The East Coat speedway season starts again in New York this Memorial Day weekend and I will not be present because work is sucking the life force out of me.  As well as being the end of the fiscal year, HR introduced a new annual reporting system that has caused no end of ass ache for a lot of people and left me dealing with 3 pissed  off direct reports who are unhappy with what the results are for them…. So, I must spend the weekend preparing for 3 annual reviews and forget about going to New York to watch some speedway.  Shit.

Oh yeah where was I ?  Oh yeah, lack of posts.  I don’t think a speedway blog by someone who only gets to a few meetings a year is really working,  do you agree?  I want to write if only to release some energy but I reckon a speedway blog is not the outlet.   I think I would be better off as a contributor, oh yeah I am a contributor already, to this blog, so on second thoughts, an occasional contributor.  If I was watching speedway, week in week out, I may have something relevant to say.  The retro speedway nostalgia market is already covered.   I want to be the American Jeff Scott but it ain’t happening, not unless I move to the West Coast.  Hi Jeff !

So until the urge strikes me, this will be the last post until I go to another NY speedway meeting.   If you want to reach me directly – use the link on the blog to send me an email or leave a comment.  And thanks to those of you who took time out to read this and comment.  I really do appreciate your kind words.  Cheers.

And lastly, to Jason in New York,  good luck with Watkins Glen.  I can’t wait to see the new track.  And when I do, I should blog about it right ?

Part two in the series features a match on Friday September 29, 1978

Living in London in 1978 I had access to 4 tracks within what I would call an easy commute.  In my first post in this series,  also featuring a match from 1978,  I wrote about going to Wimbledon.  From where I lived in West London,  I could get to White City Stadium home of the Rebels, located in Shepherds Bush,  by foot.  I made it to one meeting not knowing that 1978 was to be the last year of their existence, as the franchise moved to Oxford for the 1979 season.  It was also pretty easy to get to Rye House in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire  to watch the Rockets on a Sunday afternoon (via Tube and Train).  And lastly I could easily get to Hackney Stadium in East London.   I could take one bus (the #38) from my flat all the way across London to the bus terminus which was within 500 yards of the gates of the stadium.  That was some bus journey, through the glitzy shopping streets of the west end,  through the City of London home to the wealth of the UK financial sector and then into what was then and may still be, the poorest district(s) of England, like Bethnal Green and Hackney.    The late bus journey home after a meeting was even more interesting what with drunks and fare dodgers and gangs of dodgy looking youths.    And yet,  I probably went to Hackney Wick Stadium more times than I ever went to Saddlebow Road, Kings Lynn, being I lived in London for 10 years. I went to Kings Lynn’s stadium from 1973 through to 1978 on a school holiday basis.  My travel to Hackney and all the other tracks was exclusively alone.  No one I mixed with socially back then were interested in speedway and as Hackney ran on a Friday night, most lads my age were more interested in going down the Pub to chat up the ladies or hang out with their mates (or more usually do both).  Let me point out that  I didn’t go to Hackney every week because quite simply my social life would have been pretty lousy if I had.  Invariably though, if you go to the same tracks on a regular basis and stand in the same spot each week, you end up making friends with the fans who are habitually in the same spot each week like yourself.   I can’t recall mixing socially with anyone I met at speedway tracks,  outside of the speedway setting, although I did meet a couple of girls who I dated over the years but they actually were never keen on the sport.   So getting back to speedway, I made it a point to go see Kings Lynn whenever they were in town, albeit that was a minimum of  twice a year at both Hackney and Wimbledon.   So two weeks after my first ever meeting at Wimbledon,  I went to my first ever meeting at Hackney and once again Kings Lynn were the visitors.  As I wrote above,  Hackney Wick stadium was not located in one of the swisher neighbourhoods of London.   The area around the stadium was full of used car sales lots,  car repair shops, a large number of  lock ups and large swathes of buildings that appeared to be for light industry but who knows what was going on.   The stadium was primarily used for Greyhound racing  and also as a flea market on Sundays.  And the stadium had a flea market appearance, definitely not somewhere where you might take a young lady out for the evening to impress her.  The stadium was,  shall we say, ‘showing it’s age’.  I  used to walk up the Eastway until I reached a closed footpath that cut through between the canal and  the stadium.  I could always tell if the crowd was going to be small or big by how many cars were already parked up on the footpath.  I always came into the stadium at the turnstile at what would be the apex of bends 1 and 2 on the track.  My reasoning was that this entrance was closest to the track shop and this was always my first port of call.  Here I would rummage through the boxes of programmes from other tracks, looking for the programme from the previous weeks Kings Lynn home meeting.  No matter what stadium you went to anywhere in the country you could always lay your hands on programmes from other tracks.  That’s how I kept up my Kings Lynn programme collection, as best I could.  After a while the track shop owner knew my face – and of course knew I was a Lynn fan, so he would keep particular programmes separate for me.  I would spend a good 15 minutes in the track shop looking at the merchandise but rarely buy anything aside from programmes  – because I didn’t support Hackney and funds were very tight.  If I went to speedway, there would be limited funds for the pub at the weekend.  After visiting the track shop on the first bend I would wander over to the main entrance and purchase a copy of the Speedway Mail from Alf.  Back then in the 70′s and 80′s, there were two weekly Speedway publications.  Speedway Star and the Mail.  I picked up my copy of the Star every week at the newsagent but bought the Mail in addition when I went to a meeting.  I would save reading the Mail for the long bus journey home.
The picture below is looking at the track from the apex of bends one and two  looking back down the main straight towards the pits at the far end of the photo.

