Chris116

Being a railway enthusiast as well as a speedway fan I was aware of the need to change Metro trains but thank you both for your replies. In fact I will only need to change Metro trains on the way home as I intend to arrive early and have time to ride the whole loop via Whitley Bay. From what Dave says I assume a team who have a track with tight bends at their home track would be the ones to expect to provide a close meeting. I let you know what my plans are once I know what they are!

I am thinking of visiting Newcastle speedway this year. I would travel by train from London to Newcastle and then use the Tyne and Wear Metro to Byker. How long a walk is it from Byker Metro station to the track and with a 4pm start what would the latest finishing time be? Many thanks for any help anyone can give me.

Good to see from the website (warriors-speedway.com) that there will be a full summer season of racing at Smallbrook Stadium in 2022.

Five teams!

It would be nice if either the OP or Admin would rename the thread with the correct name of the team!

More like this forum is becoming a farce due to nothing being done about the trolls. BSPL and the admin deserve each other.

Used to enjoy Bank Holiday Monday's with speedway in the morning followed by Stock Cars in the afternoon at Rayleigh and then a dash back by train to see the speedway at Wimbledon in the evening.

You missed out Canterbury, Romford, Walthamstow, Harringay, New Cross, Crayford and West Ham! In all probability I have also missed some! Lea Bridge and Stamford Bridge came to mind before I hit submit!

I barely missed a meeting at Arena Essex in the first eight years it ran and the season I enjoyed the most was when they finished second from bottom as every match was very close score wise although sadly too often the Hammers snatched defeat out of victory. For close matches it is much better to have a team in the lower half of the league.

One rider, Vic Duggen, did not have his initials for a good reason. He just had Vic on his bib.

How can you say a track is in the middle of nowhere when it is a five minute walk from a railway station that has an hourly or better service to and from London?

At least they will finish in the top six in the league!

I did not think it was one or two people who had made the decision to not follow through on what was announced as a five year plan. Whether it is the BSPL or the Championship league who got rid of the idea does not matter. What is certain is that once again speedway has introduced a five year plan and then voted against it within twelve months. If "rising stars" were such a good idea twelve months ago that they were voted in why change their minds without giving the idea a fair trial? How does having riders sitting in the pits and not racing as number eights help them progress?

The plan at the start of last season was to have two rising stars this season. That has been watered down to having a number eight who could never actually get to race. How is not having them race a way of helping "rising stars"? BSPL are saying they want to help rising stars but dropped them from the Championship and halved them in the Premiership and now want to sideline six riders as number eights. What am I missing or have those in charge got it totally wrong, not for the first time.

They would need changes on days two and three. Then on day four a new ten day plan would be announced!

I think this meeting just reinforces my view that Rider Replacement should not be allowed if there is not a number 8 at the track ready to race if required.

While what you say is correct, you are being rather devious as EVERY fixture for ALL tracks is morked "provisional" from the start of September on the Spedeworth fixture list. Stop trying to make things worse on every subject you comment on, it is becoming a bore.

The Connor Coles situation must be very close to being restraint of trade in legal terms. I hope the whole sorry mess can be sorted before a rider takes the BSPL to court as I think it could land up with the BSPL being made to look even worse than they already do.

That is already more than the entire Premiership put together!

I hope I am the not only fan who has noticed that only one promoter has had any input to this thread! I also noted that the promotion concerned left the BSPL after being treated like dirt by the powers that be in the run up to this season. Well done to Barry Bishop and the Warriors promotion for all the hard work they do to put on entertainment that speedway fans can enjoy. From all the reports I have seen the first two meetings have been a success from the point of view of entertainment value and good crowds which is very good news. All I now need them to sort out is South Western Railway and Wightlink so they run the late boat from Ryde and the late train from Portsmouth so I can enjoy the racing and get home to Wimbledon after the meeting. Sadly the local council allowed a football stadium to be built on the Speedway and Stock Car track in Plough Lane that I enjoyed both sports from August 1957 (6th October 1962 in the case of stox) until the last car meeting on 26th March 2017. After what happened at Wimbledon I know one firm I would never buy a flat or house from.

That means you visited the site of the old stadium which has a special place in my heart as it was the first track I ever commentated on Stock Cars.

Probably not but he did go to Crewe and along with all the other Hot Rod drivers regretted goi g as their car were shaken to bits by the ploughed field of a track. Wisbech was a far from smooth concrete surface but nowhere near as rough as Crewe.

Former Speedway rider and multi Hot Rod World Champion, Barry Lee, once described Wisbech as the "ar5e end of the universe" and that was before the stadium was knocked down and a supermarket built on the site.

Great to hear that the first meeting went well. Now I just hope that Wightlink/SWR play ball and reinstate the late evening boat and train services to enable me to enjoy the racing and get home afterwards. Good luck to all involved with the Warriors.

In that case the comments about it being 36 hours before have misled me. As I said 24 hours seems to be reasonable to me.