Skidding For A Living

As you may know, regular readers, me and the betrothed are speedway fans. You just got to be Keeping It Sideways!!

For the uninitiated, speedway in the UK and Europe, is four complete nutters, riding 500cc motorcycles, with one gear, minimal suspension and no brakes, up to 70mph, anticlockwise around a shale covered oval track.

The Speedway Grand Prix has been going since 1995, and for the last eleven of those years, the British Grand Prix has been held in the Millennium Stadium, just down the road from me, in Cardiff.

My fiancées parents are both speedway fans too, and are Peterborough Panther fans and season ticket holders, so we make quite a handy hotel here near Pontypridd.

To be honest with you, the grand prix is one the highlights of the year for me too. It is nice reminder of how other sports used to be before going wholly professional. I have been increasingly disillusioned with rugby, football, tennis et al. Speedway reminds you that when you have to strive to make a living, you play hard!

Pound for pound they have to be the hardest and bravest men in sport. I have seen them fall, crash, and bash themselves to a rainbow coloured bruised pulp. But they nearly always get back on their bikes, and race again!

I saw someone in Cardiff yesterday with a T-Shirt on that said: "If Speedway was easy they would call it football". How some of our sporting primadonnas could take a lesson or two from these guys!

The other remarkable thing about Speedway is the age range of the riders. You have teenagers competing against forty-somethings. There's not may other sports that happens in.

Yesterday was another great day. The atmosphere is second to none in the stadium. The racing wasn't quite as good as previous years due to the track being a little slick, and not allowing lots of overtaking, but still entertaining never the less.

We had great seats, which were great for taking photos. I had to settle on this one in the the end. I have given it a bit of work on photoshop to make it a bit more "dirty".

The rider is Greg Hancock, the eventual winner of the Grand Prix. This is the final bend, of the final lap in the final race. Never met the guy, but he is hugely popular with the fans, and it is easy to see why when you read his twitter feed. He's a great personality ... but more importantly he shows us forty-somethings that lifer really does begin at forty!

Well done Greg on winning at Cardiff and topping the Grand Prix Standings! Let's hope he can seal the deal and be World Champion at the end of the campaign!