From the main entrance I would walk down the front of the main grandstand towards turn four and the pit gate.  This is where I would be watching the meeting from.  At Wimbledon and Rye House I preferred standing on turns one and two. At Lynn and Hackney it was always turn four and in later years, I would be standing close the pit gate fence on turn four when American Denny Pyeatt would lose his life, hitting a floodlight standard on the apex of three and four.   Before the meetings got underway it was possible to mosey around the pits as the riders prepped their bikes.   When Lynn were in town I would be wearing my Stars scarf and badges (buttons) so Lynn riders were more open to chatting, seeing you were on their side.   In the early 80′s  I started a sideline hobby/business selling speedway photos stickers and posters.   These were real photos (the sticky photos were 2″x3″) with peel away backing that fans could stick on anything.  To get the photos I would sneak my camera into the stadium and  snap the riders in the pits.  All of this was not allowed by management but they didn’t know.  I sold the photos almost all by word of mouth on the home straight although I did stand on the terraces with merchandise in eye view of passing punters.   If the track shop knew what was going on, I would have been ejected at the least.  I didn’t make a lot of money, enough to cover costs, but I did get to chat to lots of teenage and older girls who wanted pictures of their favourite riders – and for a lot of them, these riders were not just riding for Hackney so the club shop didn’t  always stock the photos.  In going through my programme collection I do come across scrawled first names and telephone numbers.. My spot on turn four was very close to a mum and two daughters from North London.  Julie was the eldest, around 17 yrs old.  I spent two years trying to get a date but her mum didn’t take a shine to me.  I do have her number in a programme though.

The 1977 Hackney Hawks were a pretty crap team and in pre-season 1978 the Hawks were written up as potential cup winners and outsiders for the title, given the upgrades to the team.  They looked to have strength in-depth, with no major 10 point out-and-out match winner but with at least 5 riders who could end up averaging between 8 and 7 points.  For 1978 out went heat leader Dave Morton to Wolves with Dane Finn Thomsen coming over to Hackney from Wolves.   The Hawks  also included two other Danes at the start of the season,  Bent Rasmussen and Bo Petersen.  Rasmussen wouldn’t last the season at the Wick – although if you have read the comments on my last post – you can see where he ended up.  Bo Petersen however, would have a long career with Hackney and in England and he turned into a fine heat leader, although he was never going to win the World Championship, he was a class rider.  Hackney had also signed two young up and comers.  Vic Harding made the move full-time to the BL having spent the 77  season at Weymouth and Crayford in the (lower level) National League with  reserve appearances at Hackney.  At the end of the 78 season, Harding was averaging 7 points at home and was moving into heatleader status.   He was tragically killed in a track accident at Hackney in June 1979.  The other new signee was Bobby McNeil, a Young England international of whom big things were expected.  His 1978 season was a bit of a disaster with a major injury in June keeping him out until August and then on his return from injury he was involved in a nasty crash at Hackney with American teenage sensation Kelly Moran, who was riding for Hull Vikings.  Moran broke his thigh and missed the rest of the season and McNeil lost a lot of confidence after the crash and his scores dropped off the planet in  September.  As it turned out the 1978 season for Hackney was worse than their poor showing in 1977  and they finished up with the wooden spoon.

