weatherwatcher

Long Eaton track closed after it wasw sold for re-devlopment for housing, but it never happened and the area where the stadium stood is now just a piece of waste ground. The Long Eaton team stopped racing for a few years and they have tried a number of times to get the old stadium back up and running to no avail. But they have started racing again in the MDL and they have Leicester Lions to thank who let them race at the Lions track. Far to many teams are losing thier tracks when being sold for hosing etc. Long Eaton have been lucky that someone lets them track share, I know the same happened to Weymouth twice when they lost thier track and have not raced for a few years now but they are looking to bounce back. Far to easy for the owners of the land to make a few quick bob selling the land, no thought goes into the teams who lose thier track and then have to close. It is times like this that the BPSA should step in and help those teams, with the possibility of herlping them to find another track to race on, instead of just sitting back and watching more teams being lost.

What ever means that there is to see any sort of publisity that could help to promote speedway should be taken. Even if it costs the BPSA a few quid to let young Beckham ride at a slid and skid day, what have they got to lose if all the major nespapers are there to cover it and the TV. Don't miss out on a chance to let the public at large see that there is still speedway going on in the UK, because I personally feel that there is many people out there that don't even know that what once was a major attraction to many people is now only attended by a few die hard fans that get fewer by the year. So yes give the lad a shot at it, get the press there and put it in evet paper and all the TV screens, so folks can see that we are alive and kicking, just about. It is no use going down the long road we are going down now, that in around 10 years time there will be no one left to go and see speedway any longer. I can remember every meeting at Long Eaton speedway when there was poster splashed all across the stadium telling you about the next meeting and all around the town. How many clubs now have even used a poster to let people know about a meeting. It was only 3 years ago when trawling the internet that I found that speedway was again running at Leicester, how many people are there who don't do that. We are now nothing but a minor sport that has lost its way. The BPSA has failed to find a new sponser this year, they can not stand to lose the money they have lost from Sky now not sponsering our sport. So yes put the lad on a bike and show folks that we have not died and lets hope that we can once again get British speedway as it once was the top of the tree in the sport. Because the way we are going now speedway is dyeing on its feet. The glory days have gone and now we are the bottom of the pile. We can see this as we are losing teams every year because they can't make it pay any longer. It is time for some radical changes to be made to save speedway in this country.

What a sad day for the Brummies, I know I have not got the sort of money that has been asked to get the Brummies up and alive for next season, but £100.000 issmall fry to any large busness's. With Birmingham beinng the size it is and there being so many large companies that trade out of the City, I would have thought that a few of them could have easily come up with that sort of cash, and then use it for free advertising and sponsership. What a sad old world we live in. Just hope that someone steps forward and offers a lifeline. To get the Brummies back and racing next season, but it looks very bleak at the moment. Sorry to say.

Glad to hear he has turned up safe and sound. Must be horrible to be at the other end and waiting to hear from someone. My daughter just to go AWOL quite a lot and it is a very nerve wraking time, waiting at home for them to show up. His family must have had a very bad time just sitting and waiting for either the Police to call or for Chris to ring or show up somewhere safe and sound. Great News.

The BPSA have not got the brains to ask the Bekhams lad along to try out a bike. What a chance this is for speedway and one not to be sneezed at. You would have every nespaper and tv station there, to show off little bekhams riding skills on a speedway bike. Then when he makes it as a FTR the same would happen again. Just hope that they are not to slow on the uptake to get some free advertising for this countries dying on its feet speedway.

It would be a good idea to have at least 2 supporters to go from each club to put in thier points of view and also to be able to veto some of the stuppid ideas that they always seem to come up with each year. The imput of those supporters would make on big difference to the way speedway is run in this country. Though I am sure the powers that be that sit on the BPSA board of idiots would some make sure that they where all show out of the room even before the meeting started. They only changes they want, is the changes they make, no matter how damaging it is to our beloved sport.

At some meetings they spend far to much time mucking about. They might as well get out a spade and plant a row of potatoes, because that is about the time they spend there. The 2 min rule should be that get them to the tape in plenty of time to do what they want at the start position, if they aren't ready then they are left behind.

It was good to see in the final at Poole tonight, that speedway is alive a kicking, it was a pleasure to watch the 2 young Polish rider show just how 2 riders team riding can win a race. This is something that needs to be learnt by lots of other young riders. It makes the meetings so much more enjoyable.

I must say that you don't get to see to many meetings in a year when riders actually race together as a pair. Far to much blast off from the tapes and stay out in front not even bothering to know where your other rider is.

