stevehone

just heard from one of his sponsors that he's cracked 2 vertebrae.

the exact reason why the easier qualifier will always be sorted in favour of 'Team' GB

he's a regular at the WSRA annual dinner Steve ... Ken Archer

same here, but there was still London Bridge McDonalds on the way home

think i remember her ... wasn't she a rather large young lady? Arthur Caton i think, his wife Iris was on the gate at Hackney and Rye House Alf Weedon's son? my memories of going to Hackney on Fridays was the traffic getting there through Elephant & Castle, London Bridge, Whitechapel, then over the flyover and left at the pub. running out of petrol on Whitechapel and pushing the car to nearest garage. meeting up with various people there in different parts of the stadium. a girl called Mel honking on her bicycle pump type airhorn good racing riding there on Saturday's when it was open for training riding my first second half there doing a second half against a young Joe Screen who, once he got past me on about lap 2 or 3 left me for dead. journey home we always stopped at London Bridge McDonalds, parking up by the Monument, used to see various riders in there. loads of memories ... just a case of thinking about it.

you know what i mean then

i remember a girl with a big chest, can't remember her name though. she used to be friendly with the riders ... she had dark, wavy hair and always had a friend with her too (can't remember her name either). the lady with the chest used to knit her own speedway jumpers too. that would have been about 1984 - 86 something like that.

so many fantastic memories of Wimbledon ... going to away matches on the coach (when we had Chalfont, who was the driver we always wanted, there was one that was a good laugh, was it Rick?) or on the 'breakaway' minibus with Larry Rose. the initiation on the coach and the ritual debagging of someone. trying to get the back seat record on the coach. mooning at people from the back window. going to watch Tatum at Canterbury in a Junior Championship meeting and when Frank Ebdon excluded Tatum in one of his races, Larry Rose went round to batter him with his program board with Bembom Brothers in Margate before the meeting. the world finals with the supporters club ... Norden & Gothenburg. walking round and round the stadium meeting up with all the people we knew. away matches when we knew we'd get stuffed but still spent the journey to the meetings ripping up paper. like Steve has said, the small sweet kiosks in the depths under the stadium. the arguments with the Ippo supporters on the 2nd bend terracing .. they always supported Siggy and we always called him a fag. the big meetings we had there ... Laurels, Spring Classic, Commonwealth Final, some games thing they had there etc getting cheers from the first bend crowd when i won a race, punched the air and ended up on the stock car track. going to have a chat with Maido in my lunch break at the speedway office window. the list could go on and on ... so many memories, so many great people, riders and supporters.

oh well ... i was on the Wimbledon supporters coach both years i have pictures somewhere from our day in Amsterdam ..

yep, was on the Wimbledon coach for both Norden 83 and Gothenburg 84. in 83 we stayed in a Novotel in Breda i think, was that the one?

hmmm ... wonder if this was the one i went to

correct ... and was the 1984 meeting the one after the Gothenburg world final? i was there

thats ok nevs, i'll give the shale a miss ... i think i still have some on my leathers still wondering if the next stadium to be pulled down will be Plough Lane ... lots of great memories of there too

i wanted the tractor gate

a lot of people will feel the same ... fantastic memories

my pictures from the 250cc at Mildenhall HERE

hi darrol, i don't have any clips of Keith that i can think of, but i'm sure i remember seeing something on youtube from Canterbury in a British Junior Championship ... worth doing a search on there.

ok, so in one post you're telling me that the GP's haven't contributed to the downfall of the EL, but then you go posting something like this. so which one is it?

there used to be so many tracks out there that had a traditional race night of Saturday ... that was when they were more likely to get a better crowd, even though other tracks raced same night, and possibly the best night for getting floating fans that would visit somewhere as a particular meeting looked attractive ... makes you wonder why it's not the case now. you just have to look at Saturday night tracks and how they are affected by GP's by missing a regular income. the injured riders that ride in the GP's but don't ride in the EL is another problem. ok, you used to get riders ride in a qualifier or something when injured, but maybe my mind is playing tricks but i'm sure a GP rider now seems to be injured a lot more than they would normally. but why should the promoter risk organising these type of events when the top riders that used to make up the bulk of the field aren't interested any more?

really? must all be in my mind ... i'll have to look out for the Brandonapolis date, i enjoy that one.

they've also ripped the heart out of British speedway. riders now are all about focusing on the GP's, sod the EL. and for most clubs, a lot of their income used to be made up from lucrative individual meetings ... no-one has those now as riders don't want/have time to compete in them. even the ELRC has gone downhill since the GP started, a meeting that used to mean something ... and the British Final, no longer a means to an end, it's just another meeting that means a couple of riders don't get a weekend off. all the big individual meetings from my day, where are they? The Brandonapolis, The Laurels, Spring Classic, Olympique, Pride of the East, 16 Lapper, Blue Ribband, etc etc ... the list will go on and on, but they were all meetings attended by the top riders that brought in big crowds. ok, so one or two will still run, but look at the lineups, they're not the sort we used to get, and the reason ... riders aren't interested.

one off finals were all about excitement there on the day and knowing the winner at the end of it, and for me that's what i prefer. you have the majority of GP's where you'd go away feeling like it was all a bit of an anti-climax as in a way nobody has won anything other than that meeting. by saying that if it was at Bydgoszcz you might as well give it to Gollob, well who is to say he would make it through the qualifiers? that was the beauty of the one-offs ... we had qualifiers that had different riders, and every meeting meant something, and all riders had something to fight for. every now and again we had riders that could have a great season in the league and ride through to a world final, that's not possible now as it's more or less an invitation series and would take a long time to find your way to getting an invite.

any chances of getting some more 250cc or junior racing at Kings Lynn this season?

i slept in the same room as the gold bike and masses of trophies at Ivan's, and it spent some time in my dad's garage before it was shipped back to Oz

grasstracking skills come in handy at Cardiff there is more to 'open the throttle and go' when riding a big, fast, race track.