So onto the meeting.  After the bitter loss to the Wimbledon Dons a couple of weeks earlier, here’s a meeting won by the Stars  41-37 on the road.

As you look down the team line ups, you will spot Bent Rasmussen at # 7 for the Stars.  Rasmussen started the 78 season at Hackney but in June, Hackney and Kings Lynn swapped under performing riders, with Bent coming to Lynn and ‘Londoner’ Billy Spiers going in the opposite direction.  In fact, the night before the trade happened Spiers rode his last match for Lynn against Hackney and the day after, rode for Hackney against Belle Vue.  Spiers career at Hackney lasted all of 8 matches and he was out of speedway by late July.  My ‘cyber’ mate Steve Ruskin, who commented on my last blog post on the Wimbledon meeting, was mechanic for Bent Rasmussen.  It’s a small world eh !  Rickard Hellsen was now on his hot streak for the season (see the earlier blog) and was now in the team proper at number 2 and it was his role here that won the meeting.   Hackney was one of Michael Lee’s favourite tracks and over the years I saw him ‘guest’ on many occasion for an opposing team because he was so fast around Waterden Road.   I am certain that Lee’s Engine Failure (EF) in heat 5 was when he was in the lead and the Stars were on a 5-1.  Lee would have ended the night with a slick 12 point maximum.   However, with that EF this was a close meeting, with no team ever more than 4 points ahead of the other and heading into heat 11 the score was tied.  Heat 11 featured Hawks skipper Barry Thomas and their heatleader in reserve, Vic Harding against the Stars duo of Lee and Hellsen.  Barry Thomas was an enigma – the home fans loved him for his loyalty to the Hawks but more often than not he was likely to have stinker of a meeting and ‘let the side down’.  This was one of those nights.  I don’t recall the race in question and didn’t comment in the programme (surprisingly) but the Stars pulled out a 5-1 heat win which all but won them the meeting.  The Stars were weak at reserve but Hackney were weak at the top and it cost them this meeting (and their season).  I didn’t see Kings Lynn win many times in London – but it made the ride home all the better when it happened.  Of course, it was always just me quietly celebrating all the way home.

I arrived later than I normally do for these events and there was a queue of  vehicles lined up waiting to sign the waiver and pay the gals at the entrance.  It certainly looked to be a bigger crowd than came in 2008.  I made my way down to the pits area as I really wanted to finally meet Josh Larsen and the legend that is ‘Flying’ Mike Faria.  And there he was, magnificent mullet and all.   This years visiting Californians also included the 2009 US Open winner, Tommy Hedden and (ex Kings Lynn Star) Dukie Ermolenko.  Dukie and Josh are not competing on the California circuit this season, in fact, neither has ridden on the circuit for a couple of years.    I look around the pits for two of my other favorite speedway people, Aaron Hesmer and Kaitlin Davis but (they are not here) Aaron is promoting his last meeting of the season at the Paris track in Ontario.  Paris usually runs on a Friday but this last meeting is a Saturday affair (both will show up at the  Sunday  Open meeting).  After chatting with the riders I made my way over to the track shop, hoping that this year there might be a printed program ?  Nah.  No such luck.  It’s a shame, although I appreciate that given all the effort going into getting the event organized plus his (JB’s) commitments in California, that putting together an event program is not high on the list of things to do.  Although even something xeroxed (& free ?) would be better than nothing.   At the end of the evenings racing I have no idea of the accumulated points positions of the riders going into the second stage of the event.  I don’t know if this is an ‘english anorak’  hang up because I didn’t hear anyone else wondering the same thing after the event.  Anyway, at the shop I buy a couple of t-shirts (pick any color as long as its black – again I’m guessing market research has proven that black outsells all others)  but I also find out that there are no bumper stickers, shame, but  there will be some available tomorrow at Champion – yay !  My current bumper sticker is coming apart after 3 winters of being frozen and scraped etc. 

As the evening progressed  I got the idea that the PA announcer was getting paid by the word.  It’s a 3 hour event  and although he tried his hardest to inform the fans about the riders on show,  a lot of the heats he didn’t have a clue who was actually in the race  (a race card to look at would have helped me of course).   And by the end of the evening, if you didn’t know Dukie Ermolenko was once a British League rider and that Josh Larsen was once #9 in the world and he (the announcer) was a rider that got banned at NY tracks,  you are deaf and I claim my $5.   I know it’s hard to think of something to say without repeating yourself over the course of three hours – so I suggest next year he have some short snappy musical interludes to help liven up proceedings.  Maybe they could have someone on a live wireless mike roaming the pits doing interviews ?

