INDOOR PURSUITS

Well now that the editor, secretary, artistic director, typesetters, paste up artists, proof readers, layout assistants, quality controllers, lithographic printers, financial consultants, company lawyers, marketing project managers, delivery drivers and all the many other committed people involved in producing spokesman-online have returned from their annual union-approved break to Skegness, it is time for another assault upon our great sport.

Postponing yet again the final episode of “S Club 7!” and delaying part two of “Doom and Gloom” until that area of troubled conflict has been stoked up with fresh controversy again, hopefully after Christmas when I will be safely out of reach of any libel recriminations in Australia, I have decided to take a reflective look at Indoor Cycle Speedway racing.

After only appearing indoors once at Salford “Fit City” (Fat City?) in recent years, I decided to enter this year’s Vets event in November at the re-introduced Cheslyn Hay venue, purely to keep in touch with those Adelaide bound in February and get the old legs turning. A practice session the previous week at Woodbridge in Suffolk with Great Blakenham confirmed this is a strange experience, quite rightly shunned by many in the sport but I vowed to continue despite riding with organically anodised 40-year-old wheels shod with Michelin’s hardest compound tyres available then. In free practice most six-year-olds present had no trouble riding rings round me and in the “big boys” races, I predictably finished mostly last except when those in front suffered terminal tyre adhesion problems. Still it would not be as bad as this next week amongst the oldies! It was. A change of direction in my first outing demolished the safety boards and only a lucky second place later saved me from the wooden spoon with Steve Harris triumphing in his first ‘pipe and slippers’ final.

Despite that I really enjoyed the whole weekend. The track(!) seemed small and narrow but the surface was good and gave great grip with amazing angles of lean from the indoor geniuses. Action throughout was frenetic with falls and pile-ups in most races involving everyone, usually without mishap but one top junior, Thomas Reed of Exeter, ended up in plaster. Saturday was youngsters' day with continuing action non-stop, keeping competitors and spectators busy all day despite the coolness of the venue. Several girls took part with Hethersett’s Tiffany Collins a victim of a couple of bad tumbles but all enjoyed themselves immensely. Results and excellent photos from Andy Whitehouse appeared soon afterwards on the BC (highlights featured article!) and Spokesman websites for both days.

Excellent Wednesfield Organisation

Sunday was seniors day with the busy programme being slickly completed with mostly predictable results although the main individual final was a classic, the outcome changing heat by heat with Horspath’s Mark Boaler gaining his first British championship win in the end. Despite the quickness of the racing, the refereeing was on the whole excellent as was the organisation by the Wednesfield club who won both team events. The collapsing safety boards were a problem with the amount of spectacular crashes happening and did little to protect the sitting spectators. Forget about Heath & Safety, ditch the boards as it is a lot softer crashing into a wall of human bodies instead!

Archie Wilkinson and Shaun Hudson’s cycle emporiums did good business, likewise Wednesfield’s cake and crumpet stall and hard working announcing staff kept everyone informed but sadly lacking was a manned information site from BCF/CSC to answer queries from the many other users of the centre curious to know more about our sport. One spectating cyclist asked me if it was some kind of triathalon going on and was looking forward to the swimming and running legs on such a cold day!
 
My only disappointment as usual was the fact that some of the best riders in UK Cycle Speedway are still unable to race in these events due to the archaic entry qualifications insisted on. This ban on foreigners was not always the case as I remember Holland’s Almere rider Jon Koudjis appearing in a “British” indoor individual at Lowestoft in the early 90s and Wednesfield’s Australian Tony Herd who was “British” under-21 champion in 1990 may also have raced indoors in his time in the UK. Ironically the first two in the inaugural indoor final at Lowestoft in 1987, Danny Zagni and Paul Russo, had they been racing nowadays might have come under scrutiny from Gordon Brown’s (Daily Mail) “Britishness” committee.

Nevertheless I doubt that on the same weekend there was a minibus of bods and bikes travelling a 4000 kilometre round trip from Astley via Sheffield, Leicester, Horspath, Poole and East London to Poznan to compete in a similar competition in an equally cold community centre! Likewise I doubt if also previously denied Pudney, Hoppo and Spear would be honing their indoor skills in a deserted cold store in Port Adelaide awaiting the British touring party’s arrival in February. Conversely England’s cricket captain and three other players with white South African connections are representing our nation out in India this week. Strange isn’t it!

Indoor Racing Not New

Although the present type of indoor racing evolved in the mid 80s, it was not a new fad. As early as 1950 regular indoor events were held at the Empress Halls at Earls Court in London including the first British Team Cup final between Gem Pirates and Chorlton Aces, England v Holland (the winners) and the London Riders Championship in front of big crowds and national sponsors. Other meetings took place in different areas and by 1984 high profile events had occurred at Newport, the NEC in Birmingham and at the Scottish Motorcycle Show in Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall.

