PHILIPRISING

ONE change you will see in 2014 ... actual racing will start at four minutes past the hour rather than the 12 that has been the norm. Pre-meeting parade will start 10 minutes before the hour. Being done to try and ensure that broadcasters can include the whole of the presentation ceremony even if the meeting drags on for a few minutes longer than normal.

WHY assume that? There is a FIM Conference this weekend, more talks, and hopefully a resolution. All the GP riders have booked their flights, etc, to NZ. My own view (and it is nothing more than that) is that even if the FIM still rule that GP riders cannot also compete in the SEC, the riders will start the SGP series and contest it in some form or another before the SEC actually commences. Hard to see how the FIM can impose this restriction having allowed riders to do both in 2013. They are trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted but, as stated before, this is as much about an internal power struggle in Geneva as anything else.

BELIEVE there might be an FIM statement next week... unless it is leaked before then of course!

BV will happen too... would be great to have two new Elite League stadiums in 2015

SPOKE to Terry today at Alf Weedon's funeral ... should be in new stadium next year. Work on the site has commenced.

WHICH track will have its new stadium first... Belle Vue or Swindon?

IT was the larger speedway nations (Denmark, Poland and Sweden) who provided the support for Jos Vaessen, Gunter Sorber and Ole Olsen to get the GP concept through at the FIM. In fact, it was only Britain who held out even though at the time they only had a realistic prospect of a World Final once every five years at most. Not sure it is up to BSI to revolutionise the sport ... only the World Championship and they have (in my opinion) done just that. Also don't agree that they haven't improved the financial position for GP riders ... maybe not all but certainly some (and Nicki Pedersen is currently a prime example) enjoy lucrative sponsorship on the back of 12 televised GPs. Plenty of others in the same boat. Slightly going off on a tangent, but spoke to James Easter of TravelPlus at Alf Weedon's funeral this morning, and he told me they already have as many bookings for 2014 as the whole of 2012. More than 150 booked for Finland.

SEE above ...

THERE was a time when league matches at Wembley attracted 80,000 plus. I think I am right in saying that the Wembley Supporters' Club had over 80,000 members in the immediate post-war years. Those were the days! Was the product any better? I have no idea (actually not quite THAT old) but they were very different times. So few things for people to do and spend their money on compared with today. Speedway stadiums then were probably as good as those staging soccer. Not so today. In a full week of Elite League racing now what would the total attendance be. 15,000? 20,000 max? Throw in another 15,000 for PL. About par for a Cardiff crowd. Speedway still had regular and quite extensive newspaper coverage until around the mid-eighties. Ironically it fared better when national newspapers had far less pages devoted to sport than they do today. When I covered it for the Daily Express they would hold back an edition to get in a report of a test match or the British Final when it was held at Coventry on a Wednesday evening. When Wembley was staging World Finals there was an estimated half a million allegedly watching speedway, the second most popular summer sport after greyhounds remember. That may or may not (probably the latter) have been true but the percentage of regular punters going to the country's biggest speedway event was much lower than it is now.

THINK you are assuming that interest in the sport automatically equates to going to league matches. It doesn't. Many of my friends are avid GP watchers, often view league matches, but wild horses wouldn't drag them to a league match ... for all sorts of reasons. So, do they have any value for speedway is this country? Perhaps not, but they help swell the Sky viewing figures which in turn translates to much need TV money coming into the sport. What happens to it after that is another matter of course. SPEEDWAY in this country just doesn't show up on the radar of the written media these days, although BSI proved a point with the coverage they helped manufacture for Tai Woffinden after his World Championship victory. The lack of British success, and more so at team rather than individual levels, is just one factor in why the British media shun speedway. But, to be honest, they are not mad keen on motorsports in general (outside of F1) and particularly motorcycle events. It doesn't sell newspapers, pure and simple. It is not a reflection of the product, rather the attitude of Sports Editors who cannot see much further than the mainstream sports like soccer, rugby and cricket.