And so onto the racing.  The track looks slick although there is dirt up against the fence and I can see a ‘crack’ across the inside of  turn one that stretches out about 3 to 4 feet.   There is also a hole in the apex of bends 3&4 on the inside line and it causes progressively more bumps to riders as the evening progresses.   In the second race ‘Rider X’  that’s his moniker, he doesn’t ride under a name, comes a cropper has he goes across the crack on bend 1 and is spun around and dumped in the dirt (although given the rest of his riding that night the crack  have incidental to the fall).  A number of the junior riders are buffeted, some lose it altogether on the first bend,  most usually end up having a change in bike direction as they are pivoted towards the safety fence.  Josh Larsen in fact goes from 1st to third in one heat as he cuts the throttle after being propelled towards the safety fence rather suddenly.   And talking of safety fences,  you often see fans at these events, arms draped over the fences, feet propped on the fences from the back of pick up trucks parked up against the fences.  You do hope that these fans are actually paying attention to what’s happening on the track in front of them.   As the evening progresses, the air temp keeps dropping and the crowd thins out considerably.  I notice a couple of people actually retire to their camper van around the back of the stadium office.

With the issues on both bends we do end up with an exciting night’s riding as the NY boys Mittl, Buman Clark and Donholt really mix it with the Californians. I have seen Mikey Buman ride better than tonight’s showing and I hope that this form is temporary.  He is joining the US Touring Team to the UK in late September and will need to step up a notch from tonight.  Adam Mittl of course has already toured with the Dream Team a couple of years ago.  When asked by me what his favorite track is, without hesitation he yells, “Sheffield, man you just open it up and go”.   After a lifetime riding on what we could call ‘trick tracks’ stateside (and yes there are some of them who ride the half mile track in Indiana) ,  I think it’s great that these boys love riding the big tracks.   Mittl certainly could have kept talking all night about his experiences with the Dream Team.   Another reason to win the lottery – bring Jason B and his boys over to the UK as the New York Yanks Racing team.  We can dream.

OK.  Here’s video of the final heat, won by New York’s Adam Mittl.  Keep an eye on the added bumps to the ride on the apex of 3 &4 which almost costs Mittl his win.   Part two – the Champion part – to follow.

For much of the 1978 season the Wimbledon Dons were up near the top of the Gulf Oil British League challenging for the title.  At home they racked up big scores, scoring over 50 points 5 times including a 61-17 demolition of Birmingham and the team was solid from one to seven with Larry Ross at #1 averaging  9.45 and Colin Richardson (father of current British Elite League star Lee Richardson)  at #7 averaging 6.46.  The week before this meeting, Wimbledon’s title hopes ended with a shocking home defeat by the struggling Wolverhampton Wolves (who finished 17th out of 19 teams).  The 1978 Kings Lynn Stars were primed for a great league season and after storming through to the final of the Spring Gold Cup – losing to (American)  Scott Autrey’s Exeter – they then went through a period of gaining only 3 league points from 15 league meetings and ended up finishing 13th in the League having been a pre-season favourite to win the title.   A massive let down of a season for a team featuring Terry Betts and Michael Lee.   Kings Lynn is my team (to this day) and during the late 70′s and 80′s I made sure to that I saw every ‘Stars’ meeting in the capital and cities and towns close by and accessible by the train schedule.

I had moved to London in the first week in September 1978 and the second week in, I got to see my team at the famous Wimbledon Stadium.  I was  then living in Bayswater W2 and so took the tube to Putney Bridge and then a bus to get to the Wimbledon track .  I invariably got there at least an hour before the start so I could chance a conversation with the riders.  If you notice, this programme’s front cover was signed by Terry Betts.  Turns out that Betts would be one, if not the prime, reason why the Stars were to lose this meeting.  The Stars line-up for this meeting featured  newcomer Pete Seur from Holland who was to ride at #4  in his second and last ever meeting in a Stars body colour.  Rickard Hellsen was riding at #7 for the Stars, his place under threat for a poor summer performance as a second tier heat leader.  He had dropped into a reserve slot in August where starting around mid-month he scored no lower than 5 in the next 12 league matches and notched 5 double figure scores in those 12 matches to secure his place in the team, where he continued to ride until the end of 1985.   Let’s take a look at the heat details and scorers.