Ironically Cycle Speedway's biggest ever exposure on TV occurred on a dark, freezing winter’s Saturday in the early 80s when adverse weather conditions cancelled all outdoor Rugby League and horse racing (football was not televised live then! That meant sales of lager, XXXXL replica shirts and giant pizzas did not contribute to the GNP of the UK!) and a technicians strike on ITV allowed Grandstand to feature two hours worth of indoor Cycle Speedway from Swindon hosted by darts commentator Dave Lanning but disappointingly it did not transfer well to the small screen, the first of many media opportunities not successfully taken up.

Racing as we know it now started with the British Team Championship at Lowestoft ‘s Waveney Leisure Centre in 1985, followed two years later with the individuals, the team event transferring to Leicester’s Granby Halls, two busy sports centres giving good facilities and CS publicity to other users. Popularity grew as competition increased to almost rival the outdoor version but over exposure and high cost of staging these meetings meant it soon levelled out.

Velodrome Disappointment

The new Velodrome centre in Manchester was tried once but despite Mike Hack’s hard work, the authorities decided it was better to have basketball and Antique Road Shows rather than a cycling sport staged there so the championships moved on to smaller and less suited venues primarily in the Midlands at Dudley, Halesowen and Cheslyn Hay then finally Salford where drastic reductions in entries deemed it financially astute to combine the team and individuals into a single weekend several years ago.

As mentioned previously, indoor racing was not everybody’s cup of tea. True superstars of the sport mostly adjusted their racing styles to cope, the new competitions starting around the time of Dave Hemsley’s meteoric rise to the top. East Anglian riders initially emerged as the expert exponents utilising the new skills required. Previously mentioned Danny Zagni, Tim Snook, Dean Webb and Allan (“Millionaire” participant!) Scrutton all of Ipswich dominated along with Hemsley followed by Steve Harris who is still at the top 20 years on.

Most Exciting Rider Of All

After a couple of years northern riders began to make a mark on the results with Darren Kent, the Finnigan father and son duo of Frank and Chris, the Carter brothers Stuart and James, Steve Ward, the most exiting rider of them all in my opinion, along with Brian Eaton and top specialist these days Ben Scranage. It appeared to be an art where long legged tall riders excelled over the ordinary ones with obvious exceptions in Micky Skinner and Craig Marchant. Other prominent riders were Scott Nelder of Thurrock, a young Leon Yelland and Jason Pratt (Ashford) with current superstar Lee Aris proving class in both versions. However others found it hard. Present outdoor champion Gavin Wheeler was sadly lacking on the polished floors as was Pete Young and Norman Venson does not like it any more, whilst only two years ago, double Veterans champion Ian Lawrence finished dead last in the indoor version. Other top acts included Darren Slater unbeaten in the junior events from 1999 to 2003 whilst outdoor champions Craig Harcourt and Andre Cross also won the indoor version. Apologises to any other stars I have omitted.

At first the team events went the way of the big clubs Thurrock, Poole, Basildon and Heckmondwicke but soon they faded to be replaced by Leicester and Stockport in the 90s with Wednesfield and Horspath dominating since the Millennium. Horspath, Bury, Blakenham and recently Wednesfield were the best teams in the junior version. It beats me how Hellingly never opted for the indoor scene as their track has all the same characteristics of size, surface friction and cautious riding! Twice, Home Inter Nations matches, including Australia in 1995, were tried and one can only imagine what a full indoor match GB v Poland would produce these days! Probably the biggest “Demolition Derby” ever! But more of my future vision later!

Just Like Formula One

Technically Indoor Cycle Speedway is a bit like Formula One or Moto GP. It is all about tyres, friction, adhesion and angles of lean rather than sheer power and variations of gear ratios, combined with the type of racing surface and room and floor temperature. All these are variables depending on venue, location, climate, weather and time on the specific day and can dramatically affect one’s performance, the eventual winners being the people who can adjust and plan for these differences as they compete.

Track tyres are an obvious no no. Normal road tyres are too hard initially so have to be softened accordingly. This can be done manually by sanding down with suitable friction paper or boards but still the tyre must be kept as soft (not at a low pressure) and pliable as possible. Some riders tape toothbrushes against the tyres to create friction when in motion whilst others try and place their bikes next to a radiator. Spraying them with “hair products” was banned some years ago not to protect the environment but evidence of solvent abuse by some riders was discovered at one event. It will not be long before proper hot air tyre warmers will be a necessary part of one’s toolbox! However even that will be of little use if you are out in the first heat in the morning on a cold stone floor surface. Once racing has been going on for a while the floor heats up and the grip generally improves depending on the surface – wooden, composite, polished or unpolished.

