Any Speedway Fans?

SimonC

I love a bit of speedway, me.

Tai Woffinden is all set to win his 3rd World title tonight in Poland, provided he holds his nerve against his nearest rival who happens to be a Pole, in front of a very partisan Polish crowd.

Tai is probably the best British speedway rider of all time, and probably the most succesful British sportsman in any field over recent years.
Any other sport and this would be plastered all over the papers.

Its on BT sports tonight if anyone’s interested.

MattBanshee

Used to go watch the Poole Pirates and Weymouth Wildcats when I was smol. I remember it always being great fun.

blobb

I remember being in a petrol station with my dad when I was about 4, he was talking to this chap about something. He comes over to me and hands me two enamel pin badges with speedway bikes on. "That was Peter *****, speedway champion". I thought he was world famous or something. Still got the badges.  Would have been something to do with one of the Midland clubs (Wolverhampton / Cradley?), mid70's. Peter Collins rings a bell? Might have to look him up.

SimonC

blobb said:

I remember being in a petrol station with my dad when I was about 4, he was talking to this chap about something. He comes over to me and hands me two enamel pin badges with speedway bikes on. "That was Peter *****, speedway champion". I thought he was world famous or something. Still got the badges.  Would have been something to do with one of the Midland clubs (Wolverhampton / Cradley?), mid70's. Peter Collins rings a bell? Might have to look him up.

Most likely Peter Collins if it was the 70’s, although he rode for Belle Vue in Manchester for his whole career.

RandallFlagg

I used to watch Michael Lee at King's Lynn when I was a kid

the_jaffa

SimonC said:

Tai is probably the best British speedway rider of all time, and probably the most succesful British sportsman in any field over recent years.
Any other sport and this would be plastered all over the papers.

Apologies for derailing the thread slightly but this is the problem with minority sports. There are a fairly large number of sports where the world's best are British but that are just not publicised much. Because we follow them we can't believe that they aren't covered more and that "our guy" is not more famous. This also leads to us not knowing of other sports stars in other fields.

For instance, you've said that you think that TW might be the "most successful British sportsman in any field over recent years" but as a fan of mountain biking I would have to raise you Rachel Atherton who has just won her 5th World Championship Title, is 6 times World Cup Champion (including a perfect season in 2016 where she won every World level race there was) and is multiple British Champ. That out ranks TW in my eyes (not demeaning his performance at all) but there is probably someone else in a sport that neither of us know much about that is even more dominant.

It would be lovely if the general news would cover something other that the usual suspects in more detail and more regularly but we have to face facts that the other sports just don't have the interest amongst the general public.

Oh, and I live about half a mile from Sheffield's Speedway track and can hear the bikes from my house. I really ought to get down there sometime

SimonC

Agree entirely with what you say @the_jaffa ;

I guess football trumps everything these days.

Speedway world finals used to fill Wembley in the 70s.

blobb

Was he any good? Dad was a fan, knew who he was straight away and was pretty impressed that we had bumped into him. He looked a bit like Barry Sheene and rode motorbikes which, for a 4 year old who was mad into Barry Sheene and motorbikes at the time, was good enough for me.

Speedway was/is pretty big in the Midlands. I took and interest after meeting 'Peter' and I remember there being some amazing Norwegian bloke called Ole(?) who I thought was the business! I started following it again when I moved to Warwickshire and it was on local radio a lot. Would have been around the time Tai was starting to come to prominence.

SimonC

blobb said:

Was he any good? Dad was a fan, knew who he was straight away and was pretty impressed that we had bumped into him. He looked a bit like Barry Sheene and rode motorbikes which, for a 4 year old who was mad into Barry Sheene and motorbikes at the time, was good enough for me.

Was he any good?
Yes, not too shabby really. He was World Chamion in 1976 and won the World Team cup 5 times.

Ole, would be Ole Olsen from Denmark, 3 times World champion.

scrumhalf

I read this and the name Dave Jessop came to mind. They used to have speedway on World of Sport occasionally, Dave Lanning doing the commentary.

blobb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OV3Ltyyt-A

SimonC

the_jaffa said:

Oh, and I live about half a mile from Sheffield's Speedway track and can hear the bikes from my house. I really ought to get down there sometime

You should go. A lot of teams are struggling to survive and it’s a case of use it or lose it.