Wimbledon won the league fixture by the score of 42 – 36.  Michael Lee recorded a 4 ride 12 point maximum for the Stars.  Larry Ross top scored for the Dons with 10 +1 in 5 rides, as the Dons rode rider replacement for the missing Polish rider Edward Jancarz.   At the time, the Plough Lane track record was held by Scott Autrey @ 58.2 seconds recorded on March 24 of 1978.  The fastest time this particular night was 60.6 (twice) by Michael Lee.   Terry Betts only scored 5 points from 4 rides.  Most disappointingly, in the crucial heat 11 with the Stars only trailing the Dons by 2 points, he finished third.  His third place came against the Wimbledon pairing of  #7 Trevor Geer (who had 2 points at that juncture)  and #3 Mick Hines the Dons’ skipper who only had 2 points from 3 rides.  The  5-1 heat loss left the Stars too much to do with two heats remaining .  Pete Seur managed (actually he was gifted) 1 point in this meeting, due to a Dons engine failure and was replaced in his subsequent 3 rides.  He finished his career with the Stars  that night a career record of two meetings, 3 rides and scored 1 point.  The meeting was unusual in one other respect, Wimbledon also had a Dutchman in the lineup, Rudy Muts.  Not too many Dutch riders have cracked British team lineups over the years and we got to see two on show in one meeting.  So the Stars lost the league match and I stuck around for the second half of the meeting….

In most of the programmes I have there will be the odd comment scrawled after a particular heat, especially if something significant happened.  As you can see from this program, the Heur Time trophy Final was a dead bore.  Follow my leader.  From the gate.  Steve Weatherly rides in the second half, taking Michael Lee’s spot, winning his heat and making the final.  I wonder if the Wimbledon riders agreed to divide the total prize money equally amongst themselves  (probably all of 50 quid) before the heat started ?

So, there you have it.  Just another meeting, another pay-day and a home win to keep the Dons fans coming back. 
The Final scorers chart read thus:

For Wimbledon : 
# 1 Larry Ross : 10 points paid 11 from 5 rides
#2 Steve Weatherley: 6 paid 8 from 4 rides
#3 Mick Hines: 5 paid 6 from 5 rides
#4 Roger Johns: 13  from 5 rides
#5 Rider Replacement
#6 Rudy Muts: 3 from 4 rides
# 7 Trevor Geer: 5 paid 6 from 3 rides

And for the Kings Lynn Stars

# 1 Terry Betts: 5 points from 4 rides
#2 David Gagen: 1 point from 4 rides
#3 Ian Turner: 6 paid 7 from 4 rides
#4 Peter Seur: 1 from 1 ride
# 5 Michael Lee: 12 point maximum from 4 rides
#6 Bent Rasmussen : 1 paid 2 from 4 rides
#7 Rickard Hellsen: 10 paid 11 from 6 rides

And if the Wimbledon greyhound Stadium at Plough Lane still had speedway, how happy would we all be today ?

Each week I play the lottery in the hope I can win more money than god, so I can go to the current track owners and Revere city council and tell them I want to run speedway bikes,  quads, sprint cars, you name it at the track.   Employ a lot of local people and bring some additional bike racing options into the greater Boston area.  Then I watch the lottery numbers come up on TV, go to bed  and  get up the next morning and go back to work.
However, the thought of doing this is nagging me.  This track, this stadium would be perfect.  It’s situated in a non residential (light industry) area.  The MBTA subway station coincidentally named ‘Wonderland’  (on the blue line from downtown Boston) is a skip away from the entrance gates.   The stadium was opened in 1935 and  has a history of running sprint cars in the past.

Here are the track specs:
Track Length: 440 yards or 402 meters
Track Width: 18 feet
Composition: Sand and Clay

So,  if you  shorten the track just a little and make the bends a tad wider you could have a pretty good size  speedway track if you ask me.

The bigger question is,  where do we get the riders?  Having a track and no riders?  What of course would have to happen  is that this tracks runs an assortment of motor sports,  that can keep the turnstiles clicking and perhaps once a month we bring in riders from current east coast locations , on their off racing weekends elsewhere, while  creating training schools to develop local talent.  Flat track is relatively popular in this part of the world and there is potential for attracting riders to the sport.  There is a healthy bike scene in greater Boston and geez,  Laconia is one of the biggest biker gatherings in the USA and happens just up I93 in New Hampshire.

