Will speedway survive ?

[Deleted]

Sept 5, 2008 15:59:12 GMT @schumi said:

Who wrote that?

South London press speedway correspondent

[Deleted]

To move this on a bit, are the current crop of riders the worst ever ? best ever ? when was the golden era of riding ability ?

[Deleted]

Can you wait till I've had a go at your first question before 'moving it on a bit' - I thought it was meetings that people wanted speeding up not forum threads

Speedway will probably continue in some form for a while with greater reliance on the 'part time' rider as money gets tighter and tighter

The phrasing of your question is perhaps more telling of the state of the sport - 'survival' is the best we can hope for whilst other sports look at how they can move into new markets or make their product more appealing to a wider audience (Twenty20 cricket, rugby league and the geographic expansion of the franchises, heck even scrambling is popular now its called motorX) speedway continues to try and insulate itself from the modern world in the way steam railway enthusiasts revel in faded glory

Whats to be done? Personally I think its probably too far gone and we need someone with the vision, money and sheer bloodymindedness to start completely afresh with a similar but different product but thats probably too much to hope for

As for the second question, who was the best - cant compare eras too many changes in equipment, track surfaces etc (interesting to hear Darren Gough and some other cricketers talking about Bradman the other day - whilst obviously very respectful of all he achieved they were less than impressed with footage of his technique saying he couldnt play that way today, they then went on to say he would probably be good enough to make the changes necessary to be successful in any era but whether he would be so dominant was questionable)

[Deleted]

Sept 5, 2008 21:13:07 GMT @tonym said:

Can you wait till I've had a go at your first question before 'moving it on a bit' - I thought it was meetings that people wanted speeding up not forum threads

Speedway will probably continue in some form for a while with greater reliance on the 'part time' rider as money gets tighter and tighter

The phrasing of your question is perhaps more telling of the state of the sport - 'survival' is the best we can hope for whilst other sports look at how they can move into new markets or make their product more appealing to a wider audience (Twenty20 cricket, rugby league and the geographic expansion of the franchises, heck even scrambling is popular now its called motorX) speedway continues to try and insulate itself from the modern world in the way steam railway enthusiasts revel in faded glory

Whats to be done? Personally I think its probably too far gone and we need someone with the vision, money and sheer bloodymindedness to start completely afresh with a similar but different product but thats probably too much to hope for

As for the second question, who was the best - cant compare eras too many changes in equipment, track surfaces etc (interesting to hear Darren Gough and some other cricketers talking about Bradman the other day - whilst obviously very respectful of all he achieved they were less than impressed with footage of his technique saying he couldnt play that way today, they then went on to say he would probably be good enough to make the changes necessary to be successful in any era but whether he would be so dominant was questionable)

Thanks for your comments tony, i totally agree its very hard to compare the abilities of say huxley, duggan, fundin, penhall, pedersen individually, but can we not speculate with some degree of accuracy over era's ?
personally i get the feeling that currently the standard of world speedway is at one of its poorest levels ever, possibly only beaten by 1928-1930, where as i lean towards the post war era as being the best.
For the record i have always felt Vic Duggan was the greatest rider of all time

[Deleted]

Sept 5, 2008 15:49:46 GMT @hatcham said:

Thanks for the comments, the reason i posted this today,was because i had just read an article which said:

" Speedway will go downhill if someone doesn't think of something to spice up the interest,in fact the only ones to cling to it will be hysterical 16 year old girls. The same riders are always winning, races where the four riders are strung out in a line, long waits between events, and the vast difference in standard between the teams"

what do you all think ?

A decent stab.

[Deleted]

It certainly is not the same value for money nowadays. Back in the 60s and 70s you got the main league match, then a second half that consisted of (at Lynn anyway) 2-4 junior races, a proper KO type second half trophy comp, of 3 races and a final. OK some of those 2nd half trophy races were shall we say "thrown" but none the less they provided entertainment. Some weeks there was even a junior team match as well.
What do you get now? A league match and that is drawn out so it lasts the same amount of time as the league match and 7 extra races took back then.

As for the quality of racing, that's a matter of opinion and I doubt everyone will ever agree. Maybe it's rose tinted glasses but I thought it was better back then. IMHO the quality of the racing has declined since the advent of lay down engines and the speed at all costs mentality that prevails nowadays.

Go back to bog standard upright engines, decently prepared tracks and proper second halves and things might improve

The most skillful rider I ever saw ride (and sadly it was only a few times near the end of his career) was Ove Fundin. The only rider that comes close for me is Gollob and he has to be in the right mood

[hizzy]

Go back to bog standard upright engines, decently prepared tracks and proper second halves and things might improve.

In your experience, what is the determining factor in having upright engines, that are having more of longevity factor to the sport as opposed to lay down ones?

[Deleted]

IMHO they provided better racing, pure and simple.

Lay downs do not seem as manouverable to me and from what the muppets keep saying on Sky are far too technical. For me speedway is about RIDER skill, not engine tuner skill. There are times when the lay down just seems to take off and the most skillful rider in the world can do piss all about it. That didn't happen with uprights (well if it did I can't remember it).

[hizzy]

Lay downs do not seem as manouverable to me

What do you know? In fact, the opposite is true.

