M.D Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 11 minutes ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said: Well yes we can and it’s not difficult or expensive but and here is the problem, how do you police it, a classic example is the GT140 grasstrack which has become very popular, a standard engine costs around £450 and was seen as a bit of fun and entry level to bigger things but now as it’s popularity has grown riders are buying heads for these engines that cost more than double the cost of the engine, all for that little edge, one tuner has been banned because he was putting all sorts of trick stuff in the engines, it can be policed but it is hard exactly that, we can strip the cost of racing back to the basics but then riders will start spending again to get an advantige to get ahead. Then the circle starts again, its the nature of motorsport and speedway can't afford it currently. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikebv Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 31 minutes ago, M.D said: You make some good and valid points. This is a major problem in the sport, there are kids coming into the sport now who have really good backing and are sitting on rocket ships. the only way young talented kids will make the grade is to match this and then if and when they do move up a level, they find the established older riders are also on well maintained top quality bikes. So, in essence, every rider is after more money from the promotors to keep up equipment to a level to compete, thus teams are paying more money out to riders that they can't afford and in turn, riders need this money to compete on a level playing platform. Spiralling costs for a rider is a vicious circle that is bringing the sport to its knees. And all to win something that the promoters very own operating model, devalues and destroys any kudos and credibility in winning... You really cannot make it up, can you... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.D Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 15 minutes ago, mikebv said: And all to win something that the promoters very own operating model, devalues and destroys any kudos and credibility in winning... You really cannot make it up, can you... Riders are more interested in earning money, club focus comes second but important. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikebv Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 7 minutes ago, M.D said: Riders are more interested in earning money, club focus comes second but important. It isn't whether the riders think it is important... It is whether the fans do... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.D Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 5 minutes ago, mikebv said: It isn't whether the riders think it is important... It is whether the fans do... It should be, but never has Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THE DEAN MACHINE Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 26 minutes ago, M.D said: It should be, but never has You know what I’ve been saying for a few years now British speedway is run by the riders for the riders 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ouch Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 1 hour ago, mikebv said: On Phil The Aces FB page, Phillip Lanning goes into great detail about what the Aces are doing, (at some cost), to attract new fans... Sadly, they are missing the point.. Getting the "lapsed ones" back is what should be being focused on.. Dean says cost of living is an issue, and I agree.. I say Mickey Mouse WWE rules keep people away in 2025, (you could get away with it in 1975 to 1995, now you cannot)... (Four guests and RR anyone? Lovely, form an orderly queue, no pushing in)... Some say the overall entertainment package is poor, and they are correct.. The sport is trying to attract a younger demographic. And it is not the right target market.. These kids are either at Uni dreaming about a zero hours contract somewhere at the end of it... Or, already working on a zero hours contract, with a maximum 16 hours a week guaranteed... Those of us, of "ahem" a "certain age" had full time jobs, and pensions which had full time earnings feeding in to them... "We" (the many thousands of us), who used to go regularly, and still passionately follow the sport, but attend "now and again", are the ones to target... We have the disposable income to spend, the Under 30's often don't... First though, instead of reading and listening to "conjecture and theory" as to why crowds are down... EFFING FIND OUT!!! Get the facts!!! Dont waste marketing money on attracting a cash strapped younger singles and family demographic, who they expect to go once, spend £25 and upwards on something they have little knowledge of, and be immediately hooked, (again folly but that's for another time).. And instead, spend the money on market research to find out why more passionate Speedway fans WONT attend meetings this week than the numbers that will... Find out the collective generic 3 biggest barriers to attending... And fix the b*stards... That’s something all of us can easily do already if we haven’t yet and feed this back to the promotion. Whether they listen or not is another thing. We have all asked friends, family or colleagues to attend speedway. Some say no, some do attend but don’t return. The reasons I’ve had are dirty, boring, expensive, wrong demographic. In the main they view it as they would monster trucks being a bank holiday thrill treat rather than a weekly or bi weekly commitment for six months of the year. Thing is they forget to return even on bank holidays or they have something else they would rather do. