Chris116

Promoters are on a hiding to nothing. The fans want to have a winning team but when White City won the league and every home match by a cricket score the fans stayed away because the racing was boring (having been to most of the meetings I can say it was VERY boring, to the point that I used to keep the score of red and Yellow against Blue and White in the hope that it might be a close score!). Winning the league shut White City. A few years later and Arena Essex opened and as I was at that time living in Basildon and worked for Chick Woodroffe on the Stock Car promotion I asked for a job that meant I could watch the racing and so spent the season controlling entry to the hospitality suite where the riders partners could enjoy the racing from. Every match was close but Hammers lost more than they won and the fans were unhappy with a team that lost. Personally I thought it was great as the racing was close and the tension in the last two or three heats when it was possible for either side to win was just how I like my racing.

I was not looking for a problem, just trying to find out how it was going to work as I could not find any reference to what would happen.

If the matches are not run before the cut off date due to a team being difficult about dates and it turns out that those matches would have altered who was in the top four then the team who caused the delay are guilty of wrecking the end of season for another set of fans. In my book that team should suffer a heavy penalty for such a situation.

I went to Rye House aged two months in 1954 and my parents moved to near Wimbledon in 1957. From then on I went racing most weeks at Wimbledon as well as White City while that was running. After to moving to Basildon I was then was a regular at Arena Essex until I moved to Skegness and saw most of the meetings there. I now live back near Wimbledon and my local team is Rye House. During my lifetime I have seen league racing in London at Wimbledon, New Cross, Wembley, White City, Romford and Hackney with Crayford, Arena Essex and Rye House just outside London. The last two named are the only tracks that are still in existance which means that the capital does not have racing in the capital which never helps a sport. The idea of going back to 13 heat league matches has been mentioned but remembering back to when that was what we had, there used to be a lot of fans who would go home after the league match and were not interested in the second half! It was the fact that many fans did not like second halves that brought in the extended league matches which are now 15 heats. Rye House regularly have six races for juniors on 150cc and 250cc machines in the half hour before the league match and talking to many people they are just not interested in watching those races although I always do and through watching them also went to one of the Junior Championship meetings at Rye House which I enjoyed. The most farcical thing that has happened so far this season is the exchange of Ed Kennett and Krzysztof Kasprzak between Poole and Rye House and that Ed Kennett rode as a guest for Swindon at Rye House a couple of weeks after being sacked by Rye House and proceeded to beat most of the Rye House team! Both riders have had their ups and downs this season but since moving have shown they can do well so maybe their lack of form was down to the two promotions more than being down to the riders! Promoting is a very hard balancing act. Fans want a winning team but having a team that won too easily closed White City! Fans want to see the top riders and do not support National League teams at tracks that also have a Premiership or Championship team. Riders used to have jobs and rode speedway as a sideline but that was when employers were willing for them to do that. Most employers would not let people go off racing speedway when they wanted them at work and would be even less happy when the rider suffered an injury and had to be off work for a time! The new air fences are wonderful things and I fully support all the other improvements in rider safety but I have noticed that riders with all the extra safety gear are far more willing to go for gaps that 40 years ago the top men would have never tried to get through. One of the biggest problems British Speedway has is that riders can make more money in other countries and the leagues in those countries can therefore hold the riders to ransom. Stopping doubling up or down will not solve that problem and until it is solved we in this county are left with what we have. Do I have any quick fix answers? No. Do I still enjoy watching racing? Yes.

i have been having a look through the rules and can find nothing on the subject of the promotion/relegation matches between the top of the Championship and the bottom of the Premiership. If the meetings were held now then Leicester would be the Premiership team involved and on the basis that one of the top two would be expected to win the Championship then either Ipswich or Sheffield would be looking for promotion. My question is that two of Leicester's riders also race for Sheffield and two also race for Ipswich. Were can you find out what the rule is for which team would get to use these riders and surely having them racing for one team and not the other makes a total mockery of the whole idea? We could land up with the situation where a guest rider was the main reason a team went up or down!