The only problem is that promoters will find ways round any rules if they wish.
It's a bit like computer hacking in that you can put on all the best security in the world but if someone with the correct knowledge wants to hack in they will do so.

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We wern't born to follow, we were born to lead

Why on earth a promoter would want to find a way to get round a rule that is in place to aid the survival of his business is a mystery John.

OK so a club like Poole, who can afford top dollar, may attempt to break ranks and get an all star team for short term success.

The thing is, could any club operate in isolation, i.e if they had forced all the other clubs out of business and as such had no one to race against, would they survive, the answer is of course no.

It is in each clubs best interest that all the other clubs are financially stable, while theyy compete on track clubs should not be competing off track, quite the opposite.

Wouldn't one way to cut costs be to ban riders from getting engines tuned as much as now and to start reducing the cost of machinery etc? Riders are only earning this amount because speedway is an expensive sport to survive in.

Thats a chicken and egg scenario Moxey, tuners charge these sums because they know what a few extra points are worth to a rider.

There is no justification for paying thousands to tune a speedway engine, it is the most basic form of motorcycle engine in motorsport.

Obviously an element of tuning is required because of differing sizes, weights, techniques of riders etc, but modern engines are now tuned to rev more than they were ever intended to and as such have a severly limited lifespan

Speedway shouldn't be such an expensive sport to survive in, it's just been allowed to evolve that way.

But all promotions want to win, and some at all costs.
Re engine tuners, many are now based abroad and this adds to the costs because engines have to be transported.
I remember Ted Howells (who was one of the best) telling me that he built engines to last and that whilst they were not the super rockets that some built they would be fast enough for most. People like Les and Neil Collins seemed to be able to make them work and they were known for not wanting to spend fortunes on motors but wanted them to last.

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We wern't born to follow, we were born to lead

Ted did Morts engines and he didn't do too bad on them. With Ted doing the tuning and Harold Gardner straighening the forks, diamond, back half etc a rider could get through a season on a few hundred pounds!!!!!


As regards the win at all cost mentality, that cost could well end up being the sports very future.

We keep coming back to this question of tuning and its cost. This means that we keep coming back to the hobby horse that I have been riding for years
IMHO speedway started going downhill with the advent of the four valve engines. What did they do for speedway ? They clipped half a second off lap times. They also increased the costs out of all proportion. They increased the number of injuries. They required slick tracks which in turn reduced racing lines, and the spectacle of the sport.
I have long advocated a bog standard, virtually unbreakable engine with tuning outlawed, apart from via the sprockets and chainwheel.
Going even further into Utopia, these engines to be held by the clubs, and drawn by numbers, leaving sufficent time to fit them into the riders frames via standard location points. This would slow the racing down, allow more dirt on the tracks, and hence, racing lines. This would put an end to the pointless "Nuclear Arms Race" scenario where hundreds of thousands of pounds are spent, which add nothing to the sport. In actual fact it detracts from the sport.
With a standard low cost engine, perhaps more youngsters would be attracted into the sport, and would stay in the sport.

Perhaps the results of races would depend more on the talent of riders rather than their purchaing power

Wouldn't it be lovely to see real racing again

What comes after Speedway " RACING ", So whatever you do there`s going to be someone who wants to have the advantage of being Faster/Better etc , be it Specially "Tuned" Engines, Special Frames , Special Clutches/Plates etc etc etc , The list is endless and it all costs Money , things will never change unfortunately........

What makes me laugh is all these Guys have their Engines tuned for max BHP and then spend half their Night at the Races trying to detune things because their Engine is too Strong and spinning too much,for the Slick Track which again unfortunately is the Norm ..........

Lucky

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" I am a not a Man ...... I am Cantona"

Phil, I hear you brother, they spend a million quid to tune their engines to keep up with the next guy, then when the track is as slick as my head, spend valuable time desparately attempting to detune the very same thing they spent their metaphoric million quid on in the first place.

Wot this has to do with Edinburgh v BV, I honestly don't have a clue.

TEL

Remember the experiment with Honda? The aim of that if i recall correctly was to reduce the costs for the riders whilst bringing onboard one of the worlds biggest manufacturers. If im not mistaken wasnt there a trial match run using these machines at stoke? If this had been pursued im sure honda could have come up with a specific machine that could have reduced costs significantly, i know gp riders want everything faster than everything else but could the honda machine have been used in league matches leaving the gp riders to finance their own super bikes for that competition? It could possibly have proved cost effective if it had been given half a chance.