ShanoXtra Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 (edited) I only got into speedway 3 years ago now due to getting into a relationship with my Polish girlfriend and when I visited her in Gorzów she took me to a home meeting and it got me hooked (vs Falubaz) I just wish more could be done to promote it on a national scale here. People (including me) do like a back and forth I’ve noticed, about clubs and some digging/banter, but genuinely everyone has the same outlook that they love speedway. Our passion just needs to be pushed to a wider audience and nights like last night need to be key for promotion. She watched last night and loves British speedway now, before she didn’t even know anything about it. Genuinely the sport needs to just have people’s eyes open to it, instead of trying to search for it. Edited May 13 by ShanoXtra Add 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaColette Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 2 hours ago, 40-38 said: I can't wait for the 2026 British GP at Plymouth. Now that I would pay to watch! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikebv Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 Talksport (Hawksbee and Jacobs) actually talking about the BF!!! And how it destroyed Andy's long held theory that "first to the first corner wins"... 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
topaz325 Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 A good few travelled from Cumbria, the North East and Scotland but some Belle vue fans on this forum said they would not be going... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BomberHammer Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 16 hours ago, Bagpuss said: A real pity they didn't split the wild cards, one each for Wright and Harris would have been good. Yeah i think that would have been fair, they both deserved it 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THE DEAN MACHINE Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 I’ve just seen a post where mildenhall stock cars apologised to local residents for the traffic congestion caused by the crowd that turned up to their stock car meeting, apparently a lot bigger than they were expecting and they were expecting a big crowd,2 sports relatively similar and often sharing venues and in some cases fans so my question is what are they doing right and we are doing wrong ? Is it pricing ? Is it stockcars understand what they are and understand their fan demographic ? For some time I felt like we are trying to be something we are not, like a F1 without the money and that’s not what speedway is or will ever be, last night was the perfect package watched by nobody in relative terms, the stocks run a run of the mill meeting and get 1000s 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R87 Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 59 minutes ago, BomberHammer said: Yeah i think that would have been fair, they both deserved it Can't get why anyone would want to see Harris riding in a GP again. He's had enough chances over the years. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
singy13 Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 10 minutes ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said: the stocks run a run of the mill meeting and get 1000s But that has been the norm for many years - the stocks, for some reason, usually have bigger crowds. I guess it's the car carnage that proves so popular - pile ups galore. I have been to a couple of those meetings at Hyde Rd and Carr Lane and at both, for the life of me, I couldn't fathom out the race leaders.......But of course 'one mans meat' etc etc....One thing that applies to both sports is they are very much ignored by the media - no results are broadcast at all.(anyone recall getting speedway scores regular via ceefax ?). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ouch Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 32 minutes ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said: I’ve just seen a post where mildenhall stock cars apologised to local residents for the traffic congestion caused by the crowd that turned up to their stock car meeting, apparently a lot bigger than they were expecting and they were expecting a big crowd,2 sports relatively similar and often sharing venues and in some cases fans so my question is what are they doing right and we are doing wrong ? Is it pricing ? Is it stockcars understand what they are and understand their fan demographic ? For some time I felt like we are trying to be something we are not, like a F1 without the money and that’s not what speedway is or will ever be, last night was the perfect package watched by nobody in relative terms, the stocks run a run of the mill meeting and get 1000s Running on a Monday night doesn’t help. The last time we ran on a Saturday we had thousands attend, conversely if Mildenhall had run their stock cars on a Monday night it would not have been well attended. Also The NSS run nearly twice the amount of fixtures as Mildenhall and familiarity breeds contempt. I’d imagine stock cars, like any other business, would play to their strengths. We saw our sports strength last night but do we collectively push for that or are we just happy ticking the heats and fixtures off to get through the season? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikebv Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 Stocks run a lot less frequently.. At the old Kirky Lane track they got around 4000 punters, once a month.. Roughly the same (maybe even less), than the Aces got in a month from four matches... The perennial issue for UK Speedway will always be shoe horning the sport into a team concept without any real "tribal" rivalry due to the contrived make up of the teams.. Allied to hardly any large financial gain and national publicity for winning.. Difficult to get "big crowds" regularly, and wider interest, with those big challenges to overcome.. Maintaining a season long interest for even "regulars" can be difficult too, especially when the play offs are decided months out from when they take place, with many regulars (apart from ST holders), picking and choosing which meetings to attend... UK Speedway is a "tough sell"... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
