugard to revive Eastbourne in 1954. So, does that make 74 seasons? Anyway, thanks so much for all the research and presenting this Arnie. It's been fascinating, interesting and a very worthwhile project.

Can't say I agree with you there. I belong to a number of local history sites on Facebook and have learnt a lot through the sharing of information on there. And there are some brilliant photographs that turn up from time to time. You don't have to get involved with all the dross on there. Be selective and it's excellent.

It's beginning to look as though the 1965 final audience was made up entirely of Forumers!

Sounds good to me, BOBBATH! It is one of my regrets that I never asked Fred Williams about this on the number of occasions I met him in later life. But it never seemed quite appropriate just to go up to him and say, "Did you deliberately prevent Biggs winning the World Championship because he wouldn't bribe you or did you allow Split to win that last race because he did? Just one other point. I do think that in the long run the better rider actually won the 1951 World Championship as he later went on to prove.

If that is the case, why would the F.I.M. prolong the case even further and finish up having to pay even more loss of earnings etc.?

By the way, Gustix, one piece of drivel that appears on all your posts is your signature. Voltaire never said this. That was written in 1906 by Evelyn Beatrice Hall (pseud. S. G. Tallentyre) in the biography "The Friends of Voltaire". She did not attribute the words to Voltaire. They were her own.

Have you actually read this thread, Gustix!?

Rye House: The original track was where the present track is. the second track was where the go-kart track is.

I'm gutted.

Thanks BOBBATH. Always interesting to read others' views on this famous race - possibly the most famous single race in the history of speedway? My friend who was with Biggs at the London Riders' Championship was also at the 1951 Final, though in the crowd, but, as I said, his view has always been it was nerves and he was a Harringay supporter, so he would have had every reason to blame his loss on to Williams and Lawson. Eric Linden, writing later, also blamed Biggs's loss on nerves. He particularly made the point about the long gap between his fourth and fifth rides and commented on the number of people who came up to Biggs in the pits before the race prematurely congratulating him. "Why couldn't they have just left him alone?" he said. He felt this just made him even more nervous. My understanding of the race itself was that Biggs was drawn in gate four, made a bad start for the first time that night and tried to make up for it by blasting round the outside on the first bend but made a hash of it and went too wide, leaving the others to get too far in front for him to make up the ground. The fact that he also came last in the run-off was a further indication that by then his nerves were just shot. By the way my friend mentioned above was at the first meeting at High Beech on February 19th 1928! Sadly he can't remember it as he was only 8 months old at the time!

So can I just get this straight. This off-duty policeman was called in in an unofficial capacity specially to test Darcy Ward because there were suspicions that he had been drinking. Yet somehow this unofficial off-duty policeman had already tested other riders. Was that in an unofficial capacity as well? And if so why was he called on to test them? In addition, the story being put round - and in spite of protestations by Starman to the contrary - disputed by no-one that Darcy Ward was only just over the limit, he now seems to have been acting in such a suspicious manner that he needed to be tested. So more than just a little over the limit then?

Now you come to mention it, that must be exactly what happened. Why haven't we all seen this before? It is the only possible reasonable explanation for the events of that day. Where do I join the Darcy Ward Support Group?

So who do you think he was then? Some oik who just wandered in off the street, took a breath test and then got the FIM to accept his findings even though they had no idea who he was?

I've met your grandfather a few times at the annual Norwich Vets Lunch. He's always very friendly and full of information and anecdotes. Happy Birthday, Fred.

54 Moore; 55 Craven; 59 Moore; 62 Craven

Me too, Gustix.....well, one anyway, 1963.

This is getting exciting now....

One other name to throw into this - Vic Duggan.

I am very sceptical about all this "who said what to whom" stuff re-Jack Biggs, BOBBATH. It has been said that because Biggs didn't ask the other riders in his final race - Williams, Waterman and Lawson - to "cover" him, i.e. let him win, they ganged up on him. Considering that Biggs had had four lightning fast gates that evening and had carried all before him and Lawson and Williams were having poor evenings, Lawson's probably due to a hand injury sustained four days before, even if they had have ganged up on him there didn't seem anything they could have done, especially as he only needed third place. I take the view that he was beset by nerves for that final race. His draw meant that he had a long gap between his fourth and fifth rides, time to sit in the pits and worry about the race. He was, in any case, a very nervous man normally. A friend of mine who was with him in the pits at another big night when again he was in with a chance of winning, this time the London Riders' Championship, said he was a bag of nerves and his hands were shaking so much he was surprised he could even hold his bike upright, let alone ride it! In that fateful heat in the World Championship he was drawn in the outside trap and just completely missed the gate. Nothing to do with ganging up; Biggs lost it on his own. That's my view anyway. But it's always good to have controversies and talking points that never go away. And then of course there was the controversy surrounding the Lionel Van Praag/Eric Langton run-off for the first-ever World Final.......

You've got to hand it to Darcy and the F.I.M though. At least they've given us something to talk about to while away those dark winter days and evenings when there's no speedway.

Probably the nearest of the nearly men to miss out on the World Championship was Cordy Milne, who missed out by four days. He was hot favourite to win the 1939 title on 7 September, but when War was declared on 3 September, all speedway was suspended, so he never got his chance.