FROM memory the official attendance at the LA Colisuem was around 39,000 but there were some hand-outs. Even so, it was a terrific effort given that it finally took place at the same time as the Raiders (NFL) moved into the Coliseum and all the coverage on the sports pages in LA was about them. The promoters (Barry Briggs, Ivan Mauger, Jack Milne and Harro Oxley) staged a spectacular media bash there after practice ... the fully Hollywood monty! Beautifully laid out tables, waiters, the lot. The amount of coverage provided the following day ... almost zilch. Even with Bruce Penhall in attendance and Hollywood bound it was tough to get the media outside Orange County (Costa Mesa) interested. I was in Las Vegas a few days later and read a preview of the World Final which had already taken place. As the person given the task of handling the media coverage it was very frustrating.

YOU obviously weren't there! WHERE are you talking about?

THANKS ... Andrew did a fabulous job. He has family connections (coming from Scunthorpe himself) but nonetheless it was a terrific effort, journalism of the highest order. But no doubt The Pedaler thinks we nicked it from a press release!

AND, as it happens, the last attendance at Odsal for a World Final was in fact less than 20,000. Wembley World Final attendances were invariably put at 100,000 because that was the stadium's alleged capacity and it sounded good but few if any actually achieved that level and the one in 1981 was way below that. Different era, of course, and as BWitcher so rightly points out the number of people regularly attending speedway in the UK 30 years ago was significantly higher than today. Without the GPs and Cardiff what major World Championship event do people think would take place in Britain now? Even if there was a one-off World Final the likelihood of it being staged here in anything more than every five or six years would be minimal.

YOU'VE obviously never been to a GP at the Millennium

SO you are saying that those riders who boycott the UK do so because of the GPs? Nothing to do with the money on offer in Poland and, to a lesser extent, Sweden and elsewhere. Not that many riders simply do not wish to commute to the UK to race when there is plenty of alternative employment. Riders like Bjerre, Iversen, Ward, Woffinden, and Zagar prove that if the mind is willing the GPs do not stand in the way of the top riders racing here. Don't accept that the annual crowd at Cardiff is on a downward spiral and, frankly, the attendance is quite impressive given that it is probably about the same figure, if not higher, than the number of people who attend speedway in the UK on a regular basis.

YOU obviously have your own agenda here but we don't actually use press releases. Naturally, stories that appear in the local press are likely to be included in SS, or indeed the other way round. I wonder how often you actually read SS? Go through last week's edition and tell me how much you could have read in that form anywhere else?

THE second Sky meeting is not until mid-April so obviously they are not involved

DON'T think you will ever get a definitive answer to that. Revenue for the FIM from all disciplines goes into their coffers and is then used and distributed by the various commissions, etc. Their administrative costs must be huge, of course, but they would also argue that they fund, in part of wholly, various competitions including a number of junior ones that, they will argue, benefits the sport as a whole. And they supply officials for all FIM events - the Jury President, Race Director, GP Secretary at GPs for example - which must cost a pretty penny at the end of the day. TWK: we have had this debate several times and I respect your opinion. We are never going to agree and neither of us is likely to change our respective minds.

YOU keep forgetting the million plus a year that goes to the FIM... that may not be enough in your view but I think it only fair that you don't just disregard what is paid to the organisation that actually owns the World Championship. Yes I do support BSI's involvement. I think they have raised the bar considerably, shown how speedway events can and should be promoted and do actually put quite a lot back by showcasing speedway at the highest level.

NICOLA Sands at BSI says she will enquire and get back to me asap

THE paid attendance figures published from Cardiff are supplied by the stadium... not sure that BSI would have an accurate breakdown of UK v foreign attendees. Would doubtless know how many pre-season went overseas but probably not those who pay on the day. My own experience with Bob is that he would argue most points!

PERHAPS they would have fallen even more but for the Cardiff meeting each year?

DO you honestly think that the British GP at Cardiff is not good for speedway here ... even if BSI make a profit out of it, which given the amount their invest in and indeed risk the event is surely their right.

WOULDN'T entirely agree Andy ... for sure Bill is not short of a few bob and he desperately wanted to see a Speedway GP at his beloved Western Springs. He made it happen and despite the financial losses he has gleaned great satisfaction from having the event there. BSI presented him with a fully functional speedway bike, bedecked in Buckley System regalia, and believe me he gets great pleasure spinning around WS on it. In fact, we have trouble getting him off the track. Somethings are priceless even for the multi-millionaires of this world.