weatherwatcher

Not all the riders have the means to ride abroad. They cost of air fares and moving bikes around for riders is a no go to most of them. The Visa rules for the Australian and U.S.A riders needs to be relaxed a bit. They have been riding over here for years causing no big issues and all they come over here to do is race speedway, when they season ends they go home and then have to stuggle to get back again the following year by stuppid red tape. A big issue that has agin reared it's head again this year is overseas riders coming over here riding for a few weeks or picking and chosing when they ride for thier club. If they do this then they should be sent back to where they come from and then refussed to ever come back and ride over here. They just treat British speedway as a way to fill in until thier overseas leagues start or ride when thier overseas clubs tell them when they can race, not on we can do without them as all they do is cust cause lots of problems to the promoters. I would rather see a team of dedicated riders that do thier all for thier teams than, these top class riders that treat us as a joke. Keep the fast track riders scheme, but with major rule changes, there are several riders that are well above the class of the other riders and they should be given a chance in the main body of the teams. That is if the promoters have got enough faith in them to give them a full team slot, but something needs to change there. It would be nice to see a British rider from the PL riding at No.6 and a genuine young rider, who has riden nothing but NL at No.7 Also when a restart is called, then they go straight back to the start line, non of this going back to the pits to change tyres or bike settings and have a chat and a cup of coffee, it went really well lastnight at Coventry, and was really good to see as the meeting flowed so much better. So much more to say but don't think I have the space on here. Lets hope that at this years AGM they get it right, also I hope that they have been working instead of shirking to find a new sposer as it has been ridiculess, that the BPSA have not found a new one in year after Sky pulled out, they can't afford to lose money like that, but if they do get one it needs to be spent much wiser than the way they scandered the money from Sky.

I hope that we see the Brummies rise again like the Pheonix in 2015. It would be a sad if we lost them from the sport. Good luck and I hope that it comes to fruit.

I thought that was the whole idea of what they had set with with Phil Morris and crew. But we here nothing about what is being done.

One thing I can not for the life of me understand is the fact that the EL lost it's major sponser this year in Sky Sports. So all the money they where plowing into the sport for the past 10 years was suddenly lost. All the sport has from them now is the meetings they show on Sky. What was done about it, and the BPSA knew ages before it happened, nothing, they have not even bothered this year to get any other lage company to step in as sponser. Why??? The sport must be doing really well, I don't think if they can run the whole of this season without a major sponser. What do the BPSA actually do. Just sit around have a glass or two and talk a load of bull if you ask me. We never here anything about what they are up to until the AGM every year. You would think that they would be more forthcoming. We have heard very little about the training of our young riders. Or anything at all do do with the running of the sport. It is a bit like one of those gentlemans clubs, where anything that is said is kept behind locked doors. I think they should be more open and issue a monthly bulietin. To let all the fans know what they actually do all year..

It is time they started to look seriously at the prices they charge to attend meetings on a regular basis. I am disabled and have to pick and chose when I go afford to go and what meeting I want to see,, with my grandson. You get 2 hours or mores speedway with all the hold ups. For £16/ £17. I was looking at Darley Moors road racing site last week. Not top flight road racing but aim at amatuer or semi profetional bike racers. Practice starts at 10.30, racing starts at 11.30 and goes on until 6pm all for the grand total of £12 children under 16 free and free car parking. It makes the cost of going to a speedway meeting look very silly indeed. The powers that be need to look at lots of changes in the sport, because they way they are going about it now, it will be dead and buried in the next 6 or 7 years if it carries on that long. The cost need looking at not just for the fand but the riders cost to try and keep up with the top riders. They seriously need to look at the rules that they have made and really sit down and think things through properly at this years AGM. But I think it will be just the same old rubbish they trawl out year after year, and hope that we the paying public carry on coming. If there are no supporters then there will be noe speedway, unless the promoters want to sit in an empty stadium week in week out to watch thier teams compete and dream of the old golden days.

Fpr point one. I don't think the BPSA has any vision at all. All they are doing is bummble along from year to year. Point two as for the Visa's for the riders from australia, they have been riding for British clubs bow for a number of years and I can't say that once that they have had any problems from them imigration wise, the season ends and they all go back to Aus. Come the new season and they have the same idiot, Victorian rules and regulatkions thrown at then, but that said in Victorian times they would have had no problems getting into the British Isles as they where Comonwealth citizens. It is time the powers that be sat at looked at the issue and realized that they come here year in year out to do a job and then go home. Can't really see them all doing a bunk down to Newquay to be sufing instructoers after thier visa's have run out.