Low Gears No Advantage

You would think a lower gear would be a must for fast gating but with the start used giving a long run into the first bend the secret is in trying to ride a very smooth long circuit rather than a stop start approach is what it is all about. Masters like Hemsley, Harris and Scranage only pedal three or four times on each straight! I always though that a small wheeled bike like the ones the Poles started out on would make an ideal indoor tool, especially the ones that had the internal back pedalling brake. I constructed one back in '96 but was not good or brave enough to try it but in the hands of the likes of Dominic Rycharski who knows!

I raced (or took part in) many of these meetings plus some at other venues. The most prestige of them being the ones held at Coventry as part of the Speedway and Grasstrack Racing Show which should really have been used more prudently to rebuild our reputation with Speedway and their followers. It was held on one of Warwickshire’s indoor cricket pitches, an extremely grippy canvas carpet where I famously beat Vets legend Mick Baugh by colliding into his rear wheel, the adhesive non-giving surface causing his wheel to collapse unlike on shale where I would have been the crash victim. However this degree of stickiness bit back embarrassingly in my next outing as I hit the ground at speed, the “Velcro” effect of my tracksuit bottoms meant they stopped immediately but the rest of me didn’t leaving me in a Brian Rix Whitehall farce situation. Then there was a one off meeting at Crawley where there was a team event on a normal sized track involving East London, Hawbush, Wimbledon, Morden, Hellingly and former Crawley riders followed by an individual which I think was won by EL’s Steve Woodroof and also in an old USA Air Base’s 10 Pin Bowling Rink in Suffolk on three occasions which was diabolical in comparison with the established venues.

However my favourite (and a lot of other people’s) meeting was the annual Lads Club Indoor Weekend in Norwich each February. Organised by Pete Boxall and Rod Witham, it consisted of all age group individuals on the Saturday with a graded series of finals so you usually ended up racing people of a similar ability to oneself. Although mainly SE clubs involved, Almere turned up every year with up to 10 riders sometimes and Leicester, Stockport and Thameside were always represented. The “postage stamp” track was a third the size of the Granby Halls, with a painted stone surface which was always dusty and solid wooden surrounding boundaries containing the stage where the organisation were stationed, a large spectator seated area and overview gallery with excellent catering on hand. Once in motion you were lucky to pedal more than three or four times each lap. Sunday was “Fours” day with 16 teams racing four qualifying rounds, two semi finals and two consolation finals for the third and fourth finishers, before the main final and if time permitted a five-a-side football match at the end of the day in this strange boxing venue where it was possible to sleep over for the far flung travellers, although in subsequent years the usual “high spirits” by riders meant this privilege was withdrawn and a variety of B&Bs substituted instead.

Close Encounters

Norwich is a great city with a varied nightlife and close by refreshment establishments (a good pub crawl!). My usual passion for live rock music in pubs was always catered for. Whatever happened to “Dangerous Derek from Dereham’s Blues Band?  Although situated in a dodgy, now completely re-developed, area of the city where I had my car broken into a couple of times and on one occasion a ”lady of the night” enquired if I would like a good time in Norwich. I replied immediately stating that I had just had one. “I had been racing indoor cycle speedway at the Lad’s Club”, got into my car and drove home! I never seem to handle correctly these social meetings with women of her ilk somehow, with a similar experience in Poland a few years later, but that’s another story!

I never attained any heights racing there but did referee a couple of high profile finals, not very well as Steve Harris still reminds me after re-running a race off between him and a guilty Hemsley after an incident in 1996 just because I decided the spectators deserved a better finale! Dave H never misses out on a second chance does he!

If only Cycle Speedway still ran meetings like this rather than keep insisting on a tired menu of league racing and a surplus of restrictive under supported individuals we would not have the problems we now have with the sport.

Future Fantasy Cycle Speedway Indoor Meetings!

Cycle Speedway can be compared to other similar sports staged indoors. The short track ice skating event at the winter Olympics in which British skaters did well at is a mirror image of ours. We can all remember the final a few years ago when the three experts after three and a half laps overtaking each other piled it on the last bend for the trailing Australian to grab the gold medal.

Likewise the American sport(?) of Rollerball was a fixture on World of Sport on ITV in the sixties preceding the Wrestling and a truly violent version was turned into a cult film starring James Cann. However it is Squash and its popularity that could guide Indoor Cycle Speedway to a new platform of world exposure although the “International Skol Six Days Track Cycle Race” which ran each winter in London at Earls Court then Wembley’s Empire Pool in the 70s was a popular event at the time and that kind of racing still occurs in the Benelux countries to equally large TV exposure attempted to catch our imagination.

