moxey63

The racing, the sport, it is still great... a brilliant spectacle. But every good game must also have rules that are credible. It only takes a certain amount of time for most to fathom that speedway can be very strange - cheering on one rider one night, when he's up against you the next week. A double-point gimmick that very rarely swings a match and only sheds light on a mere novelty thing that a serious sport doesn't need. When the likes of TigerOwl begin questioning the lure of speedway to them, someone who must have spent many a midnight hour researching his love of the sport, we may as well get our coats. Isn't every match nowadays just two teams resembling a Testimonial meeting?

Agree with everything you say. Football can afford (least at top level) money filtering out of it. Speedway is akin to non-league football. I recall a Chris Manchester interview, almost 20 years back now, in which he said he left British speedway with a debt to what amounts to the current average wage in the UK (£26,000). He spent more than he had earned and got out of the game before it went higher. Somebody must have pocketed that money...

Never really interested me , the machinery side of the sport. It has a maximum team limit but doesn't seem to matter what sort of cash is spent on machinery by riders who cannot afford it. I know I am probably wrong, but Is money spent on machinery tuning etc doing nothing other than going out of the sport when it could and should be staying in it? In a way, is it much like privatising a public utility so that shareholders make the bucks and not the taxpayer, when the sport really should be aiming at keeping maintenance cost and tuning costs to a minimum? Maybe... maybe not.

I sort of agree and don't agree with the way Chapman handed the Aussies their notice. If they are using the UK merely for Visa purposes, then in a round about way British speedway has shown that it has the clout to call the tune. Why has it waited so long? Fixtures and the days track can race are heavily dictated by foreign fixtures. Teams are often reliant on guest because of this, aren't they? I could be wrong. Holder, especially, seems the type who thinks speedway owes him a living. Remember that motorcross accident he had a few years back, when he was injured. He showed not much remorse that it cost Poole his services ("I've got a life outside speedway," sort of comment). A lot of them really must feel the sport is there for their enjoyment. Surely the amount of fixtures British clubs put on nowadays is restricted by riders' foreign jaunts.... and then what about injuries? Off the top of my head, how many riders have missed matches over here, costing their lives and careers even, because of matches in other leagues? It all adds up, making Britain look the weak joint... and keeps other countries booming. I bet, just a rough figure, teams over here have lost about 20% off their diary through foreign leagues and the like since the mid-90s. Time to clamp down....

I have to admit, I love speedway for its strange happenings. Sort of makes you want to cuddle it! Someone should write a book about them all.

Was there a bright spark idea in the 80s, when, to help add spice up the flagging KO Cup... one season the best losing side (on aggregate) was allowed back in... immediately meeting the side that previously knocked them out?

Not really. Shedding light on what's wrong with speedway, a sport I got in to watch for free and yet still stopped going, pay BT and still don't watch. I still listen to pop music, more so from years passed, not the drivel of today. I still have a view on music, as I do on speedway. And you call me a lunatic for echoing exactly what you are saying. I am genuinely confused now! But at least you retain an interest and stay to watch the juniors, along with the remaining 5%. So you are interested in 13 heats and, more so, juniors? Even more confused... I need a bit of cold water on my face. Speak soon.

Wow! Least you read my post. Thing is, I pay for BT Sport, which speedway is on, and I still don't watch it. So... er... that defeats your point. One-nil to moxey!

I wonder what it is about speedway fans that they think they know everything. There are some that even take their own stop watch device I bet to prove the timekeeper is wrong. Remember, we only have our opinions... even those from a raving lunatic... but we have one thing in common: We all think we're right.

And the two extra heats from 13 to 15 has clearly been beneficial to attendances. It isn't all about value for money... it's about returning to a formula that served the sport in its finest hour. If you love the sport that much, two races less won't keep you away. And anyhow, what sense in the current 15 heats when you have an interval after a third of the match and then another long pause before the nominated heat (excuse me if I'm wrong, it's ages since I watched a live match!). You feel like you're getting extra value, but it's just keeping you away from home for another 30-45 minutes. Two extra races = 2 minutes.

Bonus points, me lord, were actually included in team scores for the 1995 KO Cup... and it lasted for only that year (for some reason!). Speedway is all about tinkering with the rules, when most fans want it simple. There's the so-many-points-for-a-bigger-win, the now defunct aggregate bonus points, green helmet cover, six-lap nominated heats.... and they have all long since gone. Find the best rules the sport has had and stick with them... and bring back 13 heats for god's sake! But we'll be having this discussion in a year's time, 10 years' time... I sift through old mags even now and they are talking about what would be best for the sport. Meanwhile, those who want the change usually end up getting frustrated by it not coming, they eventually fall out with it.

