Chris116

Hackney had some very old buses which ran before and after meetings for many years. They were very reliable for many years but then they became unreliable and my parents started walking to and from Leyton Central Line station and a few years later the buses stopped altogether.

I was brought up living near Wimbledon Stadium and my family went to the Speedway and Stock Cars. We would also travel to other Speedway tracks like Hackney, Romford, Rye House, West Ham, Crayford and Rayleigh. All of this was by train and bus. For the Stock Cars we went to West Ham, Harringay, Walthamstow, Crayford, White City, Rye House, Rayleigh and Aldershot. In later years, once I had a car, I also went to Arena Essex, Skegness, Swaffham, Kings Lynn, Ipswich, Yarmouth, Coventry, Brafield, Crawley and others for either one or both sports. Once all the London tracks had closed I went regularly to Rye House for the Speedway and when that closed would pay Poole and Smallbrook visits two or three times a season for my Speedway fix and Aldershot for the Stox. Then COVID came and the last trains back to London are an hour earlier which means both Speedway tracks have to involve an overnight stay so I haven't seen a Speedway meeting for five years but still can get to the Sunday afternoon meetings for Stox at Aldershot. I wish I had means of seeing Speedway but I no longer have a car and until the railway restores the later trains all I have are great memories of Ronnie Moore, Peter Craven, Andrew Silver and Steve Schofield to name just four out of a cast of hundreds.

I will show my age but Ronnie Moore had superb control of his bike and watching him from 30 yards during the year when the league was run with handicap racing was just amazing.

There is a very simple way to stop riders just giving up at the back. Make the scoring 4,3,2,1 for those who finish the race and 0 for those who don't finish for whatever reason.

Best wishes to all involved in Mildenhall Speedway. I see the SCB is trying to scare riders into not racing anywhere that the SCB/BSPL does not control the racing with their latest missive.

My parents used to take me to Rayleigh and we would enjoy both the Speedway and Stock Cars before rushing back to the station to travel back to Wimbledon for the evening meeting at Plough Lane. The last few years saw the Stock Cars replaced by PRI Bangers and Mini Rods or Anglia Rods, personally Stock Cars and Mini Rods would have been our favourite but the Stock Cars had been replaced by the PRI Bangers by the time the Mini Rods started. Being a Stock Car, Speedway and Railway enthusiast I thought it was a great day and always looked forward to our Rayleigh visits.

The others were already bald!

He was just as bad when he was at Rye House. Half the fans went bald pulling their hair out at his mismanagement.

Didn't someone get in trouble recently for using that system?

You would pay a lot more to see Mickey Mouse at Disneyland so don't complain too much.

A very good stream which I enjoyed greatly. Sadly it was the first speedway I have seen this season due to South West Railway no longer running a train to London after the meetings at Poole since they altered their timetable during COVID.

I read a lot of comments about the problems with TV meetings being drawn out and attracting smaller crowds. I have to question if the TV money makes up for the smaller crowds and if TV has brought any new spectators who now visit their local track regularly. With most meetings being covered by BSN, TNT or local track streams there must be a danger that tracks will close because of TV rather than TV increasing crowds. I don't have an answer to the problem but I can see all to clearly that the sport has a problem (well, quite a few actually). I just wish I had an answer to the problem or even better that the BSPL had an answer and could stick to any five year plan to sort out the situation.

But there is no Polish interest so they don't know who should be made the winner.

Only when a Polish team is concerned.

Wimbledon!

During the winter 2023/2024 the IOW Warriors promotion put a constant drip feed of information on their website but since 3rd November 2024 there has been a total silence on the website which I find rather worrying for the forthcoming season of racing at Smallbrook Stadium. I do hope some news will be posted soon to put my worries to rest.

Having read your predictions about various other riders I will take your above comment with a very large pinch of salt and obtain the views of others whose predictions are more reliable.

I can remember an Arena Essex meeting where rain was expected about 70 minutes after start time. Frank Ebdon was the referee and the two minute warning horn sounded as soon as the last rider finished the previous race throughout the whole meeting. As a result the meeting finished before the very heavy rain started under five minutes later! Frank always got through meetings quickly and I have always wished other referees would do the same.

Firstly, my very best wishes to Tai who I hope makes a full recovery. Secondly, where on earth are the mods to stop the bickering on this and a number of other threads?

Oxford would do better to take Schroeck away and lose him. He was a disaster at Rye House and hasn't got any better since then.

I used to be involved in the promotion of one of the stock car organisations and used to get onto both local BBC and commercial radio stations on a fairly regular basis. I also know that at least two other local promotions were also successful in getting on the local radio stations. Providing you didn't just make it a free advert and gave them a story about local drivers with reference to recent results, then even the BBC stations would accept mention of forthcoming meetings where the drivers you had mentioned would be in action again. Speedway would be a lot easier with the team format at most meetings meaning you are automatically talking about something local even if the riders come from the four corners of the world. It does however mean you have to cultivate interest from one of the presenters and give them information on a regular basis. The promotion I worked for had two tracks in the same area so I only ever mentioned one track on the local BBC station and the other track on the local commercial station, that way both stations were happy to interview me every two or three weeks during the season.

All the speedway tracks that I have gone to regularly have run midweek and once SWR reinstate the letter trains from Poole and Portsmouth then I will be going to both Poole and Smallbrook again.

I am with you, if it isn't on Freeview then I don't watch it.

I fully agree that both Arena and Ipswich use(d) a separate inner track for speedway and therefore the dangers of the car fence were not as much a problem as at tracks where the two sports use the same track. The real point I was making was that the new Mildenhall fence is a typical modern stock car fence. I wonder if a wooden fence the height of the posts with a foam or air fence in front would be a solution but as has been said already the track looks as though it could be rather narrow by the time all of that has been put in front of the stock car fence. I would be surprised if the track for the cars has been narrowed as has never been a track with that much room for manoeuvre.

The fence is a pretty standard modern stock car fence. The posts will have two or three wires (think pit head machinery lifting gear) on them to make the fence high enough to stop cars joining the spectators. Aldershot, Ipswich and until closure Arena Essex all have similar fences. Not ideal for speedway but vital for car racing safety.