The days of team riding seem to be something that has been lost. We see very few riders now who seem to even know how to ride a race as speedway was ment to be and that is a team sport. All they do now as you say is blast off to the front, and never once glance back to see where thier team mate is. If they only learnt how to ride together then I am sure that teams would score far more points than they do, but now all it is, is a matter of who wins the glory of crossing the line first, never mind that they could have made ity a 1/2 if only they rode together. I don't think it is even something that they bother to even paractice now, So it also partly on the blame of the team managers and promoters to get them to ride together and work for the team as a whole insted of the personal glory of winning and getting a higher points total to your name. If they would only bring this back we would see far better race meetings than the strung out racing that we have all got used to these last few years, some of they skill has been lost by the riders.

A good, down to earth post, with lots of good true thoughts there. I have enjoyed watching the FTR, but as you say it does need some looking into for next season. Some of the riders in there have got to move up to full team honours because they are just to good to stay in the FTR scheme. It has got to be sorted out to be much fairer. Promoter wise they still have a long way to come to work with the fans. I have been trying all season to get a simple job done at our track, I will not say what it is but have had words with the promoter and his other co ownere and all it has done is fall on deaf ears and lots of forgoten promises. It is not that it would cost a fortune what we are asking for or for that matter not a great cost, but if it was done it would make a few fans lives so much easier. Some of the stadiums are also in great need of a bit of a spring clean even a coat of paint and a general spruce up around the stadium would go a long way to say that they think it is somewhere that the fans would not mind going to, instead of an image of a 1960's dog track. I just hpoe that this years AGM goes a long way at sorting out quite a few problems in the sport. A major sponser to replace the money lost from Sky would I think be a big issue to sort out. Far to many bad injuries this year leading to lots of guest riders, no one knows from one week to the next who is riding for thier team. I think now the bikes are just to fast and have no control, other than giving them full throttle all round the 4 laps. Fast dick follow the leader race, and when we have a crash the outcome can be very bad. As we have seen this year, with brain injuries and very badley broken bones. It has always happened in the sport, but it just seems to be happening far to often now for my liking. Lets hope that 2015 bring us a good years speedway that we can all enjoy.

Alcohol is a banned substance on the FIA banned substance list, not sure of the amount that is allowed but it is very low,far lower than the drink driving level. So he knew he was in the wrong. It would have made more sense to have withdrawn from the meeting than turning up and make himself look what he is.

The point is if he gets away without a ban. Which he desrves at least a straight 12 months. Then will Monster and his other major sponsers want anything to do with him. It is not a very good advert for your product, having a rider that is an out an out idiot as one of your top flight of riders. The longer he is out of speedway, which I think he has lost some of the gloss that he used to have, he just seemed to be losing it that last few month before he was suspended, people will soon forget him. Shame because he is a rider that has a great deal of talent that he is just letting go to waste.

From what I saw of the track it looked to be quite dry enough to race on. Niel Midlewich put his mouth into the wrong gear again when he gave the interview. When he said " The track is racable but not rideable. Think it would have made a lot of sense the other way around. This was done to give Maijic time to let his arm heel a bit. All the teams have been up against it just another one of Poole's pulling one over yet again.

Has anyone any idea what brought this about. For all 3 riders to have been given a 12 month suspension. It must have been fairly drastic to have given them this punishment. And what was the ref's part in this and how did he get away without being punished.

I know riders are riding above thier limits these days and they have been some drefull accidents this year. To claim that if a rider pulls out of a meeting because of dangerous riders is well above mark, no rider wants to spend weeks in hospital with someone riding like an idiot. I think the main problem lies with the bikes as much as the riders, they are now like riding with a jet engine in the bike, they have no control with the bikes it is now hust full throtle, from the drop of the tapes to the finish of the race but that is the way the engines these days are ment to be riden. You only have to see when a rider is going down the straight and the bike just rears up, it is only a very skilled rider that can stop himself from getting very badly hurt. There have been several young riders this year that have been out of speedway for quite a while with badly broken legs and brain injuries. Until they do something to calm the bikes down so that the rider has more control back into the speedway bike we are going to see more and more accidents. It will be a sad day for speedway when we see a could of these young lads getting killed. Don't make the bikes faster slow them down so that we can get back to some competative racing.

The season has now come to a close and Poole have ended up the winners of the Elite League, I am not a Poole fan, so I am not doing out of love of the team but they finished top of the league and won. This years play off's have become completely meaningless as the mojority of teams are missing to many riders and they are now being made up of guest riders to take thier places in the teams. This season has been a long hard road for them and I really think that they could do better to just forget them and let the riders have a well deserved break. So far we only have 1 team that has a full team line up, I hope it stays that way too, as there have been far to many bad accidents this year.

