keepturningleft

Wonder if the Chris Harris factor could add a few thousand on the gate this year??

I have just finished reading the book..totally riveting from start to finish. As a Halifax, then Bradford fan living in Huddersfield, all the events in the book are very close to home. It's the sort of story you couldn't make up. Congratulations to Tony MacDonald for producing this definitive and absorbing work on this talented but tragically flawed character. What a great film/drama this would make!

Swampy passed away some years ago..he had heart problems but refused to have a by-pass.

There are worse things than Tony Millard. Sam Ermolenko, a legend as a rider and ambassador for speedway, a disaster as a commentator.

Just received the Cardif DVD. Overall it's tremendous value for a fiver, but the fake commentary spoils it completely. It's OK if you are not aware of an 'added on later' commentary, but when you are, and you have the original to compare it with, the whole thing is horribly phoney. If you have the Sky pictures, why not the commentary? I know it's only a fiver, but I do feel cheated and if I'd known, I wouldn't have bought it.

I believe that the World cup teams were racing for the Ove Fundin trophy. A shame then that the great man himself is hardly deemed worthy of a mention anywhere. This weeks Speedway Star fails to mention him, or the trophy that bears his name at all even though he is on the front cover. There was a brief glimpse and mention of him from Nigel Pearson on Sky's coverage, but how interesting it might have been for Sky or Speedway Star to have grabbed a quick interview with him so we could hear his take on the current speedway scene.

How many overtakes were there last night? Immpossible to keep track of them all. I've been watching speedway since 1965 and I don't think I've ever seen a meeting quite like it. A brilliant advert for the sport. The 'race off advantage' controversy would surely be solved by having it on a different track to the final. Well done to all the teams for 3 hours of fantastic entertainment.

....and if I see that bloody car advert with the balloons one more time....!!!

There's another curious connection with Peter Collins, Bomber and F1. When PC was at the peak of his powers in 1976, we also had a high profile British F1 champion in James Hunt.

I think the comparison of Bomber with Peter Collins is valid. I saw PC in his heyday and have plenty of videos of the great man from the 70's, and without doubt there are some striking similarities. No matter where PC was in a race, you always felt he could find a way through and win. Bomber is exactly the same. Exciting times ahead!

The new issue of VSM has failed to reveal the mystery track featured in the previous issue on page 33. Anyway, I reckon it's the Shay, Halifax.

Booey was my first speedway hero at Halifax in the late 60's. It was obvious Eric was a real personality even in the days before todays endless TV interviews. I can't wait to read the book!

sorry I meant TMC...

I’ll lay my cards on the table here, I am a bit of an aficionado on the SP’s and the punk period in general. Amazingly, the SP’s played their last ever gig (not counting the 90’s comeback) 2 minutes away from my front door in Huddersfield on Christmas day 1977, but I couldn’t go because of family commitments!! Some of the music of the period has aged well and some hasn’t. The Clash sound more dated than the SP’s to my ears for example… and did it really rid of us ELP etc?… well we’ve still got dreary pompous stuff like Coldplay, so maybe not! The statement from tigerbrandcoffee is not true, the band played on all their recordings. The only anomaly is that Steve Jones played all the bass guitar parts at the expense of Sid Vicious. TCM, I love the Sex Pistols and Frank Sinatra!! Andy M, I could discuss the cultural phenomenon of this all day but hang on…this is a speedway forum!!

How to alienate sections of your readers in one easy lesson. With Backtrack covering mainly the 70’s and 80’s period, it follows that for many of your readers, myself included, the pop music of that period will have played an important part in our upbringing and background Therefore it was with dismay that I read on page 20 of the latest issue, a highly opinionated condemnation of “the awful God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols”, when in fact this is classic single by one of the most important bands in history. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but please keep prejudicial comments on non-speedway topics out of an otherwise terrific magazine. A minor point this I know, but it’s been bugging me all week! Stick to speedway!!

Totally bewildered by people's reaction to colour. The era covered by VSM may be perceived as a 'black & white period', but the 60's 70's and 80's?? When you think of late Beatles pyschedilea and 70's glam rock and beyond, do you think of black & white? Hardly. Speedway Star started publishing in colour in 1970! There is a point however, about other photos being in colour at the expense of speedway photos. Another great issue..keep the colour coming!

Fantastic meeting! I think Nigel Pearson deserves credit for his mentions and nods to the wider world of speedway and some of the issues eg Swindon. Getting more and more enraged about the Joker. Poland were clearly and consistently the third best team all night. The idea that they could have won because of a single ride by their star man is so outrageously unfair, I can barley find the words...

The body language and his general tone whilst being interviewed has convinced me that TRick has indeed 'switched off', and that this season is mainly a winding down operation to retirement. Duplicating his incredible achievements of last year was always going to be a tall order. Mindful of the terrible injuries that have befallen recent world champions, I don't blame the man for taking it easier. He has been the the most brilliant rider of recent times by miles. Let him finish his amazing career in one piece and give him the credit he deserves.

Fabulous web site, I didn't know it existed. I'm still astonished there is no book about Belle Vue given it's status as arguably the greatest speedway venue ever. How about it Norbold??

I'm sure this will be a magazine from the stable of Howard Jones. Mr Jones had produced some good magazines in the past especially on defunct tracks. Unfortunately, the most recent publications have been of poor technical quality ie: non glossy paper which means poor resolution of printed photographs. I wish Mr Jones well, but I rather think he will now find it difficut to compete with glossy, high quality mags like Backtrack.

I took my log in name from a comment made by Simon Wigg. He was being interviewed by a magazine (can't remember when or for what mag), and was asked something like 'What's the best way to ride speedway?, to which he replied, 'drop the clutch and keep turning left'. I thought that was brilliant and never forgot it!

I would like to see articles on people prominent in the sport who are not neccesarily ex riders. Someone like Dave Lanning from the TV commentating point of view would be an interesting subject, as would high profile promoters from the era. More feature based articles would add variety - the possibilites would be endless. I reckon eventually you must run out of the really big name interviews. In fact, who is there left of the truly big stars from the 70'sand 80's? Gundersen, Olsen, Morans - who else? Not many. Fantastic mag Keep up the good work. PS Minor Nitpick Hackney reunion (clearly of personal interest to the author) gets a whopping four pages, other tracks with equally long histories get substantially less!!

I can't see a re-run of the meeting anywhere on the Sky sports listings. Does anyone know if it will be on somewhere, sometime?

Congratulations Tony R. The greatest speedway RACER of all time!

Fantastic, brilliant entertainment. The GP gets bettter and better!