The meeting starts thrillingly when the 16-year-old Australian with the dashing, film-star first name – Darcy Ward – shows verve and determination when he zooms from the back of the field to the front. Although he rears and nearly falls at the start, over the course of the four laps he thrillingly picks his way […]
16/08/2015
Not known for their philanthropy or diffident approach to business, the venture capital owners of global sports, events and talent management company IMG probably remain completely unaware of the Speedway Grand Prix, let alone BSI Speedway managing director Paul Bellamy. That said, a debacle on the scale of the recent Warsaw Speedway Grand Prix – […]
13/08/2015
Like the speedway equivalent of Frazer from Dad’s Army, last week Philip Rising – Managing Editor of the Speedway Star – once again used an opinion column in the pages of his publication to warn about the “ills” and future of British Speedway in its current form/configuration (with especial emphasis upon the travails of the […]
01/01/2015
Fans who wish to savour the statistics of the Speedway World Championship continue to be very badly served by both the F.I.M and the Speedway Grand Prix series current commercial rights holders and organisers BSI Speedway (an IMG company). Both continue to choose not to publish official attendance figures for SGP series events. The F.I.M. […]
27/12/2014
Drawing upon the full majesty of his 11 years speedway reporting Paul (Burbo) Burbidge’s digital social media profile continues to revolutionise our often turgid speedway reporting landscape. Part of a new breed of digitally savvy speedway journalists (“I write news for Speedway GP website and manage speedway gp social media. I’m also Speedway Star’s Chief […]
22/11/2014
The Speedway Grand Prix rider earnings table for 2014 makes interesting reading as Greg Hancock sneaks ahead of Nicki Pedersen in the overall 2005-2014 total earnings table by just $4,350. The Top 10 Speedway Grand Prix Riders judged by their earnings from 2005 to 2014 are as follows: Greg Hancock $657,150 Nicki Pedersen $652,800 […]
26/12/2013
Some romantics still believe the proper function of news journalism and news reporters is to try to speak truth to power. Sadly in the English language speedway media universe – without so much as a blush or backward glance – reporters usually only provide news and opinion suitable to those who pay them or, at […]
08/12/2013
Latest figures reveal that the FIM Speedway Grand Prix series average attendances continued to fall in 2012 and 2013, despite the ‘blip’ poor results of 2011. Worse still, SGP series continues to decline in popularity at most series event venues and overall. This isn’t really a great surprise – since 2002 the trend remains one […]
14/08/2013
It’s a really tough job to learn anything of value or gain insights from Speedway Grand Prix reports on its website or in trade press reports, let alone any SGP programme. That said, though not an exact science, the ongoing declining popularity of the Speedway Grand Prix is, perhaps, further laid bare by recent […]
04/02/2013
The good news is that the 2012 FIM Monster Energy Speedway World Cup finally halted the ongoing precipitous decline of the Speedway World Cup television audience on Sky Sports. The international big name sponsorship of Monster Energy was extensively trailed and hailed as the dynamic future by themselves, the speedway trade press and rights holders […]
20/12/2012
With more speedway riders than ever on Twitter, fans now get to learn much more about their favourite characters and the reality of the lives they lead. Though not everyone has yet joined Twitter, the riders (and others from the speedway world) regularly share their thoughts and opinions. Not all of these comments meet with […]
06/07/2012
The reverse Midas touch BSI repeatedly show via the ongoing decline of their Speedway Grand Prix television audience on Sky Sports looks like an outlandish success story in contrast to the rapid collapse of viewer interest in the Speedway World Cup. Looking at the publicly available figures for 2006-2011, popularity has gone from robust to […]
17/06/2012
This week BSI managing director Paul Bellamy announced ‘news’ that 2013 will see Speedway Grand Prix staged in yet another stadium that they’ll fail to fill anywhere near capacity (in this instance the brand new 50,000 seater Friends Arena in Stockholm). In trademark his usual breathless specious fashion, Mr Bellamy claimed “Speedway fans should be […]