IainB

NL & CL should be riding standard sealed unit engines, I read on another thread somebody saying that a rider, I can't remember who, but somebody of NL/CL standard was riding Ash-Tec engines so should be competitive! I've said before that riders of that standard would gain a lot more speed and be faster by learning to be better riders than having expensive tuned engines No... but it doesn't have to be so black and white does it? Time has come to commit to BL or wave goodbye, take the Aussies for example, live and work in the UK or live and work in Europe I remember when the BSPA teamed up with some marketing agency a load of years back and a load of minor celebrities appeared at a number of tracks... I'll never forget the night I saw Hinge & Bracket at Wolves Time for them to get a job to supplement their Speedway or retire from Speedway and do something else... the sport in this country can't be run for the few who can't make it pay

My local track, Leicester, pretty much perfect I'd say

or just start watering it before the inside goes too slick

I decided to leave my Pizza and Beer in the fridge and did pop along to this one and I thought it was one of the better meetings of the season. A fast track does not necessarily mean an entertaining track and the watering does remain a problem... I doubt what you say about the agreement for watering is true, I go to a lot of tracks where the watering of the track is not an issue so why would everybody object to just the Leicester track being watered?

He's going backwards now, confidence seems to be shot, now quitting when he's at the back and returning to the pits after 3 laps

While the riders continue to bleed the sport dry

How much are you paying?

is it only £17? Bargain!

What a lot of you are forgetting is that most promotions and KL in particular don't give a toss about riding away from home, why would KL promote Leicester's meeting? This has been evident in the last couple of years by the standard of the team KL have sent to Leicester, heck they can't even be bothered to inform the fans at a home meeting (vs Leicester) about what was happening let alone away from home. As for tonight, it's a tough one... do I travel the mile up the road on what's looking like being a nice evening hand over my £18 to watch 13 gate and go heats with the possibility of a sun delay and come home covered in dust? Or do I sit at home with a Pizza and a Beer watching the action from the NSS?

And the stewards themselves are standing... they're risking their lives to keep us safe

This requires a bit of effort

The trouble with attracting new fans or even enticing old ones back is that it's just such a lottery going to the Speedway and that's not just whether it's going to be a good match or not it's the weather, the make up of the teams, the delays, the standard of the track, the number of ambulances in attendance, the tractor racing, the standard of the stadium... the list goes on I hate taking new people along to Speedway because there's always the chance of a disaster happening, fortunately on the few occasions that I have taken new folk along I have got away with it and even then non of them had a burning desire to return. When I was stood at KL the other week as that disaster unfolded I was thinking to myself... what if I had brought a first timer along with me... who would take that chance. Similar happened at Peterborough a few weeks before. Fortunately I am able to travel for my Speedway so I just vow never to return to KL again, but if I didn't and KL was "my track" that'd be me done with Speedway after being treated like that.

I kind of am

Why don't the put their hands in their pockets then and splash some of the polish Jack Holder cash!

I'm not having a pop at the guy, I just wondered why the op thinks he's going to be the saviour... I remember the super7 series, I'll take your word for the KL promotion... Does he have the respect of many people in the sport... Like Colin Pratt and Peter Oakes for example?

... But what has Jonathan Chapman ever done for Speedway?

I don't know if I've missed something but what is the point of removing the Friday dates for the clubs mentioned? Are they looking at abandoning/switching FRN mid-season? Or do we just not know?

If that's true he should be asking for a refund

maybe give them a free rattle and a club rosette?

Just in my time following Speedway you can pin point so many beginning of the ends... Thatcherism and the rise of the economy and the value/price of building land The loss of Wembley Wiggy race fixing sting Amalgamation of BL & NL World of Sport ending and the loss of pretty regular free to air TV coverage Sky getting TV rights and BSPA falling over themselves to attend to their every whim... and usually ballsing it up Double Points Cov/Peterborough BSPA stand off Poor tracks Faster and faster bikes The rise of Poland The list goes on and on the truth is it's a gradual chipping away of the integrity and excitement of the sport, lack of decent facilities, a refusal to move with the times... etc. etc.

All of the Croats and French that follow the Bees

Yes kids should be let in for free, but when they're in the stadium I'm just not sure things like photo's, sweets and caps cut it anymore with kids. The majority of kids I see at Speedway couldn't be any less bothered with what his happening on the other side of the fence. What the sport needs to invest in is some kind of interactive app that kids can install on their phones and couple that to the action that is happening on the track, that is the addiction that will keep them wanting to come back and when they grow out of that smartphone adddiction hopefully they've created enough of a bond with their club to continue to attend as a paying adult

NO! I won't have this... they changed the white helmet colour to green! They did all they could

I can't agree with that, watching Speedway live at Leicester is crap, it was less crap watching it on TV the other night... it was still crap though. The TV coverage adds value with the rest of the presentation, rider interviews, replays, (comedy) commentary etc. I have seen a lot of cracking meetings on TV over the years, normally SGP/SWC and play off semis and finals, when there is something at stake and something to ride for it's well worth watching, live or on TV... too often though, especially a league level there's very little at stake. For me Sky hyped a lot of their matches up more than BT do, who remembers the return of Darcy Ward match? A lot of us probably do, but who can remember who the teams riding were, what the score was or who even won!! The point is sometimes you can make the best of a bad job especially when the product on offer more often than not in this country is plodding along through the season building up to 6 meetings at the end of the season

What's his pedigree, track record? What's his CV like? What other accomplishments has he done inside or outside of Speedway? I ask this genuinely, not having a go at the bloke, what has he done that's been so great before? I remember he re-branded the big events as the Super Seven Series, I'm not aware of anything else though, does he even want to do it?