singy13 Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 36 minutes ago, ouch said: Running on a Monday night doesn’t help. The last time we ran on a Saturday we had thousands attend, conversely if Mildenhall had run their stock cars on a Monday night it would not have been well attended. Also The NSS run nearly twice the amount of fixtures as Mildenhall and familiarity breeds contempt. I’d imagine stock cars, like any other business, would play to their strengths. We saw our sports strength last night but do we collectively push for that or are we just happy ticking the heats and fixtures off to get through the season? Must admit looking at you tube shots of recent Odsal stocks the terraces are not very well populated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ouch Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 I’ve brought a countless number of people to speedway over the decades with next to none showing any interest in returning with any regularity. I’ve helped run coaches to away tracks up until fairly recently but that was getting increasingly difficult and has now almost stopped altogether. There needs to be a hook of some kind to engage the public with and that takes a canny marketeer, a bit of luck in hitting the zeitgeist of the time and a not unsubstantial amount of money. We need hero’s and villains, fan rivalry (good natured) and most importantly a spectacle on track with delays that let the atmosphere evaporate kept to a minimum or filled with something to keep the fans hot with anticipation. It’s a better man than me who can find and exploit that hook, especially in this new social media age but it must be there, mustn’t it? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bellevueace Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 I dont think TV and now all clubs doing their own stream is going to help put numbers on the terracing when people can save money watching it at home, the exceptions being the play offs. Another thing at one time many clubs raced on a Saturday Belle Vue, Coventry, Cradley, Swindon, Kings Lynn so was a lot easier for people to travel, i remeber when people used to say we need regular speedway shown on TV to entice crowds to the sport, it appears to be having the opposite effect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeOldPitGate Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 All interesting views I'm probably with Mike BV, with the shut down of so many clubs over the years the premier league has become a non event as you can already see barring injuries who the top three will be, with Lynn and Leicester vying for the final spot so a lot of people will just think I will just go to the semi and play off final. Throw in seeing the same riders week in week out guests galore, r/r I don't go to speedway much now but was a regular when Lynn had Loram and Lofquist at reserve every week you had world class riders coming and you knew if you missed them you most likely wouldn't see them again that season. Travelling down to Coventry for the british final when regularly over 10k would attend the place was rammed great atmosphere, now it seems struggling to get 1,500 people to the same event. However back in the late 80's early 90's Sky tv was in its infancy, Netflix, Disney Plus didn't exist, Xbox's/Playstations weren't invented, bowling allies, multi plex cinema's bars/restaurants weren't massive chains like today. The fact that Cardiff had gone from nigh on 50k to low 20k is also telling, I think sadly for the sport it will be a continued managed decline if Birmingham and Sheffield don't start next year I personally think they will have to with one big league of 12-14 clubs, 5 man teams at a standard around the current championship. Okay you would lose loyal great riders like Doyle and Kurtz but I don't think for many clubs crowds would drop much lower and people wouldn't have to put up with a guest fest if most of the riders were UK based and clubs could dictate the race night more than having to fit round gp stars. I would imagine in the perfect world no club would really want to run on a Monday or Tuesday, the other option as Mike mentioned is you maybe just have open meetings once a month and do away with the team side of things, again I can remember ten years or so back going to a world team cup qualifier at Lynn which pulled in 5k so demand is there for the right meetings. I sadly think today there's to many other things competing for peoples dollar and unless you get the much awaited big chief in to try and turn things around who's got 10-30 mil available to buy all the stadiums the return of the glory days are a pipe dream. Might be worth contacting Amazon and seeing if they would be willing to do a series like Clarkson's farm where maybe they front the money for Alan Sugar to try and turn a club around. Still when its run well the best sport ever in my opinion the final four heats in the world cup final a couple of years back show what a great spectacle it is when you have a decent track and riders who are at the top of their game. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeOldPitGate Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 9 hours ago, PhilTheAce said: to much being said about the small crowd, one small crowd in 8 years of the final being at belle vue, was always going to happen at some point, why would people travel to belle vue 4 weeks before they will be for the GPs. im sure next season the numbers will be back higher for the british final with no GP at belle vue Hi Phil where is the british gp going to be for 2026 ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DBP Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 3 hours ago, R87 said: Can't get why anyone would want to see Harris riding in a GP again. He's had enough chances over the years. Because bomber gives it 100%he will never give up unlike half of the GP regulars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilTheAce Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 11 minutes ago, YeOldPitGate said: Hi Phil where is the british gp going to be for 2026 ? Nothing been said yet. I badly worded it. I hope it will be at belle Vue but the deal we have now is only for this year. so they will need to sit down and sort a deal out going forward. And hopefully a longer one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeOldPitGate Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 Here's the link to the world team cup meeting I mentioned at Lynn looks like it was 2011 the place was packed I also remember going down to Ipswich for the bank hol meetings when you would get 5-6k in looking at the Ellis/Thomson vid barely a thou there again Monday nights, same riders each week, more competition for the dollar are just nails in the coffin. I will say fair play to the promoters for all the flak they take they aren't in this game for the money lord knows how much Tolley must have lost but I would bet 500k to a mil isn't far off. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteelShoe Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 9 hours ago, Fromafar said: This was a fantastic advert for the Sport, but the bottom line is the travelling support nowadays is just not there.Crowd levels at most tracks in Championship are in the hundreds not thousands majority of supporters are middle aged or older.Irrespective of race day or advertising the Stadium was never going to be anywhere near half full.Quite sure a lot of fans watched it on TV though.The glory days of GB speedway are long gone. Sad but true. If the ingredients were present for producing the quality of racing seen last night across speedway in general it may be different. Speedway needs crowds, crowds need to be entertained . The penny still doesn't appear to be dropping with those running the sport. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeOldPitGate Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 Sorry getting old here's the link Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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