The stadium isn’t being knocked down as yet, as the company that owns the property is hoping that the Commonwealth will introduce legalized gambling,  so that they can get a casino built on the site.  But they are open to having it used for other commercial purposes.  I’m guessing, given its location, sound would not be an issue if speedway bikes were to run here once a month.   OK – who’s interested ?   Oh and by the way, there is another closed greyhound (400 meters) track (still open for weddings, slots and simulcast betting) south of Boston close to the Rhode Island border  at Raynham-Taunton.

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And my final comment on speedway racing in Boston.  If we ever get a team, I always liked the Boston Barracudas.

And following on from my idle flights of fancy leads me to another question, what is the future of growth for speedway in the USA ?  What are the options out there and how on earth can we get some movement ?  I’ve got some loony ideas, let me just type them up….

As I wandered through the crowd it’s noticeable from the snippets of conversations I overhear and from the ‘dress uniform’ of Harley t-shirts and leathers, that a lot of the fan base are what are called ‘Gear Heads’.  A lot of spectators here are into the bikes.   I have followed the sport for 36 years and I still couldn’t name most of the parts of the engine but it’s obvious that the fans here know their stuff.  When I stood on the terraces at

Kings Lynn Speedway, pits corner

Saddlebow Road, next to the same fans week in week out, the butcher from Downham Market, the bloke that worked at Curry’s TV in Lynn, I don’t recall ever having a conversation that  included in depth conjecture of gear ratios.  The gear heads in the UK are riding and prepping the machines but the majority of people watching are there to support their team and probably don’t really think to much about the mechanical aspects of the bikes.  Most American tracks have a ‘Harley Night’ scheduled in their season.  Local Harley Davidson owners may get reduced or free admission if they turn up on their machines and they will also get the chance to race their bikes on the track.  It’s pretty obvious that there is a difference in crowd demographics between the UK and the USA.  But I think speedway riders across the globe are cut from the same cloth, blokes who love bikes and tinkering and would probably race anything  that was lying around.  And you need to know something about engines.   One other thing I have come to accept over the years is that the majority of  fans in NY that I have talked to don’t know very much or don’t seem to care one way or another about speedway outside of  NY.  I have run into some die-hard fans from California who travel to Europe and the odd fan in NY who was familiar with some of the UK teams that US riders ride for – although when I talked to some fans this particular night about (American) Chris Kerr’s struggles with injuries and whether or not he would get his work permit renewed, nobody knew who he was and  he’s only one of four N.Americans riding in the UK.

Most I talked to didn’t even know that Canadian Kyle Legault was riding in the UK and Kyle has ridden frequently at NY tracks in the very recent past.  Obviously there is no speedway press and speedway is not on TV, so all in all why would I expect more ?   I thought access to info via the web would have broadened some horizons but it’s not

the case.  I know from conversations that most fans remember the glory years of NY speedway of the 70′s and 80′s when the top Californians, like Schwartz and others  came out east to compete with the local legends like Warren Diem.   Fans here like their weekly dose of speedway but the interest seemingly stops there.   Fans do not see how NY speedway fits into the grand scheme of things, what is its connection to the world sport ?  Is there a connection I wonder ?  Well Kyle Legault proves that there are still some riders with ambition in the sport.   but the sport here is isolated.  A good analogy would be to compare NY speedway to  the French language in Quebec.  Visitors to Quebec from the ‘old country’ (France) are amazed at the lack of sophistication of the language spoken by the native Quebecois, remarking that the locally spoken dialect hasn’t changed from the french spoken  two hundred years ago -  Quebec is isolated from France the home of the mother tongue.  A couple of  UK visitors I spoke with in NY remarked how watching speedway here was like being transported to the 70′s, with many riders in old fashioned leathers and two valve bikes and uprights on the track and bikes over here don’t have rear wheel deflectors.  Without wishing to sound patronizing, this is part  of the charm of NY speedway.  This is a small tight knit speedway community, keeping the sport alive on the east coast (albeit this track is 5 hrs from the coast).   Of course you shouldn’t assume from reading this that everything has stood still here, as it isn’t the case.  Brand new Jawa’s are in evidence in the pits and some of the riders have  been riding for close to fiftyyears and know how to look after themselves on the track and compete for what limited weekly prize money that’s available.