Irene Best

The charming and friendly Irene Best has sadly passed away. Proud to be from Newcastle and even prouder of Newcastle Speedway, Irene typified the warm welcome you receive in the speedway office portacabin at Newcastle Stadium (aka Brough Park). Even more importantly, her love and dedication to the sport typifies the unassuming modesty of so many speedway fans who genuinely respect the handlebar heroes who thrill them and enjoy to the full the sense of belonging and community that the sport engenders. She’ll be sadly missed by many people.



From Concrete for Breakfast

In the passageway outside the speedway office is the small kitchen manned by volunteer Mrs Irene Best who looks after one of the key tasks at the club – making the tea and coffee! Traditionally, you’ve barely arrived in the building before she kindly enquires if you’d like any refreshment. “I’m a lifelong supporter of Newcastle Speedway. I came along as a child before the War – I can’t really remember it. It must be raining the way that phone keeps ringing off the hook! I just took to it – I lived locally at the bottom of Fosse Way. There was the war in 1939 and in 1946-47 we had Ken Le Breton – the White Ghost. My husband was more into grass tracking. I’ve never followed any other sport. Of course, our only child has come all his life and doesn’t know any other. He’s a man of 46-47 now, Robbie – he’s the Track Manager. Of course a lot of people give him a lot of help, I mean my son works full time as well as doing that. Monday was always our race night. The promoter I remember the most was Johnny Hoskins in the 1940s and 50s. I’ve seen some good riders come and go over the years. In the 60s there was Mauger. Of course we had the young Kenny Carter – we had Ole Olsen and Anders Michanek. All told we’ve had six or seven World Champions. Apart from my family, it’s my one and only love! And I’ve made some good friendships over the years. And the Owen family – Tom Owen, not Joe, is my favourite all-time rider. He’s a gentleman – and still keeping in touch with me!” At that moment we’re interrupted from our brief trip down memory lane by the arrival of one part of the club presentation team (and club Finance Director), Andrew Dalby, and also by George English who happens to open the door of his office at that moment. “Ee, George, the place is crawling with Sunderland fans! What’s happening here?” George rolls with the punches in life and speedway, so a few more Sunderland fans is just something you have to take in your stride, “I can’t blame him he doesn’t live here but this one [Andrew] does!”

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From Quantum of Shale

In the small kitchen directly outside the door of the speedway office, Irene Best is notable by her absence, not least because she oils the wheels of a successful meeting with an endless supply of cups of tea and coffee. Her son Robbie is the track curator at the club and rejoices in the grandiose title of Circuit Manager in the club programme. Later, I bump into Irene who, for the first time as long as she can remember, has had to miss some Diamonds meetings at Brough Park because of a bad back, “I can’t remember when I last missed two meetings! We’ve had some great riders here…..[pause] Did you see the World Team Cup? It was like seeing the Danish Diamonds – Kenneth Bjerre, Bjarne Pedersen and Nicki Pedersen all started here!”

“We are all entitled to an opinion though, in some cases, it is better to defer to those who know best…the riders”

For those of us outside the charmed circle of speedway bigwigs and journalists who receive press releases from the BSI Press Office, we have to suffice with the thin informational pickings provided by the cleans whiter than white SGP website. Occasionally the SGP Press Officer, Philip Rising, selectively responds to real or imagined comments about the quality of the product on offer to the fans. As usual, Cardiff provoked a healthy postbag at the Speedway Star offices and prompted a “Point of View with Philip Rising” (July 18th issue) notionally in response to a letter from David Sturge. His repost conflated separate comments about the track prepared (“rubbish”) for the 2009 event and the quality of the staging venue itself.

Though we again still don’t have official attendance figures, those who did watch (or, indeed, race) at Cardiff we were treated to an event staged on track widely acknowledged as way better than the eight previous years. We can return to why it has taken so long to prepare such a track shortly but first let us savour the selective memory of Mr Rising’s appeal to the ultimate authority in these matters. He notes, “we are all entitled to an opinion though, in some cases, it is better to defer to those who know best…the riders.”