The big difference between speedway now and speedway in the 50's, 60's and early 70's was that riders then saw speedway as a cheap hobby and they partacted in a sport they loved. Any money the earned from the sport was a bonus to them a bit like the Grasstrack riders do nowadays. Speedway as become a money earner for the top riders and to expect clubs over here to fork out for thier air fairs is just no on. If they want to ride over here they pay thier wack and get the same money as the rest of the riders. None of these silly fortunes they expect the promoters to pay for the privalage of having them ride for thier team. It is only the few well off clubs that can even think of paying wages out top 3 or 4 of these riders per team. Lets get back to how the sport used to be then just maybe less teams will be strugling to stay afloat. If they had to have a North South split and just use British, Australian and American riders, then so be it. Even if it did dilute the sport for a couple of years. After that time I am sure we would then see a far better standard of young British riders coming along. Because now they are not even getting a chance other than in the FTR scheme or riding in the PL and then getting no further. Very few young British lads are getting a place in the EL, so unless things change the Team GB, will soon be running very short of riders that could compete at major level speedway. There are some very good young riders out there now, if they where used in the main places of the EL team they could come along much faster, but what is it that is stopping the promoters from bringing them in to the teams. Not sure if I know the anser to that one. Other than the fact that a few teams are there only to win the league at the end of the season and then win the play offs, never mind the cost. So until there is a level playing field and all the teams follow suit, with no breaking the rules, then things are not likely to change.

I can't for the life of me see that if this is going to be the British National stadium and not just Belle Vues stadium. You would think that all the teams be the EL, PL or Nl level teams would wish to put some money into this great new stadium. Because they will all be using it in one form or another over the coming years. It seems silly that Belle Vue have to find all the money in one form or another be it in grants sponsers etc. If I was a speedway promoter I would be jumping at the chance to help to build thisnew venture for our sport.

If the stadium ever gets off the ground. Then if it is as said going to be the national stadium it should be along the same lines as Cardiff. Full all round seating with a retractable roof. No if's no buts. You can't ask for anything less. When you look at the Polish Stadiums it makes ours look terribly Micky Mouse. So if they are going to build it then get it right first time around. Lets put British Speedway into a new era. Lets do away with these old outdated dog track type stadium and build something to draw the fans in.

First thing to do is get rid of the double points. as said above it is not fair if a team has managed by fair means to get 10 points in front only to see that taken away and then to lose the meeting due to double points and tacticle rides. Let the scores be just what it should be the points actually scored. Not points by some stupid rules just to make the meetings look good when they where shown on Sky. They are old news now so lets get shut of it once and for all. The amount of speedway shown on Sky this year has been terrible, we used to get a meeting every week now you are lucky if it is once every 2 weeks. Lets alter the rules this year at the AGM not that they will. There are to many big promoters out there that need these stupid scoring rules to be able to get to the play offs at the end of the year.

Quite a simple one that if the away team fail to agree to a date within the 28 day period then the home team get the points. No problem. I am sure that within the 28 day period that the 2 teams can surely manage to find a free day in that time to re stage the meeting.

Yes it has been far to long, since we could hold our heads up high. We just have not done enough for our own young riders, these last 10 to 15 years. Being content to bring in second rate riders at reserve. And riders in the main teams, that couldn't even bother if they won or not as long as they got a pay day and all expenses paid. While our own young riders just had to sit back and suffer and could do very little about it.

This week alone has seen 2 riders from Eorope, who have failed to ride for thier British Elite League team being given the old heave ho by thier team. Not sure how many have done the same thing this season alone. I may be wrong but I think it started with the 2 riders at my team Leicester that just never came back and stated that they where not riding over here any longer. There have been quite a few cases like this I think. It is time that the rules where altered and the riders that have signed for a team stay until the season is over, unless of course they have turned out to be utter useless. Not only is it bad for the sport, it is also bad for the promoters who have to find replacement riders to cover a meeting and also long term for the team at very short notice. If this carries on, then I think the argument of not having overseas riders is slowly coming to a head. The only ones who seem to stay the cause of the season are the Aussie lads. So think they could well be kept in the offering but we would then be looking to keep the rest of the team an all British affair.