I used to live in Hillsborough so Sheffield is my team, although I’m no longer in Sheff.

BigBearKris

blobb said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OV3Ltyyt-A

Have a Wow. Great that one.

Paul_C

I'm sure a lot of it is down to Sky et.al. buying up the TV rights so fewer people end up watching it.

I used to watch all the Moto GP practice sessions, World Superbike etc. on Eurosport, but when it all went over to Sky (after a brief time on BBC2) I haven't watched it for years, because I can't be arsed to pay extra. The same goes for F1, American Football and many others, once I stopped watching for a while I lost interest in keeping up with it.

Paul_C

p.s.

I used to go to the Speedway a bit with my ex-wife and Jason Crump used to live a couple of streets away from me.

robgilmo

I worked with Rob Parish for a few years, some of the stories he told me about his racing days were, well , pretty harsh at times, broken bones, crashes, and he was racing the following day.

skunkwerx

Yep. Used to be a marshal at the Lakeside Hammers/Vortex Hammers a few moons back with my stepdad. 

Was my second 'real' job actually, back when I was around 19/20. 

Would turn up on raceday and sweep the pits, help grade the track, install all the fences and lug the air fences from the storage to the trackside. 

Fond memories of being let loose with all the old vehicles, mainly hi-aces and old transits that didnt need to be kept road legal, and there was something great in that! Rusted, dirty, nothing worked. 

Several times the tractor would be out of fuel, so we'd get a pipe and a full jerry can  and suck it up.. nothing like a mouthful of diesel at 6am in the morning. 

I learnt a lot about myself actually. 
The first time I swept the pits my hands were absolutely ruined, blistered and red raw, that was at midday, we'd be there til gone 11pm putting everything away! 

Zipping up each section of the air fence required a detailed touch, so no gloves, hands freezing and numb, getting sore from all the dirt and shale that covered them. They were heavy too uninflated! 
Meanwhile the senior staff would be doing laps of the track grating and spraying water everywhere, soaking everyone around.. 

They wouldnt stop for us either, we'd have one eye on our backs at all times! 

Absolutely no training except a quick 'heres how to drive a tractor' etc, no health and safety forms, nothing. Could smoke all day to boot. 

It was absolutely great. I learned a lot about myself, my body and its feeble nature, hard work and getting it done no matter the weather, only to have the race called off because its began raining! 

I remember the actual race being the down time. 
All I had to do was stand on my corner, raise a red flag if someone came off or the lights came on, and usually hit on the ambulance girls or photographer who always wore a rammstein hoody.. I remember that, never did talk to her ha.  

That was/is at the Arena Essex, which unfortunately the Hammers have now moved out of and gone to Rye house. 

Shame because I always quite liked the atmosphere, and it was on my works doorstep. 

Missed the majority of the last 6 years due to having to work in Lakeside itself til 10pm every weekend, so usually when its on tv I'll check it out if I can. 
But I've become a bit out of date with it, though many riders are still about. 

Tais a cool dude, met him a couple times in passing, seemed happy to stop and pose for a quick snap before the races. 

My favourites from my working days were always Lee Richardson, rest in peace Rico, Andreas Jonsson and of course Chris 'bomber' Harris and Scott Nichols. 

Used to drive over to Wales once a year to see the British Gp. Which was always great. 

boogieman

Used to go when I was a kid in the 60’s. The Wembley Lions were the local team but I remember going to Hackney as well. Barry Briggs and Ivan Mauger (pronounced Major) were the big heroes at the time. Peter Collins definitely rings a bell. 

skunkwerx

Well, I watched all of tonights proceedings. 

He's a bloody confident bloke that Tai. 

Something he said about the law of attaction.. I'm gonna have to look into that if it works for him ha!

usedtobe

Used to watch it on tv when I was a kid. Bloody hell, Peter Collins, that’s a blast from the past. I used to love it. Never seen it live, but I’d give it a go, on terrestrial tv, for old times sake, and see how it goes..

usedtobe

I remember ole Olson too.. crikey, I’d actually forgotten all about speedway, and now it’s coming back to me how much I enjoyed it..