Squash was a difficult sport to transfer to TV due to the restrictive viewing of a normal court, the fact that the game takes place in all directions plus the speed that it is conducted at is too fast for any proper commentary. Even when the “Glass Court” was invented still meant that the ball was even harder to catch on camera with an ever changing variable background.

Like Cycle Speedway, the great squash players seem to have a long time at the top. Over the past 40 years their best exponents lasted for decades. First there was Johan Barrington and Aussie Geoff Hunt, followed by the two Asian Khans then in recent years Peter Nichol of Scotland (who then did a “Wadhams” and changed allegiance to England!). All were great champions known to the wider sporting world. The organisers of their sport, instead of staging matches in sports centres would look for high profile venues and sites for them to take place in, usually with the backing of major sponsors. Therefore glass cubes were positioned in prestige places like airport terminals, city centre shopping malls, main line station concourses and similar outlandish locations worldwide giving massive promotion to the general public not really needing live TV output to further their cause.

Portable Track Could Become A Reality

A similar scenario now takes place in major cities around Xmas these days as makeshift artificial ice rinks spring up all over the place likewise rooftop heated swimming pools and roller rinks. A transferable indoor track should be a doddle in comparison to set up at most of these locations.

Imagine the publicity our pastime could gain if with the help of a risk-taking entrepreneur, large sponsor and “permission” from our ruling body if we were to take a similar route with our sport. Instead of cold draughty sports centres stage, indoor meetings in such outlandish locations with the massive passing spectator potential these have including those that have contributed to the downfall of our chosen recreation, the dreaded large shopping centres of the easily led - Bluewater, Lakeside, Metro Centre, Meadowhall and on and on plus more pertinent ones like the St Pancras Euro Station, Terminal 5 at Heathrow which could then lead on to the Millennium (O2) Dome, Bullring in Birmingham etc and back to Earls Court where it all started 50 years ago and, if a success, then the world’s our oyster.

However the product would have to change accordingly. Although it would nice to stage normal racing followed by “come and try it sessions” to boost our rider base, circumstances would dictate that we would have to “big up” our sport into something really crowd pleasing comparable to the way cricket has embarked on this dynasty changing way that the 20/20 version has done. Cycle Speedway would have to divert from dull sport to high energy entertainment to create a “gladiatorial” extravaganza similar to WWF Wrestling but without the fake and phoney outcomes. Imagine an inaugural first series of matches involving the “True Blue Brits of the UK” against the “Cold and Sinister Poles of Eastern Europe” choreographed accordingly, followed later by similar series involving the (pre – Beijing) “Smug Superior Aussies” (Well that’s my card marked for Adelaide!).

My Christmas Dream

These would set the scene for further extravagant bouts by this time compulsory worldwide TV viewing elbowing out that dreadful “dancing” thing with second rate newsreaders, dotty weather girls, past it cricketers and old git political reporters off the screen (thaank gauwd!) and eventual bloated salaries to the participants no doubt. Following on from this could be a similar series of matches pitting the “Squeaky Clean Nice Boys” of Cycle Speedway clad in virgin white and pink Elvis jump suits against their more “Darker Opponents” in black skull and crossbones attire.

Comprising a cast taken from the previously mentioned riders plus some of the following names from the last 30 years would have made very interesting teams indeed. Suitable angels and crowd pleasers the likes of Phil Howells, Daniel Pike, Martin Gale, Martyn Hepworth, Errol Thaw, Lee Benton, Denis Hubble, Chris Strutt, Martin Hollebon, Dave Soloman, Richard Williamson, Mick Aris, Geoff Burrell, Martin Voller, Alan Brown, various Whiteheads, most Brit based Poles, Martin Ikjeima, Matt Gentle to name a few of many. I will leave the readers to compile their own teams!

Once established we can then all look forward to the spin off “celebratory” versions and relish all the obnoxious boy bands, flauncy footballers, yappy tartlettes, vile BB contestants and guilty politicians etc being splattered indiscriminately into a solid crash barrier in the name of entertainment.

Well that’s the Christmas dream from the Scottish Scrooge, occasionally described by some in Cycle Speedway as Father Christmas! Bah, Humbug.

Arraawbest for the Festive Season                                                           

Jock

PS For those interested in trying Indoor Racing in East Anglia, enthusiastic mum Sarah of keen Great Blakenham youngsters James and Philip Day has arranged more two-hour sessions at the Rendlesham Sports Centre near Woodbridge on the following dates: Saturday 3 January, Sunday 18 January, Sunday 1 February all from 3-5pm and Sunday 15 February from 4-6pm. £3 fee for senior riders.

Contact Sarah on 01473 626098 or 07712 045821 for further details.