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fromafar Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 2 minutes ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said: You know what I’ve been saying for a few years now British speedway is run by the riders for the riders Agree,need to call their bluff.Sport might have to drop a grade but the entertainment value won’t. Like you have said the speed will not drop significantly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikebv Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 10 minutes ago, ouch said: That’s something all of us can easily do already if we haven’t yet and feed this back to the promotion. Whether they listen or not is another thing. We have all asked friends, family or colleagues to attend speedway. Some say no, some do attend but don’t return. The reasons I’ve had are dirty, boring, expensive, wrong demographic. In the main they view it as they would monster trucks being a bank holiday thrill treat rather than a weekly or bi weekly commitment for six months of the year. Thing is they forget to return even on bank holidays or they have something else they would rather do. If you want to run a team sport.. It needs that emotional attachment .. "These lads, good, bad, indifferent, are my team"... UK Speedway does its level best to destroy that concept... Four guests and RR everyone? Let's get it on.... Give us your fifty quid for you and your missus... 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BackInTheDHSS Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 3 hours ago, Christine Hawes said: Oxford have stopped the coach this season - it's a 10 minute walk from Unipart and if you have mobility problems like me that's a no-go. I believe they let those with mobility issues park at the stadium itself now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikebv Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 16 minutes ago, Fromafar said: Agree,need to call their bluff.Sport might have to drop a grade but the entertainment value won’t. Like you have said the speed will not drop significantly. I used to pay a tenner EVERY meeting to watch the Colts at the NSS... A tenner for me AND my U16 lad... The crowds filled half the NSS 1700 Grandstand and I no longer was prepared to pay over thirty five quid to watch the "top riders" for us both, as the entertainment at NDL level was just as good.. Even if 3 seconds a race slower.. (And guess what, I didn't notice until the announcer told me).…. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeOldPitGate Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 Sadly its a proper mess the promoters take flak and as Mike BV has said before they are well meaning amateurs, look at poor old Tolley he's made some proper howlers but equally the poor old boy has probably poured somewhere between 500k to a mil down the toilet such is his commitment. Most of the promoters have other business's where I guess they operate successfully, I truly think the last role of the dice might be 8 five man teams operating at current championship standard the rest need to be national league standard but maybe let a couple of foreign youngsters in at that level but only if they commit to the entire season in the UK. Accept we are a training ground for Poland run on the best night to get fans in not what the riders want to work best for them, I love seeing the top lads but my guess is for what they are costings per meeting to extra fans through the gate its probably not enough to cover half their weekly guarantee. Look when Brum got Lindgren crowd figures barely went up, Lambert comes back to Lynn for a few weeks that doesn't mean another 1k through the gate. Also as Mike has mentioned before you have seven teams in top league, two woefully understrength , you see the same riders all the time, with 2/3 home and away, guest fests so you can see why most don't bother until you get to the semi's and the final. I remember in the 80's when Gunderson or Nielson turned up you went as that was probably the only one time you would see them all year. I wish I knew the answers but the doubling up, running on unattractive days of the week, guests galore, Brexit/Visa's, riders signing for a couple of months known up front after people have bought season tickets, Netflix, Sky , Play stations, bowling alleys, multi plex cinema's, hundreds of eateries open on a Sat night massive competition for a quid now. You would though have thought that promoters would have tried to get those who no longer attend to fill in a questionnaire as to why they fell out of love if its not for the reasons already listed. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THE DEAN MACHINE Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 (edited) 52 minutes ago, mikebv said: If you want to run a team sport.. It needs that emotional attachment .. "These lads, good, bad, indifferent, are my team"... UK Speedway does its level best to destroy that concept... Four guests and RR everyone? Let's get it on.... Give us your fifty quid for you and your missus... This is imo the actual problem with British domestic speedway, the team concept only really exists in the name not in the practice and therefor the team fan can’t relate to their team and so has no emotional attachment and so doesn’t feel the need to support it, when riding I always felt different to other riders, I really brought into the team I rode for, when I rode for Berwick I felt like they were my fans and I was their rider, it felt like home and when I left I was genuinely upset and I still have good friends there today, i didnt live there but stayed with the Meldrums quite a lot and was often on the beach or in the town at weekends but I knew other riders didnt feel the same and were there for the money and it was the same at other teams, one conversation I always remember was with Barry Evans, I was at lakeside for a meeting and leaning over the fence before the meeting talking about the GP that week, and he said I don’t know why you watch the GPs or any speedway really on tv it’s boring I only do it cause I get paid to do it and I can remember thinking I wonder how the crowd would feel if they knew that ? Perhaps subconsciously they did feel it,As a fan I felt like the emotional attachment to teams ended around the mid 90s, there was always a surge of emotion around the play offs but in general it’s not like it used to be or should be for a team event, how do we get it back or can we get it back ? That’s the question Edited June 28 by THE DEAN MACHINE 