The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
The last time I sat down at the computer at the
beginning of the season I thought lets try to be upbeat it’s a new season one
or two new things, a new track and at the local track meetings although not
going the way of the homesters were providing good
well presented racing. Well now the dust has settled things don’t seem to have
improved much at all, at best its as you were and in some cases its worse than
that Jim !
The demise of
Maybe teams are too expensive to run, but its difficult to understand how dropping top class
international riders is going to improve matters. It will reduce expenses obviously
but that’s in the unlikely event that crowd numbers don’t drop. We were treated
to Mr Postlethwaite’s views in ‘The Star’ about costs
and he revealed that each Elite Club gets around £50,000 from Sky with one
promoter getting 30% of the Sky money plus what he gets from his club – yes he
did broker the deal but will Sky be interested next year if two more clubs have
already dropped out ? Rather than shell out more money
as Mr Postlethwaite is suggesting Sky could turn
their back on league speedway completely unless of course they can be convinced
that the Premier League can cut it. There has to be 10-11 clubs to have any
kind of meaningful league - it all looks like short term thinking with speedway
potentially the loser again
!
On top of all this we have the silly situation where
Peterborough had to ride at Coventry minus their top three riders and if that
isn’t bad enough the BSPA distance themselves from the whole squabble and tell
the teams to sort it out themselves – what’s that all about then ?
On a more positive note the Cardiff GP, a definite
high spot, anyone who was there will never forget it and a British winner well
what can you say. Not to mention the pre-meeting entertainment – no I don’t
think we will mention that !
And the attendance hmm
interesting - quoted variously as a record, over 40,000 , 41,000 + and in the
Speedway Star if you look hard enough an exact
figure of 41,247 - well according to our records as published on the FIM
website the 2002 figure was a nice round 42,000 well er
not a record then.
It looks like having a short memory may be a good
attribute for a speedway fan along with patience as ‘The Star’ points out in
its Cardiff write up - “sometimes you have to marvel at the patience of your
average speedway fan” this was of course referring to the mix-up in the backing
tapes for the pre-meeting “Live” entertainment ! However in my experience around the tracks
it’s a necessary attribute for any speedway fan - unfortunately as I’m getting
older I have less of it and have to
question why we have to wait around for nearly 2 hours for 15 minutes of actual
racing.
It couldn’t be that the match is being “padded out” to
make it seem that we are getting more, maybe some spectators like to watch a
tractor towing a bed frame endlessly round a track, maybe someone will buy a
burger and a pint before the Red Cross start flying food parcels in, who knows ? And what happened to the second half
?
And another question - why is it only deemed necessary
to grade the track every four races in a GP yet at your local track it can take
place after the first race or anywhere else in the programme where the home
promoter may feel his side needs a bit of extra time or needs to sell that
fizzy beer before it goes flat. Oh and of course very occasionally the tractor
may breakdown on the track – nothing to do with the fact that the home no.1 is
replacing a motor in the pits - nah !
Over the last few weeks I have noticed that at Stoke
the presentation seems to have slipped back to where it was. At the recent
meeting against the Isle of Wight there was regular grading coupled with falls
- a lot of which had to do with track conditions – why do promoters now feel
the need to rip up the outside of the bends ? This happens particularly on turns
1 and 2 and is done just before the meetings start sometimes resulting as on
this occasion in deep heavy shale where it appears very difficult to turn the
bike. The resulting finishing time of ten to ten was some twenty minutes passed
the alleged curfew.
On to Newport never a track noted for its slick
presentation – grading after heats 2,4, & 8 = 8hts in 50 minutes, a 22 minute interval
(Tractor Racing) then one more grading after heat 10 and a finish at 10 to six
from a 4pm start – not too bad at 1hr 50min.
And then the meeting that encapsulated the lot –
almost everything that you may see at a track – some of which you never want to
see – in just the same way that the British weather can give you a taste of all
four seasons in one day ……………………
The match ? Poole v
The bad - well an hour and ten minutes to run seven races has
to be some kind of record. There was even grading between the first running and
the re-run of heat 1, grading then was religiously carried out after heats 1,2,3,5,& 7.
The Ugly - Richard
Hall’s excursion over the safety fence what can you say? First reports suggest
he is not seriously hurt in which case the event may be seen as spectacular -
but it couldn’t have been fun. The incident resulted in there being two ambulances
on the track and a delay of over an hour but well after Richard’s departure to
the accident unit it appeared that there were extreme problems in repairing the
two broken posts in the safety fence. The announcement was made that the damage
to the fence may be terminal and there may be an abandonment; cue the “get away
before heat 15 finishes brigade” to up and go. The re-admission ticket would of
course be available for any of the next three meetings – really handy if you’re
down there on a weeks holiday ! Oh of course more
grading took place during the enforced wait – the tractors having to detour
around the ambulances !
The Good – The meeting did recommence – much to the chagrin of
those who left early and would find out later that they missed 8 heats of top
drawer speedway, without the aid of a
grader. These were in fact completed within thirty five minutes – fantastic and really well worth the
wait.
According to the local paper the following day the
crowd that night was around 4,000 – it just shows what can be achieved.
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