Sorry, it was a below the belt whack... Please forgive me.

I know. For example, I personally can't understand why a fan of one club jumps for joy when the number one from the opposing club isn't riding that night, as it gives his team (he feels) a better chance of winning. What is the point of that? I would rather see a full side against my team, even if it means getting a pelting. Win at all costs? Not for me.

Should stop comparing speedway with football... at least professional football. It is more akin to the Sunday afternoon stuff, on the local playing fields, teams often uncertain of what players will or won't turn up. It is a brilliant spectacle... but its rules are wild west.

Great recollections of the Simmo story. In a way, I can understand that and why he did it. But I have a feeling that these scenarios are more common nowadays. Right from the off since the Play-offs were introduced I personally feel that teams play about with scoring because there's plenty of movement room before the biggies - the Play-offs - take place. They can take three or four months slow dancing before the disco starts. You can be bottom of the lot in the end of May and still be crowned P/O Champs at the final whistle. Riders naturally saved their best machines for WC meetings back then. But now they are saving them for whichever they see as their best domestic pay cheque (which then only comes after any WC meeting they race). I know it's rose-coloured glasses, but even 20 years ago I as a fan felt the rider in my team was doing it for my team. I know there was scripted races... but I didn't get the feeling that every race I watched may have been one. The Play-Offs, the double-points, doubling up and down, riding across the globe in other leagues, they have all tainted the sport. It is sort of disingenuous now. In some cases I feel they - riders and promoters - are in it together just to be able to earn a living and pay their bills. A speedway rider now is more like a comedian who plays at holiday resorts a few nights at a time. I have come across fans saying they'll watch any speedway... it is better than nothing. And to some, its credibility is not important - they like it anyway it is given, whoever rides for their team or other sides - and they get their fix at filling in score sheets, get out of the house once a week. In fact, so deluded, they can't understand why everyone else doesn't like it. Maybe, just maybe, it's a dwindling sport because of its credibility, which will have a big say when we try to attract new ones to take their places in the ensuing years

Just wait till they get Teletext!

So who pays the airfares now? A rider can dash off to Sweden and back for one match.

I'm too fast for my own good sometimes.... that's what the missus says anyway!

Would it be easier to accept, if guests for top men came from outside of the UK? We talk about squad systems, but surely there could be a way for men who don't ride in the UK to put in a rare appearance. It wouldn't seem so bizarre to outsiders I bet, having, say, Pedersen coming in for Doyle? They'd be no conflict of interests, and replacements for missing middle-order riders could be promoted from lower down the club, even club juniors. Said it as a pee take.. as I know it's been done and, I bet you, when it was done... peed people off enough that they eventually became ex-fans.

Don't let the public know he's being replaced by a junior... until they've paid their dosh and have taken their seats.

I think I prefer speedway the lower down the leagues it is. Athletics and cycling are primarily individual sports, I think, and I immediately embraced speedway because it was a team sport with individual events added to supplement it at the time. Forty years have passed and it now seems, to me, speedway is an individual sport trying to get away with wearing team clothing. Domestic speedway in 1975 was very much like what you describe from your Buxton experience yesterday. Riders did their best in the knowledge that they didn't have another meeting for even another week, and they had to score all the points they could... and not go half-rev in the luxury that their next pay cheque was perhaps later that day... even in another league, another country. When you see a rider struggling for a point on his home track for your side, it does raise the question in your mind as to whether he's saving himself for something he classes as more important, another meeting for another league club. That shouldn't be in your mind. I am cynical, I know. A bad meeting for your rider in the old days usually meant he had motor troubles or loss of confidence.

You certainly can't. You can't have Cardiff every week. The important things are what keeps fans entertained weekly from March through October. And we haven't got that.

I was talking about this 10 years ago. Everyone back then discredited me... but the free-for-all has worsened since and will soil speedway further in the years ahead if it isn't curtailed. It only takes that moment to hit home, where someone is riding for a team and against them shortly after. Why are they allowing this to happen?

Yes, I have sort of known this for some time... So, why do we believe in something that is quite corrupt? Why do we stand there and support something that may be scripted - not always, but enough to have you question about a rider passing another? Was it a good overtake or did the leading rider slow up? Why support a great spectacle that is damaged by its rules?

Of course some riders purposely reduce their figures. But in doing so they are also reducing their incomes, are they not. But then that could be better than not getting a team spot somewhere the next season. It's a funny situation. I'd also guess some riders do the jobs that clubs want them to do, sometimes too well, get a decent average, only for it to be too high for majority of clubs to fit them in the following season. I remember Gordon Kennett's average at Wolves in 1994 ended his career after he started the season with heatleader scores. Didn't Paul Smith's end because of the same situation when he pushed his figure into the sevens?