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteelShoe Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 2 hours ago, mikebv said: On Phil The Aces FB page, Phillip Lanning goes into great detail about what the Aces are doing, (at some cost), to attract new fans... Sadly, they are missing the point.. Getting the "lapsed ones" back is what should be being focused on.. Dean says cost of living is an issue, and I agree.. I say Mickey Mouse WWE rules keep people away in 2025, (you could get away with it in 1975 to 1995, now you cannot)... (Four guests and RR anyone? Lovely, form an orderly queue, no pushing in)... Some say the overall entertainment package is poor, and they are correct.. The sport is trying to attract a younger demographic. And it is not the right target market.. These kids are either at Uni dreaming about a zero hours contract somewhere at the end of it... Or, already working on a zero hours contract, with a maximum 16 hours a week guaranteed... Those of us, of "ahem" a "certain age" had full time jobs, and pensions which had full time earnings feeding in to them... "We" (the many thousands of us), who used to go regularly, and still passionately follow the sport, but attend "now and again", are the ones to target... We have the disposable income to spend, the Under 30's often don't... First though, instead of reading and listening to "conjecture and theory" as to why crowds are down... EFFING FIND OUT!!! Get the facts!!! Dont waste marketing money on attracting a cash strapped younger singles and family demographic, who they expect to go once, spend £25 and upwards on something they have little knowledge of, and be immediately hooked, (again folly but that's for another time).. And instead, spend the money on market research to find out why more passionate Speedway fans WONT attend meetings this week than the numbers that will... Find out the collective generic 3 biggest barriers to attending... And fix the b*stards... There is a lot of sense in this. Worky crowds are down so far this season and there have been internal discussions re the need to do something to attract more people. Our first priority should definitely be to find out why we are losing fans we had. There have been a series of variables this season which have had a deleterious effect on early attendances eg relatively late start, lack of fixture continuity, rain offs, unbalanced team strength and poor early form. We have had home fixtures against two clubs Scunny and Plymouth which historically attract less fans than other fixtures while the Edinburgh KO Cup return leg was a dead rubber following a disastrous score in the 1st leg as was pretty much the Redcar BSN meeting because we couldn't qualify. Like has been stated it is easy for certain fans to get out of the habit of attending. Finding out why they are falling out with it, while rigorously self critiquing your own product in terms of entertainment and enjoyability has to be a top priority. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H20 Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 I don't think most fans realise just how much the riders earn nowadays it's very good money. I've always watched the Comets but used to enjoy it more when there was a meeting every week so it was much more expensive to watch then but you knew you had a meeting every week. The way the fixtures are now you have no idea if there at home or not you have to check. I miss quite a few Saturday meetings now if I'm at work due to the 3pm start I've never liked or understood that decision to ride on a Saturday afternoon. At the start and end of the season they are up against football then during summer so many events are on a Saturday plus people working. Workington apparently helped out stepping up to CL but I think another year or two at NL could have been better to build white it was cheaper to attend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fromafar Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 13 minutes ago, H20 said: I don't think most fans realise just how much the riders earn nowadays it's very good money. I've always watched the Comets but used to enjoy it more when there was a meeting every week so it was much more expensive to watch then but you knew you had a meeting every week. The way the fixtures are now you have no idea if there at home or not you have to check. I miss quite a few Saturday meetings now if I'm at work due to the 3pm start I've never liked or understood that decision to ride on a Saturday afternoon. At the start and end of the season they are up against football then during summer so many events are on a Saturday plus people working. Workington apparently helped out stepping up to CL but I think another year or two at NL could have been better to build white it was cheaper to attend. Definitely think a Saturday Afternoon is not good day to run a meeting.But don’t know the main decision for this .Know the don’t have floodlights. accommodating rider demands is killing the sport fixtures are too sporadic.Fans could probably accept once a Fortnight better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derwent Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 Looking at Companies House and the London Gazette it seems the company was subject to a mandatory winding up by the Registrar of Companies as they hadn’t filed any accounts since 2022. The problem when that happens is that all assets of the company - physical assets, bank accounts, anything with a saleable value - is declared by the court to be “Bona Vacantia” I.e. property with no owner. So legal ownership passes to the Crown (or in other words the government). Bank accounts will be closed and any cash transferred to HM Treasury and physical assets seized for auction. Property can be reclaimed by either going to court and having the company reinstated on the register or providing evidence that any assets seized were owned by someone else. