Bruiser McHuge

100 % true.... But I just cannot recall the Aussie involved..but it did happen Stories of riders touring Newcastle under Lyme near Stoke when should be up in Newcastle upon Tyne...that definitely happened to a young Aussie as well

I don't think I would have asked my mum what a lacerated scrotum was in 2003 !....it was probably around 1978 or so. Well remembered...I said about 1978 or so and now you say it I think it was Rob Maxfield... Rob Maxfield always seem to have a Tax applied for note on his car where the tax disc should have been.....it would seem the postal service was very slow back in the 70's !.....but he did figure in my all time favourite race when he held off Ole Olsen for a 5-1 with Peter Collins at Hyde Road, when Olsen was pretty invincible at Hyde Road....I think the roof on the main stand nearly came off with the noise..

I can remember reading in Speedway Star as a child that a rider had been taken to hospital with a lacerated scrotum....I remember asking my mum what was a lacerated scrotum........I think I am still wincing at the answer even now ! Cannot remember who he rider was......but I remember the injury very well ! ! ,

Yes...it was absolutely lethal stood on the bends at the Shay !....do it for one race...never again !

Blimey, things have changed......in my days the riders had a couple of pints in the bar after the meeting and then it was the chippy or KFC in the van !

When my brother in law rode in the British League I never once asked him how much he earned , but I did know he could negotiate a contract based on x amount per point and this could be reduced if he received a lump sum for a bike or for a van etc...if he provided his own bike or van then the pounds per point would be more....I know if he didn't score he didn't earn but if he scored then he did pretty well to be fair.....but some riders fork out a lot personally on mechanics , tuners and all sorts of things which really eats into what they are earning......he tended to use 1 bike for a whole British season which was all prepared and maintained by himself in my garage.....not many overheads there , but I don't even think riders tended to discuss their contracts with each other really I would imagine the top riders of today are not on the breadline !....despite the state of the sport in the UK..

In reply to Gustix I've been to the Motorplex in Perth but I cannot see a GP there in a million years to be honest.....I'd love one in Perth though but I don't think it will ever happen...Claremont would have been great prepared for an out and out bike night with the best riders in the world, but not the Motorplex

I thought Crump was pretty good...not a fan of David Tapp at all but Crump would be ok if he did some of the European events later on

Ideally that would be good, but I cannot see the West coast of Australia staging a GP since the closure of Claremont which I think would have been a great GP.....I cannot see a suitable speedway venue there for a GP these days or a promoter willing to stump up the funds......maybe the East coast could but I am not as familiar with that side these days

Wasn't he lucky to even be in the Grand Prix challenge as he was eliminated before that wasn't he ?...so if the challenge hadn't been in England he wouldn't have ridden in the meeting anyway ..and then he didn't actually qualify again from the challenge anyway ?....so he must be the luckiest rider ever to have got a Grand Prix spot and 0 pts isn't going to do much for his confidence.. Sadly I don't think things are going to get much better as his better days have gone I think and he isn't really a GP standard rider these days no matter how he prepares himself.

That is harsh...Ward was my pre meeting favourite to win but he looked slow and was a million miles from winning even with that race included...Smolinski was already flying at that stage and went on to be a deserved winner on the night...

It depends if you judge it over a whole decade or just a small period of the decade when a rider had his best spell.. I would judge it on the latter and in that case no British rider in the 80's come close to Michael Lee and Kenny Carter in my opinion...Lee won a world title and longtrack title in the decade so that alone put shine number 1 ...and he had a comeback year at Poole where he could have won a other title....... Carter for me was as fast as anybody I've seen at Hyde Road...I've said before that it's a north south divide as far as Carter is concerned...I saw him reguarly at Hyde Road, Halifax and Sheffield and he was tremendous and between 81 and 83 was possibly the best rider in the world with let alone Britain, and only injuries after that held him back To me no riders come close to Lee and Carter as the top 80's riders

There doesn't seem to be many long lasting rider rivalries any more..all the top riders seem quite matey...maybe riding with each other all the time round Europe has made them too matey The rivalries like Carter v Penhall, then Americans in general....Nielsen v Gundersen etc ..genuine needle..all this seemed to add something to meetings....I like a little needle and genuine rivalry

I don't think there is anything wrong with a birthday shout out..if it's mingled in with good presentation then it's a good way of making fans feel involved, especially kids....I know young kids used to come down and have a slow lap with their favourite rider on his bike sometimes and it made their day and probably kept a fan coming, and therefore a family for a long time I think Bradford under the Hams probably made the best effort on race day...you could argue that Terry Hardaker wasn't the best man to do it but they did decorate the centre green with boards with all the team names on, they had a proper parade with full introductions, they had interviews from the pits after every race..and you could actually here them ! ...I think they even had the riders chose a theme song to play for them after a race win...they did make an effort...but even that couldn't really keep the crowds at a great level, although I think they made a mistake in ditching locally based riders who had an affinity with the crowd for world superstars, Tatum,Nilsen etc who produced the goods but dashed off after a meeting and had no affinity with the crowd who were used to Havelock, Wilson, Thorp, Smith etc ..... I think that that is one of the problems with speedway now...yes promotion and presentation is important but fans like to have an affinity with riders and too many riders now ride somewhere for a season and then somewhere else next season and then nowhere at all....teams change too much and riders aren't loyal to a team anymore and differing points limits and team strengths also hinder that as well.......fans will respond to a settled team I think, but those days seem to have gone

