moxey63

Speedway fans, me included, do seem to take pride in knowing everything about the sport and deflect anybody else's views. By the way, who won the race jacket... my bid of £130 was beaten. In a way I'm glad I didn't win, as no-one can verify it.

The brand speedway needs keeping silent until the time when rules etc are seriously looked at. Perhaps leave ideas of making it appeal to a wider audience on the back burner, and let's try to make rules and reg, race formats and riders' whereabouts the main priority to solve. Speedway as a racing spectacle is fine, much of the time, but you always feels the rules, regs and much of the sport's make-up are still flaky after all these years of trying. When,as a fan for what was then 30 plus years couldn't answer a question about a specific rules at one match,I knew it was either me being lazy or that the sport was making rules to sell rulebooks.

What got me hooked, was actually being shown how to fill in a programme. Even 18 years on, still don't understand why SKY don't show riders' scores. It is just as important as the racing itself.

Fans' views differ. What some like others don't. I mean, how many speedway fans actually discovered the sport by accident, not on tv but by a friend etc taking them along? My way to entice new fans would be a video akin to The Thrill & Spills that JSD Video used to compile. But we all know that speedway isn't like that in real life. Going to a real match is like living on a normal street, not one where everything happens in half an hour, like one of the soaps. Only now and again does the ultimate speedway experience come along. Much of the time is just waiting for that time.

Remember when, pre-1999 and the live TV deal with SKY, how we expected a rush of new fans through the turnstiles at each track. It was the stage the sport had deserved and had yearned for. At first it really did seem as if the sport could boom again. Even the best selling daily newspaper carried that Martin Dugard-Stefan Andersson incident. But it never quite came off. I believe over the ensuing years fans lost the novelty value of attending a match when SKY roared into town to film their team. Whereas it was a chance to see yourself on tv, that ship had sailed. Now, the match live on tv, it was opportunity to save money and stay away. Some, once they had missed even one match, didn't feel as guilty the next time, some even got out of the habit of attending every week. Once you miss something once, it is easier the next time. Then there was the arrival of the internet and the ability to watch matches from outside the UK from the comfort of your home. To actually be prepared to pay your money and stand on the terraces for two hours, just for a quarter of an hour's of league racing, you have to be keen. The razzle-dazzle of Cardiff it certainly ain't. So how do you market a product that in reality may not maintain every newcomer's interest once they are in the venue. I recently read how someone had watched speedway for the first time at Cardiff for the GP, went along to a league match soon after, and was disappointed that it wasn't the same. Whereas we once thought live speedway was a lottery win for the sport and fans alike, now I am not so sure. The freely available live streaming also reduces the need to actually go to a match. Too much of anything lessens the craving for as much. With hindsight, from being overjoyed at live speedway on TV, I now prefer highlighted packages. I used to watch everything from start to end, Keith Huewin and his studio guests, the padding that often helped fill up four hours of the 20-odd heat GP. But I watched it all... But life has changed now. Technology has allowed us all to do other things, the mobiles phones, the tablets. There is always something else to do. That is why, and it's only my opinion, I think live speedway is doing the sport no good. Even keep it off the screens for a couple of years, domestic speedway even, at least on a weekly basis, and try to regain the days when it was an event just to say that speedway's on tonight. Less is more. With so many sports channels now though, I can't see it. But watching from home isn't the same, we all know that, and perhaps those, like me, who get out of the habit may be persuaded back, if it goes off screen. There is nothing like live speedway at the track. But recent years have shown me that I don't think I could stand there, for upto two hours, countless restarts, needless gaps, I don't think I could do it anymore. Therefore, perhaps have a link to the pits from a camera or two that allows fans to watch between heats from their mobile phones. For me, the days when I'd sit there and wait for the next race are over. All I want, if I may add, is the racing,not the studio telling us what we've just seen. My argument is all over the place, I know, but I believe the 20-minute slot on World of Sport did more good than the regularly drawn-out and overrunning show SKY gives us. Get an edited package ready... but it'll be no good what-so-ever, if newcomers experience something totally different on their first, perhaps last, visits. Would football retain fans' interest, for example, if there was a 90-minute interval between each half?

We disagree, but everyone has their opinions. Just that I dropped into this thread because its title, what needed to be done to save 2017. Wasn't just me being negative... I take your points on board though. It depends on how you look at the sport as to whether it has a life or not. But let's just enjoy the next six weeks... we may be dead come next March and won't have to worry. And that's where I came in...

Exactly Mockingjay... speedway's future plans are for the next six weeks. What happens next... well, hopefully people who don't die in the winter will just turn up again next March. The sport is safe. I know fans and sports target big events. For example, British speedway's national title, one that we expect to claim some pride, it was that much of a "big" event - even Tai stayed at home to watch it. Least he's back now, so we're safe for six weeks.

