Speedway GB
Speedway meetings can be run as individual events though what you will usually see week in and week out at most tracks around the country is 2 teams battling it out against each other. The 2 teams have 7 riders each and they take each other on over 15 heats with 2 riders from each team in every heat, if a rider wins a race he will earn his team 3 points, if he comes second he will earn them 2 points, 3rd and they will only get a point and if he comes last they won’t get anything! The kind of end scores you would expect to see are 46–44 which would mean a win for the home team or even 45-45 which would mean a draw, if a team wins a league meeting then 2 league points will be added to the league table, there are 3 leagues in the UK, the Conference League (amateur), Premier League (professional) and Elite League (professional).
Speedway bikes have no brakes, just one gear, a clutch and 500cc engines which run on methanol fuel and can accelerate to 60 mph faster than a Formula 1 car! They race around oval circuits of around 300 metres in length in an anti-clockwise direction (this is because the bikes can only turn left), to get around the tight corners at such a high speed the riders actually have to accelerate to bring the rear wheel out and initiate a ‘skid’!
"It's fast, it's furious, it's family entertainment and it's at a track near you!!"
So to sum Speedway up it’s 4 laps of all out speed, control, excitement and thrills as 4 riders go for the chequered flag in honour of their team! The best thing is that all this happens just yards from where you’re standing and that the Stars of the show (the riders) are easily accessible to get to see and meet, so don’t forget your cameras and pens!
