IainB

What a match!

He'll be at BP not BT

Well... There goes Auty's max!

I'd cheer up if I was served up more of the vs Eastbourne kind of speedway rather than the vs Redcar and vs Sheffield kind of speedway

Anybody interested? Will they call it off because it's too windy? Will the tractor breakdown? Will the track break up? Will I get covered in dust? Will there be any good racing? BP 19:30 to find out

Ooh you little stirrer! He'll be putting his day job first, he is the Captain... BT will draft in Rosco or somebody

That's just supposition... we'll never know

If he didn't know about the OTA just up the road there's no way he's going to have seen Leicester's latest promotional angle... which is "Please come and support us"

Ah yes, I remember... that's when the crowd didn't turn up

and there I think we'll agree to differ

Weren't a couple of them called off based on forecasts for rain that never showed? Er... a meeting was called of because of it

I've not got all the answers, I don't run a club and have no experience of running a club. What I do know from working in various businesses over the years is that they have disaster recovery plans for when business critical incidents happen... I don't know, can you cover a tractor with the AA or RAC, may sound like a silly question, but can you? Or have a local mechanic on call on race nights, tracks seem to have an electrician. The Redcar match wasn't the final straw for me... I've been going to Speedway for over 40 years now and (unfortunately) I'm well used to such fiasco's. I really want to see the club and sport succeed and I'll be there again this Saturday. But they have no hope attracting and keeping support with some of the things that happen... all too often.

The only thing that was out of control of the promotion in your comments above is the weather. Everything else was in control of the promotion... That tractor must be at least a thousand years old , it's going to break down, the question is what do you do when it does break down? What emergency plan do you put into operation? The answer... rely on a random person who just happened to be in the pits to fix it. In fact if the tractor hadn't done so many bloody laps during the Redcar match as "entertainment" during the delay due to inadequate medical cover it may have just seen the Sheffield match out! Unfortunately I really do think that Redcar match saw a lot of people off.

Is asking people to come good enough? Where's the promotion in that? And what happens when people do come? One of the nicest evenings of the year when people may have been tempted out against Redcar, inadequate medical cover, massive delay and abandoned meeting. A lovely Sunday afternoon, a double header against 2 local teams, no working tractor, delay, second match abandoned. If I were Leicester I'd be keeping quiet about it until these issues were addressed

Having read the latest Leicester press release, it reads very much like a veiled threat... the very worst kind of promotion! http://www.leicesterspeedway.com/news.php?extend.31472 Having said that, it doesn't matter how much you promote something if it's dog poo when you get there, people aren't stupid. A lot of people had enough after the Redcar match, it's August now and the only match that stands out for the right reasons is the Eastbourne match... is that enough?

OK, thanks for the full info... I only heard there was a delay as I was queuing up to get in. Beats me why they never water the inside where all the dust comes from, something pretty specific to this country

I thought tracks had to be watered for hours before a meeting, especially in the hot weather? Would it have been impossible for 2 tractors to have been out on the track? 1 watering and 1 grading, used to happen at Coventry years ago... when track prep was taken seriously well, by my calculations there were 15 heats = 16 minutes, 2 minutes between each is 28 minutes, an extra couple of minutes for the tractor racing is another 8 minutes, I'll be generous and round that up to 10... so that's 54 minutes, I'll be double generous and round that up to 1 hour... so where did the other 35 minutes go? Couple that with starting late and both meetings could have been done and dusted before the storm came.

I'm no track man either, but yes we do keep hearing this line about not watering the inside once it becomes slick, it's almost as if somebody once said it and then it's become gospel. It doesn't seem to happen in other countries, watch any meeting from Poland or the GP's and they flood the track all over after every 4 races, no dust problem there. The water cart should have been out after heat 4 at Leicester yesterday, instead they left it far too late. I'm not sure if it was the tractor or the bowser that broke down, either way it all sounds as if it was left rather late in the day for track prep to begin. From the way the centre green presenter continues to gush about Stewart Dickson it sounds like he pretty much does everything, not sure if this is true but if it is he needs to start delegating responsibilities a bit.

This was a return to the bad old days of Leicester speedway. With rain always forecast for around 6pm it started half an hour late and then the first match was run with no urgency at all with the storm clouds gathering in the distance. They did the usual thing of not watering the track during the match until it was too late with the crowd being covered in dust and then when the water truck did come out just watering the very outside where nobody ever goes. The state of the track was shocking and was down to the base on turns 1 and 4... surprised me the ref didn't go and inspect it.

I didn't think you were interested anymore?

The Pavlova collapsed

... and does it say Pavlova?

Also didn't Simon Wigg favour riding on the continent in Grasstrack/Longtrack instead of riding for his country...

There were a number of TV meetings that were very well attended because they were heavily promoted, either free or big discount, which shows that when the effort is put in people will turn up... sadly these days the only promotion that we tend to see is the "if the fans don't turn up, I'll have to think about whether it's worth continuing" style of promotion

Dr Dr Please!