How can Tai giving us his presence for six weeks offer any added publicity to those who don't already know of his return - because we are speedway fans. I only found out by accident on Facebook. It wasn't splashed on SKY Sports, not a lot in the press or on the radio. It'll give British speedway another short-lived bit of interest and a lot of wonderment of many that it still allows itself such short term planning. We were always told that having a world champion would get all the media interested again. It didn't happen with Havelock, and I don't think it has with Tai's double. Wolverhampton, I believe, say it's been done at the business end of the season, which in itself makes the other part that fans have been shelling out for just talk, chatter, practice. Therefore have fans cottoned on to this and that's why crowds are thin. If the folk that run the sport treat matches pre-Play-offs like this, are the Play-Offs based on crowd turn-out a success or are they fans that would be there but feel the qualifying matches are just foreplay. The pre-season Speedway Star debate and the excellent special they produce on team forecasts is totally irrelevant a month in to the season. The bigger kidders in the glory stakes know precisely the right time to ditch one rider with another who will give them the lift, the brief impact of being there at the death, the glory seekers, the extra fans who had in the preceding few months had picked-and-chose their fixtures as the others didn't really mean that much. But they'll be there for the Play-Offs. The Pay-Offs produce high crowds, but why doesn't the sport try to place itself to get those people there throughout the year. It proves they exist. The Woffinden return is the same, opportunity to get someone in who will win you something and also get a few fans in for a few meetings. Short-term speedway again... and the reason why the sport, 90 years on, is run in out-dated stadiums where "offices" are porta-cabins. Fans will applaud it, the type who cheer a well-chosen guest for an injured rider because it favours them, but looking at it broadly.. we all know what will happen next year... Tai will stay away, maybe for the last six weeks, but like now, the act to see out the last six weeks of the season and which suits all parties involved will rear its ugly head. My opinion, if you want to spread to a wider audience, the sport will suffer.

Yes, but it's the rider who wore them we'd still seek.... we can identify race bibs easier than team suits, surely?

Domestic speedway should stop trying to compete with international events, the GP and World Cup. For starters, I prefer the bread-and-butter stuff, would rather watch riders doing it for the love of the sport than the love of themselves. Domestic racing won't recover, survive even, until the product gives a nice wave of goodbye to riders skipping meetings for commitments elsewhere. Make the rules more simple, stick to a race format that is the same for every match, each of the leagues. I don't like one suggestion of having different formats for each competition. It has been all done before and the sport should really steer clear of fiddling with different formats. Ditto changing 3, 2, 1 into 4, 3, 2,1 or whatever. No thanks. The season, in whatever country, lasts for as long as its league programme, so let's start giving it a bit of respect it deserves and align it with riders who are prepared to be here for every fixture. To the majority of fans the GPs and World Cups are just a bit on the side. They are nice to watch but club speedway has been left in tatters as some competitors save the best for these events and perhaps for other leagues they race. I started watching for the pull of the team ethic, and one of the reasons I lost interest was that it really does seem so unimportant, just existing to give riders (some of them) a living as they hop from one place to another. These are my thoughts, and I know we all have differing views.. which is why I can't see anything ever being resolved to everyone's taste.

What I find annoying from the bits of speedway I watch,the constant need for restarts when someone or other gets a flier. As long as the tapes aren't touched, what's wrong with that?

The choice of music does help, I suppose. Used to love Bryan Adams' Summer of '69... until they played it at every opportunity at Belle Vue.

Perhaps put some of those Pokerman things in speedway stadiums. Then the young blighters would have to enter one...

The Play-Off farce of 2006 should have confined the double-point argument to history. Ditto the World Cup... when a country can come from behind thanks to The Joker and win the final, a point ahead of a side that, because they tried to win from the off, were never behind and never able to use The Joker. Queue BWitcher....

No, just want to revert back to times when MORE people went.

To encourage speedway fans to stop filling in programmes and stare at an electronic scoreboard is like asking a 50-a-day smoker to quit overnight. It's what a lot of fans attend for... What are you talking about? I am simply putting an idea across to try and encourage savings to speedway. I am not saying that I am right, but the likes of the big branded goods in shops have done this - I mean, have you noticed you are paying more for a tin of Quality Street compared to 1995 prices, say... and yet the tin has shrunk and no body ain't noticed. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=quality+street+through+the+years&biw=1280&bih=909&site=webhp&tbm=isch&imgil=tRT0X_BhCuq6wM%253A%253BNhDKU6npb3071M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.mirror.co.uk%25252Fnews%25252Fuk-news%25252Fnestl-hits-back-claims-quality-7025949&source=iu&pf=m&fir=tRT0X_BhCuq6wM%253A%252CNhDKU6npb3071M%252C_&usg=__zXIGm-wZF59rI_AJaFAxmaLWb4w%3D&ved=0ahUKEwi55p__-qnOAhVpIsAKHRKLCIgQyjcILQ&ei=M1ykV_mAO-nEgAaSlqLACA#imgrc=tRT0X_BhCuq6wM%3A Saving an individual a couple of quid, a family even a tenner, it doesn't sound a lot. But if an adult is going to the speedway alone because he can't afford to take his family, then the kids, the future of speedway, are being denied and the sport also being starved of its future fans. Maybe it won't work. But have you noticed, Swindon had a higher crowd when SKY were in town and charged just a tenner.... It was on TV, live,and yet people were active in getting up off their backsides and attending, cos the price was lower. Now, to say fans would stay away because of two less heats, it's like saying they could have stayed away because it was on TV. The price reduction perhaps helped sway them.