There is no way on this earth that makes humanly possible that he can walk away from this with no ban. If he does then there have been an awful lot of very heavy and strong strings pulled by someone. Maybe it should read ropes. Give him enough and one day he is going to hang himself, with all the stuppid things he does. He needs to settle down and really listen to someone, but I bet he has had that many people telling him that he now closes his ears to it and just carries on being the stupid moron he is. A big shame because he has so much talent and he is letting it go to waste.

A bit of hard luck they must have breathalised him if they smelt drink on him, don't think the FIA would have been that daft. If all he gets for this is the time he has spent during his suppention then he has gotton off very lightly indeed. He should have thought about the money hew would be losing and the chances of next years GP's when he did what he did before the GP. It is also what happens now the the sponsers that back him. Will they want his name to back thier products, if I was them I would be thinking very hard about that one.

Just found it, was a coment he made on Twitter, I think it was just one of his many thoughts on what to do next. Someone had also stated that there may be 4 Aussie's in the GP's next year and he replied it will be more like 3, so he may already have idea's up his sleeve to what he is going to do next year. Darcy Ward #4⃣3⃣ @D_Dublu_racing · Sep 17 RV2 in mxgp next year ?? Mmm possible. I agree with that if they don't make an issue of this it makes the whole thing of riders turning up at meetings after drinking a farse. If Darcy can get away with it then so can we. Not that top riders with any sense would even think of drinking before a meeting. But something has to be done to show he can't get away with acting like an out and out prat all the time.

I may be wrong but I am sure I saw a website a couple of weeks ago that stated that Darcy was thinking of riding Moto-X next year. Can't find it anywhere now, but if he is banned by the FIA, has he should be and for at least a period of 12 months, then I am sure that the ban would be the same in any form of motor sport. It would be wrong for them to just let things go after he has been suspended for a few months and then come back as if nothing happened. They have got to make a stand here or it makes the rules of the sport a mockery. He was actually show standing with one of the Moto-X teams that said he may ride for them next year. From what I saw of him the last few months he was riding he seemed to be very disalosined with the sport of speedway, it just didn't seem that his heart was in it as strong as it once was. .

I just hope that after all the work going on behind the scenes, that if the Brummies do make it back and rac e in any form of league speedway in 2015, that the people of Birmingham and not just the die hard fans come to support the team. I would hate to think that after so much effort that they same thing happened again a few years down the line, due to a lack of support from the second largest capitol in the country. If they can't make at least 3 to 4 thousand people at the mettings then there is something sadly wrong with people in the city and surrounding region. With a bit of advertising when it gets going again, I just hope they can fill up the stadium.

The issue of riders drinking proir to a meeting is easily solved as all clubs could afford to breath teast all the riders, but the issue with drugs is another matter, I don't think any club would be able to afford to do a drugs test on all the riders to make things fair. I even think it would be above the BPSA or the FIA to be able to fork out the cost to do this. It goes on in a lot of sports, so where do we draw the line. Maybe the sports council with goverment bacling to help with this problem, but the cost to excessive, we will never get rid of the cheats in sport when so much money can be made at the top.

I have seen North ride on several occasions now and I think he is perhaps one of the most dangerous riders on the track at this moment. He came to Leicester as a guest and he took out 2 riders in different races and it was very simular to the Barker crashes. He pushed young Max Clegg into the fence causing him to have nowhere to go but into the fence, it was a nasty incident and he struggled to ride after that. This form of riding should be nipped in the bud now and stopped, with the rider in question being taken out of the meeting. North has no regard for his fellow riders, the sport doe's not need idiots like this, plus he has a very arragant attitude to go with it.

It seems to me that anything that the BPSA does except for sitting drinking tea or a odd glass or to of scotch is to much trouble for them to do. How can they just sit back and watch these Australian riders loose any chance of racing over here in 2015. They are some of the most dedicated riders in all the British leagues and they don't give a damm about them. So all we will end up with are a bunch of EU riders and out of that bunch over half of them couldn't give two hoots if they put in an effort as long as they get thier air fares paid and they get the money off of the promoters. That is until they decide that after a few weeks here when thier own leagues abroad start, that they can't be bothered to ride over here any more, or if they stay, they give more prioity to thier overseas clubs than they do for racing over here. The BPSA needs to get it's act in gear and FAST. if we are to see riders that really care about our sport and who wish to really race over here. It is well nigh time that we had people who sit on the BPSA who really care about doing something to help the sport of speedway in this country pull it's self out from the doldrums.