By rights. He should maiss the rest of this season and all of next season. That would be a fitting punishment. It seems that the way they traet him that he is to Big a name to lose from major speedway. If I was his sponsers I would would now be having more than just second thoughts. Even being attached to him and having your firms advertising on him is nothing but bad publicity. Monster Enery, can't just be sitting back doing nothing about this surely. He has made some very bad press this last few days, and the big companies that sponser him must be curling up and dieing. If I was the Chairman of any one of those companies I would withdraw my sponsership Now. He is not Bigger that the sport, yes a big loss, but speedway will continue without him. A couple of years down the line all he would be remember by would be the stupid way that he acted. A spoilt, childish, brat that went off the rails to many times, that had the world at his feet as far as the world of becoming the top rider. Maybe he did just have 2 drinks. What was failed to be mentioned it was 2 pint glasses of Vodka.

To let him carry on racing now is just a farce. He should have been banned from racing until the hearing was heard. It makes a mockery of the sport if a rider can break the rules, he drank on was breatalised before the meeting he could have become a danger to himself or other riders, that we will never know the outcome of thank goodness. But to let him carry on racing now just shows how stupid the rules in the sport are. He should now be sitting on the sidelines until they make a decision. He should get at least a 12 month ban. He is a total idiot, I just hope that they don't go easy on him he has gotton away with being a total knobhead and he shows no regard for the sport. Until he grows up and start to show that he can start to act as a grown up we are better without him. He is a great rider that should go a long way in the sport, but if he carries on as he is now, his chances of ever becoming world champion are very slight. Because by the time he is 24 he will be finished. I don't think he really has his heart in riding this year. Shame he should have gone to the top of the pile, if only he started to show a bit of regard to all the other riders his promoters and his sponsers, but most of all to his fans. Darcy sit down and take a look at yourself, because you are going to need all the help you can get, from the right people to pull you out of this mess.

If we had a big league with North South slit with no GP riders people would still come. I see no future for what we are doing now. As stated above, let the big boys race over here but make it worth watching. A a test series of all the top countries and then lets hope that the British lads would then at last be able to start and come to the fore front of world racing. The winner of the N/S split retains the fact that they have won the league. You can still have a knock out compatition for the top 4 teams of each league with the winners of each split then racing in a final showdown. But it still doe's not distact from the fact that they who ever team it was won the top place in thier league not how it is now, where the winner of the play offs win the top place in the EL, stupid idea to me when the winner of the EL races against say the 4th placed team and lose on the day so get nothing for finishing top in the EL in the first palce. Lets get some sense into the whole set up of British speedway so that we can see it surviving for many years to come as it is now we will be lucky to see out another 10 years if that long. The way things are being run.

From what was said by the Sky team last night. Kelvin Tatum and Nigel Pearson. They way they spoke it sounded that Darcy will be exluded from racing until the end of the season. Maybe they know a bit more than we do. Even so if he gets off with a ban to the end of this season he has gotton off with this last little fiasco very lightly indead. Even with the fine I would have thought he would have been banned for far longer. It is now time for him to sit down take a good hard look at himself. Get some help for someone that is going to be of use to him Crump seems an abvious choice. And get his life on track, sorry for the pun. Not to sure if he really has his heart into riding speedway at the moment. He seems to me that he has lost his way, not to sure if he wants to carry ion. He has not looked happy with what he is doing for the past 3 or 4 months now. Maybe it will do him good to get a ban. He may just come back that bit stronger. That is if his sponsers still want to be associated with him. This could have been just one time to many.

It just proves what a total idiot Darcy is. He should get a ban, for this. Noone should be allowed to compete in any form of fast and dangerous motor sport, when under the influence of drink, even from the night before the meeting if you druck to much to be sober for the meeting. Not only are you putting your own life through injury or even death you are also doing the same to your fellow riders if you are not 100% on the ball. This could turn out rally bad for Darcy and if things really came to its worst. This could be the end of his career. He has got some major sponser that are using thier name, on his bike and kelvars. Plus other advertising. If the said sponsers, then say enough is enough, this could be the end of him competing in any more top world speedway events. Because without the big names behind him he could not afford to race. I have thought for the last 2 or 3 months, that something is just not quite right with Darcy's attitude towards the sport. At times he looks like a little boy lost. I just wonder if it is just to much for him to be able to control. Also the major teams may wonder if they will want to have him on thier books when he is pulling stunts this this, as this is not the first time he has made headlines only to get away with it. Sorry but he just has to realise that he is not the only rider out there and that he should start to think about slowing down and stop being a spoilt young brat. Because he his trowing away big time a huge potential in the sport. I have never liked him and this last issue has made me see that he needs to pull up his socks and start to act more like a grown up and to take his sport more seriously.