I am not aligned to the true story, but perhaps the proof that British speedway really does need to split from the Grand Prix riders and the multi-country racers, is highlighted by Belle Vue. A new stadium, a yearning to return to the Saturday night speedway last enjoyed at Hyde Road,and yet seem left to randomly stage matches on any day of the week they can fill in around available riders from both teams (inc opponents). Even if the Aces signed seven riders that could do Saturdays, their opponents quite rightly wouldn't comply just to suit the Mancs. As someone who still has an interest in the sport, and just five miles from Belle Vue, I am sometimes surprised to find that Belle Vue have raced, say that night or the previous one. Didn't even know they had a match on Wednesday last. So how does anyone know who doesn't know of speedway? The tail is wagging thew dog here when the dog has no control. Did crowds increase in 1993 when the league format was extended from 16 heats to 18?

People on here have mocked the idea of returning to 13 heat speedway -some even jokingly (I think they were) calling for one heat speedway or two laps even. They often call me for having no right of even offering an opinion, as I no longer attend. But the very same individuals imply perhaps they and others could not be attracted by two less heats than the 15 now. There love of speedway as fragile as mine was, then? As for the Play-Offs... don't get me started. Oh, OK then. A complete pretense for several months of what are merely qualifying matches and fans kidded into paying good money to watch. The Finals bring out the crowds, but the qualifying matches that get us there suffer as any single match isn't too important, as losses can be made up later to make the top four cut. Usually it is the big lads who lag behind and then, like wrestling I used to watch on World of Sport, they get up off the ropes, make the cut.. and then, with several new additions, often lift the prize. That is why the Play-Offs drag em in. Those fans are like I was. I wasn't there for the conception... but I was there to cheer my lad being born. I was so proud. A proper dad.

Oh dear... it's kicking off in the vault.

I think the actual altering of the historic 3, 2,1, scoring system actually put me off the golden double. Even now, is it 12 years on, still looks odd seeing 6 on a rider's scorechart. Shouldn't mess with history. So true...if we all had a track to promote, imagine how our differing views would pull things in all directions. That's why you've got to hand it to our current promoters. Thanks fallas....

Think the true story from the man himself was that he actually stopped going to Belle Vue way before his free entry passage stopped. So even a free pass couldn't encourage moxey's presence any longer. That says something. But, in saying that, moxey gladly paid for his only speedway visit in 10 years when he trudged up to Buxton a few years ago, for that airfence shindig, as it appealed to him... people actually racing for the love of the sport. Moxey, I am told, still actually loves the sport but it is simply messed up at the moment.

I worry, looking at the crowds, many fans are in the autumn of their lives. They are the hardcore, and when they pop their clogs... I guess admission prices will go up even more. Resolving speedway's issues will never happen. It is a bit like completing every level of Fifa 2016. Everyone has an idea but are all pulling different ways. There is no quick fix.

The mad person doesn't think he's mad... I feel it's the same with fans who can't see no wrong with 2016 speedway. I must be mad... as I'm trying to argue about saving something that has already driven me away. I am trying to give ideas for saving a sport that, like a motor-vehicle awaiting the tow-truck for knackers' yard heaven.. and yet there are still some people on the roadway saying it'll start with a bit of a push! It is all but clinically dead, sir.

So, please tell, we're sitting beside campfire with eyes open and ears wide... do you have a sure way of saving speedway from the grim reaper. You're keeping us in suspense... and on purpose too. Or are you simply admitting... we're all doomed?

So it is about keeping riders happy, is it, or actually trying to keep fans coming through the turnstiles that I do genuinely believe help to pay the riders. Speedway needs a total rethink. It is supposed to be a family sport. Always sold itself on that. So by cutting two heats, cutting admission, it possibly wouldn't make a fan on his own dance at the saving, but what about the family of four. They could save a tenner even. Let us stop trying to put the future of the sport at risk because of the riders. We need to get back to maintaining a sport that its public can afford. The riders have too much power now. If they don't wish to race here for a lower wage, then what do you do - keep placing the future of speedway at risk, even one more track, just so it can keep its top boys. Now is the time to trim. I mean, we have no world champion riding over here... but is he missed? Now is the chance to put a plan together. To do it when there were real stars - Crump, Rickardsson, Hamill, Adams - would have been more noticeable. But we have never been so low on star performers, and I mean globally and not just in Britain. I am just trying to discuss ways to save the sport, that's all. Only my views.