from my experience even if the music was better you wouldn't hear it at a lot of tracks as the PA systems are so poor....maybe things are better now, I don't know. Basically speedway should be marketed as an extreme sport, a Red Bull type thing which are incredibly popular with youngsters today..Forget the family sport image, that will not attract youngsters....promote it as an action filled extreme sport and youngsters are more likely to mither their parents to take them The riders and bikes fit the bill and look the part so that's half the battle..the problem is a half empty stadium with an ageing audience , dreadful PA's and even more dreadful middle aged music ...it's hardly encouragement for a trendy teenager to want to return When Claremont speedway in Australia used to run they often did a TV advert in the week, it was loud and it was action packed and looked good...when you got there there was a much younger crowd than you tended to get over here...music was loud and presentation very good with commentary on the race which was done in a way to enhance the meeting...probably the weather helped but it was a good night out......I think a lot of people go to speedway over here because they have got into the habit of going...nothing wrong with that, but they'll probably always carry on going, it's new blood you need to attract so make it extreme and exciting

Well all the development around Manchester City's ground seems to be proceeding nicely...plenty of building work, the new college over the road progressing nicely and covering a massive area,, the stadium itself has been approved for expansion It seems only the speedway stadium is bogged down !.......I was positive this would happen but the updates from Belle Vue themselves are shocking and with everything seemingly moving then I honestly now doubt this will happen at all...I hope I'm wrong.

this too many meetings argument is a farce...the only people saying there are too many meetings are the elite top few riders because it gets in the way of their well paid meetings in the other leagues....the fact is that there are not too many meetings...back in the day you knew that if it was a certain night then your team had a meeting...these days you never know when a meeting is being held or not which certainly doesn't help from a fans perspective I don't blame any rider for maximising their earnings , they have to do that, but at least be honest and say they race abroad for the money and racing in Britain would get in the way of that and the too many meetings argument is a red herring..

I would have Carter higher than John Louis and Malcolm Simmons, higher than Doncaster, Tatum and Wigg and Jessup and higher than Chris Morton There is the doubt about how long he rode for which is the drawback but I think it depends on where you watched speedway...I saw a lot of Carter at Hyde Road and Halifax and Sheffield and I would say that 81 to 84 he was THE best English rider by a long way and one of the best ever...injuries held him back but he was super fast and the best visiting rider at Hyde Road over 3 or 4 years at the time.......maybe southern based fans didn't see enough of him and have different opinions because I cannot see how he doesn't make any list of top Brits...but like I said the drawback is that he didn't go on longer and win more at world level like he should have done

I agree with you generally but to be honest I have nothing to debate on a forum to be fair...my issues are entirely personal going back to when Easter was Australian team manager...they wouldn't be very interesting for a forum but I certainly wouldn't care to listen to what he has to say about the sport .....anyway I haven't been to a meeting in years so really my opinions don't count for much regarding current day speedway anyway

Good night....I have my reasons but I certainly won't be getting into a debate on a forum about them that's for sure

James Easter....I wouldn't get out of bed to listen or read one word that he has to say about anything...that's all..

I am with you on that...there was something about Rickardsson that stops me thinking about him as fondly as Ole Olsen , Erik Gundersen, Hans Nielsen, Michael Lee plus I would look forward to seeing riders like Kenny Carter , Dennis Sigalos , Malcolm Simmons , Dave Jessup , Scott Autrey to name some a lot more than Rickardsson That is probably an age thing more than anything in that the riders I used to look forward to seeing were ones from when I was at school whereas I was older when Rickardsson was in his real heyday and had stopped going reguarly My first favourite visitor was Ole Olsen .....when I started going to Hyde Road Peter Collins used to win virtually all his races but Olsen was the one rider who would come and give him some.almighty races ..Olsen would normally gate and Collins would chase..sometimes he caught him..sometimes he didn't , but they were great races and definitely the highlight of my early seasons of speedway You had Soldier Boy in amongst the masses next to the tapes and he always shouted for Olsen for some reason and I remember Olsen winning the second half final once and getting off his bike and giving his trophy to Soldier Boy...those were the days As for bums on seats..well I had stopped going to speedway but I did make an effort to drive to Coventry just to see Tomasz Gollob in the flesh riding for Ipswich These days I might be persuaded to go to a live meeting to see Darcy Ward who is head and shoulders above anybody else in terms of spectacle but my only gripe is that from watching on TV is that most races he rides in in the league are too easy and predictable..oh for a tougher Elite League

Mark Loram was on it

Any sport that is worth anything these days has to have some live TV coverage in my opinion...if it doesn't then it falls further and further into the sporting backwaters and even further out of the public eye..speedway needs TV despite what anybody thinks.......it is then up to speedway to get its own house in order to progress again...but it is certainly not TV that is holding speedway back...far from it

This will happen....the Salford stadium took forever to get through it's stages...the FC United stadium dragged on and on but work has now started...things take a long time and although generally I am a cynic I know this will eventually happen