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post tyler42 Posted June 28 Popular Post Report Share Posted June 28 (edited) 3 hours ago, M.D said: Agree, but the riders need more and more money to be able to compete, its a no win situation, we can't just change the sport back to the times when you can run an upright and be competitive on it. How has speedway been allowed to get into such a state? Riders in this day and age and I'm not talking big names here. Riders in the 2nd division and even the 3rd division turn up with kit that a GP rider would be happy to have. Paid mechanics, Big fancy vans. It's a fantasy world. You say we can't change back. Well if we don't address the elephant in the room. Speedway won't have long left as a professional sport. Promotors have got big decisions to make this close season. Sticking their heads in the sand and thinking " Theres nothing wrong with product," will not wash anymore. We have come to a watershed moment. If nothing changes, then it won't survive. 1) Do they still carry on paying riders wages that far outweigh the amount of people who come through the gate. Clubs will have to cut there cloth accordingly. Meaning riders will have to be paid a realistic wage for what the sport is. If riders want to turn up with all the kit, no one is stopping them, but the clubs cannot afford to fund their fantasy and before anyone has a go. No rose tinted glasses, but pure facts. In the 80s Most riders worked. They got wages according to their standard. The Leagues were a lot bigger. The crowds were a lot bigger. 2) Do they take the sport by the horns, and make it one league. There are 16 clubs, god knows how many next year. but you can't run two divisions with such a small amount of clubs. " yes they have done, but look where it's taken us" 3) The pricing has to reflect the quality of what you're paying for. Riders will have to make drastic changes. If there is to be one league, I would imagine the top riders would disappear. So the one league would be mainly made up of British riders. Clubs have to stop paying bang average foreign riders, flights and mechanics. People who say it will water it down. Well the standard can't get much lower at 2nd division level. This season most 2nd division clubs have filled their 6 and 7s with 3rd division riders. The top league is made up mostly of 2nd division riders. The standard has been getting lower every season for a while now. if that means a couple of more riders from the 3rd division replacing expensive foreign riders, then that will have to be a price the sport will need to pay to survive. More importantly. two home and two away meetings would stop the silly practise of clubs not having home meetings for weeks on end. The sport needs a reset and It has got to far out of hand and only a massive reset will save it. IMO Edited June 28 by tyler42 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthsayer Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 25 minutes ago, tyler42 said: How has speedway been allowed to get into such a state? Riders in this day and age and I'm not talking big names here. Riders in the 2nd division and even the 3rd division turn up with kit that a GP rider would be happy to have. Paid mechanics, Big fancy vans. It's a fantasy world. You say we can't change back. Well if we don't address the elephant in the room. Speedway won't have long left as a professional sport. The sport needs a reset and It has got to far out of hand and only a massive reset will save it. IMO Speedway is an amateur individual sport masquerading as a professional team sport. The end is nigh and only a massive reset will save it (also IMO). 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Youhave2minutes Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 29 minutes ago, tyler42 said: How has speedway been allowed to get into such a state? Riders in this day and age and I'm not talking big names here. Riders in the 2nd division and even the 3rd division turn up with kit that a GP rider would be happy to have. Paid mechanics, Big fancy vans. It's a fantasy world. You say we can't change back. Well if we don't address the elephant in the room. Speedway won't have long left as a professional sport. Promotors have got big decisions to make this close season. Sticking their heads in the sand and thinking " Theres nothing wrong with product," will not wash anymore. We have come to a watershed moment. If nothing changes, then it won't survive. 1) Do they still carry on paying riders wages that far outweigh the amount of people who come through the gate. Clubs will have to cut there cloth accordingly. Meaning riders will have to be paid a realistic wage for what the sport is. If riders want to turn up with all the kit, no one is stopping them, but the clubs cannot afford to fund their fantasy and before anyone has a go. No rose tinted glasses, but pure facts. In the 80s Most riders worked. They got wages according to their standard. The Leagues were a lot bigger. The crowds were a lot bigger. 2) Do they take the sport by the horns, and make it one league. There are 16 clubs, god knows how many next year. but you can't run two divisions with such a small amount of clubs. " yes they have done, but look where it's taken us" 3) The pricing has to reflect the quality of what you're paying for. Riders will have to make drastic changes. If there is to be one league, I would imagine the top riders would disappear. So the one league would be mainly made up of British riders. Clubs have to stop paying bang average foreign riders, flights and mechanics. People who say it will water it down. Well the standard can't get much lower at 2nd division level. This season most 2nd division clubs have filled their 6 and 7s with 3rd division riders. The top league is made up mostly of 2nd division riders. The standard has been getting lower every season for a while now. if that means a couple of more riders from the 3rd division replacing expensive foreign riders, then that will have to be a price the sport will need to pay to survive. More importantly. two home and two away meetings would stop the silly practise of clubs not having home meetings for weeks on end. The sport needs a reset and It has got to far out of hand and only a massive reset will save it. IMO Absolutely bang on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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