moxey63

I was just saying the same thing. When something isn't right, then perhaps it's best reverting back to when it was. I know the crowds aren't there, but 13 heats is just enough to watch a meeting. Take the other night, the BT match that dragged on. Anything over 13 races can become a yawn. When they ditched 13 heats at the end of 1987 the tried 15, then 18 in 1993, then 16 in 1994.... As for businesses losing the customers over the years. That's quite right. But to find that the new Belle Vue attracted some old faces back, only to frighten them away again by the farcical Golden Double and the Play-Offs in which the Aces lost out to Wolverhampton, who snuck in Tai Woffinden just in time to make a mockery of the sport. It needs to be serious. Tell anybody who doesn't know what speedway is about your riders riding for another team in this country and then racing in foreign leagues during the same week, and they'll look at you silly. That is why speedway finds it hard to be taken seriously.

We all have various ideas, and it's hard for promoters to get it right, but I wouldn't go for any of the above. Speedway has been trying to lose the "circus" tag for decades.

What is frustrating, is the slowing down of the turnstile clicks hasn't happened overnight. And yet every winter BSPA congress promises radical action to halt the turnstiles from seizing altogether. But often things become even more frustrating because of their tinkering around the edges - look at fixed racenights. Wow! That's really worked. Are they smoking pot when they have these do's?

The way it was dragging on last night, next Monday's match almost became the second part of a double-header.

Speedway promoters are funny, though. They cancel an evening meeting when England plays a football match earlier in the day but don't believe the crowd will drop when there's a live speedway game on TV at the same time.

That is exactly how I expected fans to be drifting away. It is just refreshing that they are there to be won back... instead of trying to get new ones that have never heard of the blinking thing.

We've all been there. Got tot he stadium with plenty of time, to see the track still having work done to it. The first race sees a faller, and riders ask for an inspection. A quarter of an hour later the referee nods the meeting will resume once grading has taken place. Tick follows tock, another lap watching the tractor, and then we're off to go. Still not right, the riders seem edgy once racing resumes. Longer intervals between heats as the tractor is worked. You start to yawn and glance at your watch. Over an hour gone and we've seen three races. Eventually, Heat 12, and as the curfew nears, an announcement that the match must end here and now, the result is allowed to stand. Speedway fans put up with it... but for so long. It's bad enough being on the terraces, but when the event is going out live on Tv to potential new supporters. Yes, Swindon should be punished.

Wish I had gone for one now.

The way it's going, the Swindon fans who couldn't go tonight because of the change of race nights will still be able to catch the end of the fixture on Thursday.

Just seven heats in 100 minutes. At this rate, the announcer will be plugging what's on offer in the track shop with Christmas in mind.

Told a neighbour about speedway this afternoon, he said he'd watch it tonight. Just knocked on... told me never to speak to him again. Seriously... this is the best of British speedway. Say no more.

If Belle Vue's lost half its crowd since its opening, surely there's still sufficient time (as it's happened recently) to find out why. Is it cost, racenight? It's best finding out. You'd at least get some kind of pattern.

Interesting that you think racing is as good as you've seen. This, despite what is a complete lack of star names, thus meaning riders of equal ability? It is worrying that Cook had to spend £100,000, money that speedway in this country cannot afford. The fascination with points limits is to allow more equal teams. So, if only for domestic racing, how about equalling things out even further by setting an amount riders can spend on engine tuning?

People are being called boring for suggesting reasons why the sport is on its arse, from the same people who feel the sport needs to spruce itself up and attrcat new fans while dissing the thousands who have already left because the sport itself had shat on them one way or another. We are where we are because the masses have voted. When the people who have witnessed the leak are still here to tell their account, and they are dimissed because speedway needs a new sort of fan, then we are living with the same people who think Brexit will be ok if we just believe in it.

Speedway's hook is the spectacle. But after a few heats that gets boring. Many newcomers may never return. They must be grabbed on that first occasion and shown that it isn't just motorcycle racing, but a sport in which equally important is being able to follow the scoring method. Racing and the scoring system then become equally as important.

Good post, agree fully. I used to go to Sheffield and Ellesmere Port in the 1980s as well as Belle Vue, doing three matches in successive days most weeks. I was still a fan of the Aces but couldn't get enough of speedway back then. Used to go to Halifax often too. I was at Wolves in 1993 when the league was won too, and at Coventry in the 2005 Play-Offs, although slightly before then my belief in "team" speedway was beginning to ebb.

This is what I mean.. how can you forge a link with a team when this happens, just today? LEICESTER CHANGES - OUT Kenneth Bjerre, Krystian Pieszczek, Todd Kurtz, James Sarjeant. IN Scott Nicholls, Josh Auty, Stuart Robson, Connor Mountain.

Many moons ago Individual meetings were held at every track, sometimes three a season at some. But crowds began dropping for these and therefore the promoters ditched them. Team racing was the main pull back then, but that's diminished now as many fans feel riders are just individual riders squeezed into whichever team can fit them. They are merely agency workers now and I think they're getting the best deal from the current position we're in. The excuse that there aren't enough riders to stop doubling up or down is bull. I think promoters just got lazy and was ready made riders now instead of scouring the continent for new faces.

How long have you been watching?

Just thinking, though... I hate being told that I'm not doing something right. I go all uppity and still carry on how I was doing it and don't listen to advice. An ideal candidate for running a speedway club?

To stop the decline we must take some radical steps. If it means spooning the cream from the top and relying on mainly bread and butter riders for our dish, then it's got to be done. Possibly by allowing riders to ride for other foreign teams has brought us to where we are. We need a fixture list free from any other distractions - Grand Prix and other leagues. We need a league big enough to give what riders decide to accept the new rules enough meetings to make a decent addition to outside employment. British speedway should not be looked upon as providing any rider with a living income. It is not Formula One. It needs to act now to reintroduce a fan's attraction to follow a team of riders who they can grow to rely on and those men can concentrate fully on fulfilling what that fan hands over his cash at the turnstiles for. The lure of following a team of seven riders - the same seven riders - is, as a fan, what makes you wanna leave the house on matchday for.

As a fan of some years, it wasn't always about how good the racing was or if my team won. There are so many things about speedway you can like. For example, I personally noticed less interest when the Golden Double was introduced compared to the old tac sub, which allowed more team switches from heat four onwards, as long as the arrears was sufficient. Tthe Golden Double killed it and, once used, the match points mainly always ended up with the other side. Tac subs kept matches alive and interesting to fans on the terraces. In addition to the green helmet (ah ah), I'd go back to the future and re-introduce this. It's not all about the racing but the chance of being a terrace team manager and trying to fathom who'd be brought in as the tac for the next race.

... still no word from the BSPA?

Play-Offs have done more damage to the sport in this country than they have helped it. Just my thinking, but for the benefit of a couple of bumper paynights for the semi-finalists and finalists, what damage has it done to the season, a season containing merely qualifying matches where teams practice, duck and swerve, just to attain their best line-ups in time for a top-four place... which is half of the league in the top flight.

That's the way it's gone. In the 70s and 80s riders used to have to ride the track as much as the bike. The racing may not have been that much different, but what you were watching back then had a sense that the riders were actually working their guts off for every point, a sense of unpredictability that the track would either cause a mistake or the rider would begin to tire. Back then, when a rider bagged a decent score, you knew he'd earnt it. Nowadays, it seems they just rev on a smooth track, and not even the suits get dirty.