This sounds a reasonable enough point to make until you recall that for many years the riders have pointedly highlighted that the quality of the surface needed significant attention. This was for many reasons and these included it short-changed the viewing public, placed luck & chance ahead of skill and, most recently, verged on the dangerous. Rider and fan complaints about track quality have been the order of the day after many of the Cardiff stagings. Here are some relatively recent comments offered by the riders after the 2007 staging of the Cardiff event.

Hans Andersen: “the track was really, really rutty…it cut up badly…it broke up and became very hit and miss”
Jason Crump: “the track was a bit rougher than I’d hoped, probably a bit rougher than everyone had hoped”
David Howe: “I always struggle with deep ruts”
Tomasz Gollob: “I was just unable to master the track surface”
Jaroslaw Hampel: “the track surface is not very different to what we had used to ride in the previous years”
Greg Hancock: “the track was so demanding….although it makes the racing more interesting, it can make superstars look like amateurs at times”
Scott Nicholls: “it was like a minefield in places, you couldn’t see the ruts”
Nicki Pedersen: “The atmosphere at Cardiff is always fantastic, and it is great for the fans, but it is the worst track in the GP series. It cuts up so badly & you just can’t see the ruts…on a normal track you see the ruts coming”

Far from listening or learning from these comments, the BSI management sailed on regardless to oversee the preparation of an even more deleterious surface for the riders to race upon for the next Cardiff (2008) staging. The riders were even less happy with these conditions.

Leigh Adams: “it ruts up & it makes it dangerous”
Nicki Pedersen: “if this is going to happen again next year, I’m quite sure the riders are going to stick together & they’re going to end up with no events here in Cardiff”
Greg Hancock: “I hate to say it, but it was probably one of the worst tracks we’ve seen in Cardiff..I don’t mind the track being a little rough, it makes it more exciting, more fun & more technical, but it’s still got to be safe….I like it to be a little rough because it makes things happen, but not to a dangerous level and tonight was beyond that, it was dangerous & you saw a lot of crashes”
Krzysztof Kasprzak: “this track is terrible…I’ve heard the more experienced riders want to meet before the Czech GP to discuss the issue. I believe they will tell the organisers they will not race if such a track like Cardiff appears again.”
Tomasz Gollob: “the whole evening was bad for speedway. How can you call it any other way if riders fell off their bikes? What can you say when the eventual winner crosses the finishing line perpendicularly…safety first, and that was missing tonight”

Whether it was the threat of rider action or basic common sense that prompted change we will never know. However, that the solution was always close at hand and ‘easy’ to implement evaded the renowned management team behind this event who, instead, preferred to continue to invest in the wrapping rather than the present. For example, great play was made about the often pitiful and anodyne aural entertainment on offer rather than bother to try to fix the problematic track itself. It beggars belief that BSI ignored the opinions from the riders Mr Rising now suddenly valorises as authoritative. After plaudits for the 2009 event, a breathlessly excited and self-congratulatory Mr. Paul Bellamy reportedly commented that the SGP organisers have now finally invested in 4000 tones of ‘high quality’ Derbyshire shale (and brought in the required associated equipment needed to tend and install it properly). This is worthy of belated congratulation and so too is news that they will store it at Cardiff Docks so they can reuse it every year. However, ‘how come this took so long?’ would be a better question to ponder rather than castigate the temerity of readers letters? We could learn whether this decision was some deluded cost saving or just another example of teacher knows best? Mr Rising doesn’t give us the benefit of an insight into why such decisions took until the ninth year to arrive at. It’s all the more perplexing, given the huge revenues and profits generated by the Cardiff event alone, never mind that the shale was reputed to only cost in the region of £35 per ton and the storage costs aren’t likely to be killing (never mind that they’re both tax deductable expenses). Again, the organisers appear to historically have been penny wise but pound foolish at the expense of the competitors and fans alike.