This is something I said that would happen at the start of the season after the FTR scheme was announced at the end of the AGM last year. And behold it came to be. Suprise suprise.

Saw him race at Weymouth in the late 70's. Always made a point of going to watch them when I was down there when they raced at the old Radipole Lake stadiumm. Shame when they stopped racing have been in touch with them but can't get an answer from them saying if they ever plan to get back racing.

I can't see how it could make the slightest difference if the EL was to lower it's prices by £2. There is no hard fast rule that says that the PL have to do the same. If they are stuggling to make ends meet and can't see of any way to drop thier prices than leave them where they are. I am sure that the fans would still keep turning up and not decide that because the EL price is now only £15, we will stop going to see our team race but go and follow an EL club. Stupid idea. I also can't stand all this chopping and changing that you now get within the teams. At Leicester we have lost the services of Simon Stead for the last 3 meeting because he had to ride for His PL club Sheffield and we would have also lost Josh Bates as well if he had been fit. Can't see why the PL club get the priority over the EL club. I think we all want to see a team that is the same 7 riders for every meeting bar any rider being injured. You don't know who the hell is riding for your club until the team is announced.

Sounds like tsunami is have a bit of a tropicle storm. Just face the facts watching 4 riders going around the track, that are like an episode of Majic Roundabout, is just not very exiting. Most of the GP's are like this now. We see the odd good race but even most of the other race are won from the tapes, with the other 3 following along, Like they are stuck in a set of cones on the M1 on a Friday night. No thanks I would rather see some good tight competative racing.

No its not here we go again it is the plain truth. I people can't see it then that has what has gone really wrong with the sport and the fans. They just can't face up to the facts.

When waqs it that things started to change. I think it was the late 70's or or early 80's. Up until then. It was mainly a part time amatuer sport. Where riders rode for the love of the sport. with a rider sitting in his shed at the bottom of the garden tinkering with his back when he got home from a hard days work. Then strapping it on the back of his old van or car and setting off for a meeting. Then along came the drop down engines and a new era amerged. With bikes becoming much faster and some of the big names using some of the top engine tuners to get thier bikes in top order. Along came the GP'S and the big stars started to emerge, with it along came some big sponsers and they found out that they could call the shots with the promoters for racing at thier club. I think some of them ride now not so much out a love of the sport, don't get it wrong they still enjoy it but the love love has gone. It is now a matter of how much money can be earned, with some riding for 4 or 5 different clubs around the world. Gone are the days of one man and his bike it is now one man and his 6 or 7 bikes scattered at different work shops around the world. With team of machanics to get them ready for racing at any given time. With the top engine tuners preparing thier engines. Until we get some sense back into the sport and aleter the engines and make them so they could only be prepared by the firms that make them and to a single specification. Then do we get back to days of close racing instead of what we have now. Speedway in this country doe's not have to relay on the big worlds top riders. What it doe's relay on is some good riders that will give us entertainment.

When did the riders start to get so greedy. I think it was some time in the late 70's early 80's when big changes happened in the sport. The new drop down bikes came along and what used to be a part time mainly amatuer sport, sudenly became a big money earing potential for the top riders. With these riders getting huge sums of money from big sponsers. What was a bloke tinkering with his bike in a shed down the garden after he came home from work, then carting it off strapped to the back of his car, turnrd out to be riders with 6 or 7 bikes and a team of machanics and top engine tuners working on his bikes. Gone then where the days that the riders rode because they loved the sport, but rode to make as much money as they could get from promoters and sponsers. Those days will never come back and I think that thier real love have racing has been lost. Don't get me wrong some of the riders do still love the sport, but is it the thought of getting to the top of the tree rather than the l9ove of the sport that drives them on.