[admin]

Sept 6, 2008 21:36:30 GMT @hizzy said:

Lay downs do not seem as manouverable to me

What do you know? In fact, the opposite is true.

Pissed up and spoiling for a fight, again?

[hizzy]

No, just trying to add to the debate on this thread.

[schumi]

Sept 6, 2008 21:44:58 GMT @hizzy said:

No, just trying to add to the debate on this thread.

Why? I thought you hated all of us. Just for the record, have a look and see who's been bumping your thread on the BSF:

www.speedway-forum.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=43317&st=30

Perhaps you might want to try being a bit more polite. This (yes, I've quoted it so you can't delete it this time):

Sept 6, 2008 21:36:30 GMT @hizzy said:

What do you know?

is hardly reasoned debate is it? In fact, it's just plain rude.

[admin]

Sept 6, 2008 21:44:58 GMT @hizzy said:

No, just trying to add to the debate on this thread.

Okay, good.
I'm not "up to speed" on the issue of engines, but from what I've read and heard, laydown engines are easier to ride on the slicker tracks, but a bit of a struggle when a track is deeper. The laydown engines seem ideally suited to the big, slick tracks of the continent.

[Deleted]

Sept 5, 2008 13:32:05 GMT @kevh said:

Sept 5, 2008 13:03:30 GMT @wacks said:

I might dig a few out again and post some of the comments on here over the weekend, you can then compare whether the sports in any better state now than it was in the early-mid 70's onwards.

It would be good if you could Wacks........it would make interesting reading.

Here you go then Kev, first of a few snippets from the 70's if people are interested.



Monday 6th September 1976 - Racers v. White City

Guest riders can be justified (and so can special dispensation)

By G Shailes

Guest riders. The mere mention of the subject is guaranteed to bring strong reaction from all speedway supporters - and many promoters as well. If, for good measure, you happend to refer to "special dispensation" as well, then the chances are that a king-size argument wil be the order of the day.

You will doubtless remember that at the start of the present season, the new regs came into being regarding the r/r rules. These, speedway was led to believe, would cut do the use of guest riders, which was in danger of getting out of hand and making the sport a laughing stock. But, like so many things in our sport, things didn't work out like officialdom planned, and before long we were treated to teams using both guest riders and the new r/r rules, and yet everything was straight & above board with none of the rules of speedway being broken.

It's hardly surprising, therefore, that fans and promoters alike began to think that the sport of speedway had finally gone crazy. Some promoters voiced their opinions against hte guest system in very strong terms, and Wolverhampton, who seemed to be taking advantage of the system more than most, became dubbed "rent-a-team", even though they were doing nothing illegal, speedway-wise.

So, with so many people opposed in principle to the guest system, you would think that when a team turned up to race with six - yes, six - guest rider and special dispensation to waive the 8 day rule there would be howls of protest, harsh critisism in the press & unpleasant phrases like "farce", "a nonsense" and "holding the sport to ridicule" would be banded about.

But this did not happen. Far from it. On this occasion I found both fans & officials sympathetic, and many agreed that if ever there was a case for guest riders then this was it. The occasion was the recent Swindon v. Leicester league match, when the Lions arrived to race with, in fact, just one Lion, Doug Underwood, and his six team mates were all guests, two of whom had raced at Blunsdon the previous week.

The reason that everyone so happily accepted is unique situation was simple. The Lions just didn't have anyone other than Doug Underwood who could ride. Ray Wilson & Reidar Eide were out with broken legs, No. 8 rider Alan Emerson sidelined with a broken arm, young Polish discovery Greg Szczepanik a broken hand &Tony Lomas retired. As if this wasn't anough, the Teromma brothers had been recalled to Finland to take part in their country's national championships - and, in any case, Pepe Teromma couldn't have been available, since he had to remain at home to comlpete his Uni course.

There may have been the ususual cynic who would argue that the fixture should have been run at som other time, but this wouldn't have helped Leicester. For even if that were possible, the Lions could still have only tracked two riders.

There's no doubt that by granting Leicester special dispensation and almost free usage of guests officialdom had acted wisely and in the best interest of hte sport, and i believe tha, knowing the unfortunate circumstances that have befallen Leicester, everyone involved with speedway will readily accept them.

Leicester's case is special - very special - and I believe that guest riders and special dispensation can be justified, but only when teams are as badly hit as the Lions So when the 1977 season comes along (and it's too late do do much this year), let's bear their predicament in mind & keep the guest rider system for hte really deserving cases. Speedway will be all the better for it.





For the record - the meeting finished 39-39 with the Racers pulling back a 9 point defecit after heat 7 with nothing more than an old Tac Sub ride where Dave Jessup replaced reserve Les Collins (think he was a guest ;D) in heat 8.

[Deleted]

Sept 6, 2008 23:03:30 GMT @wacks said:

Here you go then Kev, first of a few snippets from the 70's if people are interested.

Thanks for that Wacks, and I agree with the scribe totally.......no matter how you word the rule book, there will always be 'exceptional circumstances'.

The secret is in balancing the two, and with the nature of our sport, which can be so cruel at times, that's a very difficult thing to do!!