If those paying customers (aka the “fans”) who cavil are peremptorily told by the Press Officer of the SGP series it’s “short sighted” to blame the (billiard table-esque almost shaleless) track for the lack of excitement and overtaking in 2009. Then, surely, it’s even more “short sighted” that such a simple and economical remedy with regard to the quality of materials used can have been ignored by the SGP management for the previous eight years to the detriment of their own flagship signature event? Though past performance indicates that this is unlikely, maybe now is the time for the organisers to do more listening to the riders and/or the fans if they wish to improve their SGP series before it wanes further?

Kenny Smith 1954-2009

From Scunthorpe Press Release

13th July 2009

Kenneth Ian Smith 1954-2009 R.I.P.

After a near three-year battle against throat cancer, Kenny Smith, the Scorpions’ Team Manager, died on Monday morning at 6.15 a.m. at his home in Yarm. Over recent weeks his condition had deteriorated but after being told he only had days to live early last week he pledged to lead his side one last time. On Saturday his courage was on show for all to see as, unable to walk any significant distance, he was taken around the track on the back of David Howe’s bike for two emotional laps of honour.

Kenny’s grandfather was one of the pioneer riders in the 1920’s and he began his own racing career in grasstrack before taking up speedway in the late sixties at Doncaster. However, he will be best remembered for his days in team management at Newcastle and over the last five years with Scunthorpe. After being involved at Middlesbrough he switched to Newcastle when the Teesside club’s Cleveland Park track closed. Newcastle Promoter and Team Manager, George English, soon made him Assistant Team Manager and Kenny took responsibility for the Newcastle Gems when they entered a side in the Conference League. During that time there were few young riders in the North who hadn’t been influenced by Kenny and after the Gems withdrew from the Conference League Kenny offered his services to us at Scunthorpe.

Early links with his past saw Byron Bekker and Ashley Johnson join the club but he had an exceptional talent for managing riders. He was well-respected by his riders and that is no small feat in the adrenaline-filled cauldron that is a speedway pits when charged with the onerous task of taking away a riders’ opportunity to earn a living. Ever since Kenny joined Scunthorpe Speedway it has benefitted from Kenny’s unswerving passion for the sport and our club. His commitment and dedication to the club was rewarded in 2007 when he became a co-promoter and the club could have never wished for a greater ambassador.

A devastated Scunthorpe promoter Rob Godfrey commented: “Kenny has been a great friend and we knew his death was coming but that doesn’t make it any easier. It was an very emotional night for all concerned on Saturday and we are all devastated at losing him. It has been an honour to have Kenny in our lives for the last five years. He was a great inspiration to me and he touched the hearts of so many people. He will forever be a part of Scunthorpe Speedway.”

Sheffield promoter Neil Machin was one of the first to join the wave of tributes to Kenny. “One of the conditions of Scunthorpe moving into the Premier League was that they had a good man in charge as team manager. I recommended Kenny. He was dedicated to the sport and it was a mark of his courage that he was at Scunthorpe on Saturday.”

Somerset General Manager Dave Croucher added “Kenny’s passing is a great loss to the sport and I am sure there will be many hundreds of riders, officials and staff at tracks all over the UK who will miss his company and have happy memories of this lovely man.”

Kenny’s funeral will take place on Tuesday, July 21, starting with a service at the Eddie Wright Raceway from 10 am. The funeral itself will be held at Woodlands Crematorium, Brumby Wood Lane, Scunthorpe, from 11 am. No flowers but donations are welcome to be made to the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Cards can be sent to: Scunthorpe Raceway Ltd, 157 Moorwell Road, Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, DN17 2SX.

For further information contact:


Robert Godfrey
Scunthorpe Speedway
157 Moorwell Road
Scunthorpe
DN17 2SX

Telephone: 01724-848899

or visit the club website




From Concrete for Breakfast

The place is already a hive of activity in the pits, on the track and in the general environs of the club grounds. On the way to the loos I bump into Scunthorpe Scorpions team manager, the endlessly hail and hearty “Kenneth Smith” (as the programme calls him), who’s so smartly dressed in jacket, collared shirt and tie that he could easily have just come from conducting some local Sunday School services. He’s always affable and chatty whenever I meet him and looks fit and healthy. I mention this only because the Speedway Star reported that he’s recently ‘battled’ with cancer. Last time I saw him I studiously didn’t mention it – I understand the last thing you need if you have cancer is prurient albeit well meaning curiosity about the exact details and the present state of play - but this time I do. Kenny makes very light of the situation and appears genuinely embarrassed that public record of the news has somehow made him unnecessarily the centre of attention when his preference would have been to keep it quiet. Almost predictably given his attitude to people and life, he couches his comments in the language of good fortune, opportunity and respect for the skills of all the medical practitioners he met as well as concern for the worry and stress that it’s caused his family and friends. He has a strong life force about him and an easy confidence, allied to a self-deprecating sense of humour that can only come naturally rather than be affected. “When the news came out in the Star, I didn’t know until the phone rang and I was asked if I was selling my Long Track bikes. I’m not but when I asked ‘why?’ they said, ‘well you won’t be needing them any more!’” After some more chatter, Kenny bustles off to get on with something he loves and relishes – his speedway duties.

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On the subject of dreams, the Scunthorpe riders have come out on their bikes for a victory parade to celebrate their convincing triumph. One of those on a machine is Kenny Smith who cuts an incongruously dashing figure in collared shirt, jacket flapping along with his ponytail. He pootles past grinning broadly and smirkingly catches the eye of his partner Julie Harrowven stood on the grass hillock in the knot of Scunny supporters, “that was to wind me up ’cause I told him I don’t want to push him in a wheelchair!” The backstory, as they’ve started to say in fashionable media circles nowadays, is slightly complicated since it mixes Kenny’s desire to beat his illness and pay tribute to a deceased young rider and his family. “He often says to me ‘I just want to ride four laps’. He wants to ride in the David Nix memorial meeting – ’cause he was there that night – but when he had his glands out it weakened a plated shoulder. He’ll make light of it and I know how good he is on a bike but if he needed to correct things, he’d be too weak to do it since the operation and that’s what I worry about!”



From Quantum of Shale

In the bar of my hotel, I bump into Scunthorpe team manager Kenny Smith ….[He] remains his usual cheerful, outgoing and clubbable self. His hair is tied into his trademark ponytail …an ex- speedway rider himself, Kenny takes a practical and sympathetic approach to young men he manages directly as well as those he’s previously worked with.... “I spoke to Charles Wright at Redcar on Thursday and asked him, what had happened there. He told me, ‘Auty had elbowed me first time out so I returned the favour’. I told him, ‘Lots of people will elbow you,’ and, he knows that.... At Scunthorpe Josh and Tai used to race all the time against each other when they were on the same team! I told them to ride as a team now and race each other in the World Final – as you’ll have plenty of time then!” Kenny has a casual modesty about his own racing career and skill as a rider. He has some unrepeatable stories about riding with Malcolm ‘Mad Wellie’ Holloway and some good stories about his experiences with Dave Mullett. He’s curious about what will happened to Reading speedway with the closure of Smallmead and also fondly recalls his days riding at Tilehurst. Various reminiscences from his time as a rider round the tracks blurt out, “I was taught how to ride at Exeter by Vaclav Verner. He said to aim at the fence and, then, brush your back wheel off it – woomph! Vaclav used to say his wheel only lasted eight meetings. We used to get up to all sorts. I remember Dave Kennett knocking me off (to break my wrist or arm) when he was really aiming to knock off second placed Dave Mullett – but I’d suddenly accelerated into that position! It’s different now to when I was a rider with lots of new tracks that we didn’t have then”

“It’s amazing how honest most people in speedway are. I got called to the gate at Scunny for a man who’d lost his wallet and I lent him £10 and the promoter said, ‘You’ll never see that again!’ And I said, ‘I’d have helped him anyway.’ The next week I was called back to the gate and repaid my money, he paid his entrance fee twice and spoke to Julie about a donation [£75] to the Riders’ Support Fund. I told him, ‘Take your cheque back, it wasn’t so you’d donate!’ He wouldn’t and the man even refused to give us his name (“just Alan”) for listing in the programme.”