Worldspeedway.com are proud to introduce the prolific speedway journalist and blogger Jeff Scott of Methanol Press.
Firstly Jeff thank you for your support of Worldspeedway.com over the last two years. Many speedway fans will have ready your books but I doubt too many know that much about you as a person, what or who got you into speedway and when and where did you start watching the sport?
After I heard about it from school friends, I regularly went to watch the Reading Racers at Smallmead in 1975 when it first opened. I was taken every week by George Grant (a Newcastle Diamonds fan) who was the husband of a friend of a friend of my mum’s. This wonderful gesture highlights and typifies the casual freemasonry of speedway people and their willingness to help others
What is it that you love about the sport that drives you on to track after track? What sticks out in your mind as your greatest moment while watching speedway?
My poetry teacher Michael Donaghy died of a brain haemorrhage way too young. Like all inspiring teachers he gave you belief and challenged you at the same time. He always said, “Write about what you love”. We all put off things we’d always wanted to do or said we’d do – writing a book was one of mine and as a teenager reading the Speedway Star about all those faraway and unvisited tracks seemed so glamorous. So, really I thought I’d honour his memory & teaching by trying to find out what they were like. And to take my own personal journey into the heartlands of speedway to find out what made it tick. It’s been a wonderful and life-affirming thing to do and now it has taken on a dynamic of its own really.
This season the most exciting ride(r) I’ve seen in 2007 was Chris Holder and his skill during the Welsh Open at Newport will stay locked in my memory. It was also a privilege to watch Nicki Pedersen at close quarters. Nonetheless, many riders from my youth stay with me the strongest and the most nostalgically. However the sight of Martin Dugard controlling the first bend or flying round at Arlington was always special (as was his wild card British GP triumph!)
Can you give us a rough breakdown of what a normal speedway week for you would be during the season? It seemed that you were at a different track most nights of the week when promoting your book during the summer.
Well during the rainy part of the summer, all I did was drive from track to track seeing the rain. I’ve tried to visit every track each season for the past few years so a lot depends on the fixtures and whether I can find the time off from my (busy) work. I went to around 90 odd meetings this year
You were the ‘Writer in Residence’ with your blog Left, Left, Left and Left again at Eastbourne last season and we all know what a difficult time it was down at Arlington, did you enjoy your year mingling with the riders and management?
I did! It was an honour to be asked and I really saw how things run on the other side of the fence during a rollercoaster year. It has to be remembered that when I hang around the pits, the riders don’t really have the time for small talk, particularly as it’s a work night for them so perhaps this aspect could have been better managed. Great to do and the atmosphere is quite something and the activity frenetic.
As an Eastbourne Speedway employee and importantly a fan what were the highs and lows of the 2007 season for you?
The high was being a part of the overall Eastbourne staff (and the once I watched from the centre green with the volunteers of the St John Ambulance staff) and low points were the astonishing run of ill fortune coupled with the retirements of David Norris and, if he has retired, Dean Barker.
I intend to talk to Martin Hagon about his plans for Eastbourne next year and how I might be involved.
After being in the middle of such a turbulent season can we expect a second Eastbourne book to follow the brilliant ‘Where Eagles Dared’? You certainly must have plenty of material.
I do have a ton of material but, sadly, these things don’t write themselves. So I’ll have to see…
Your books are a breath of fresh air to many speedway fans but it’s also true that some people do not care much for what you write, in particular some within speedways inner circles, has anything surprised you with what you have seen and heard or obstruction you have come up against since starting your first book ‘Showered in Shale’?
Well people are always territorial about what they love and hold dear, so some push back is inevitable. However, pretty well everyone I’ve met has been astonishingly kind and so many doors have been opened. Legal and physical threats have been the exception and not the rule, so I tend to take this as a defensive sign – most likely insecurity and a lack of competence (or possibly something to hide).
You have been to every track in the country and spoken to thousands of promoters, riders and fans along the way, are there any clubs, teams or people that stick out in your memory that deserve a special mention?
Genuinely there are too many people to mention. I have been truly overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of the many speedway people I’ve been fortunate to meet
To name any one track would be invidious…
Having witnessed so much speedway over the past few years what would you like to see changed within the sport to stop its decline and bring the fans flooding back through the turnstiles?
How about a fifth lap?
Or, perhaps following that brilliant innovation at the behest of Sky Sports, what about the introduction of polka dot or tartan helmet colours?
Maybe, foreign riders could be made to start half a lap behind?
Many people with more experience and insight who actually risk their lives or money in the sport are better placed to decide its future direction. Something needed to be done after the 2007, particularly at the Elite League level, and what has been agreed for 2008 will stimulate season long interest at both ends of the table for the EL. We shall have to see rather than just knock it, though obviously it’s a brave decision to deliberately devalue your product. We all want to see close racing at the meetings we attend, irrespective of level. The last few years this has been seen more often in the Premier League (and the Conference League).
Long term there are clearly many flies in the ointment (GP’s, IMG, Polish & Swedish leagues, rider commitment, lack of British young ruder development etc etc), in fact, so many we’ve sometimes lost the ointment! The latest BSPA proposals look more like a sticking plaster on a wooden leg rather than lancing the metaphorical boil of our troubles.
A big worry has to be the reaction of Sky and the future of the long-term commitment to speedway. The knowledge and comments of people like Jonathan Green may be execrable and a bad joke, but when all’s said and done, presently he’s our bad joke and part of the price we pay to get this valuable oxygen of publicity. Without this coverage we’d all be much worse off. I doubt Sky will be happy with the changes for 2008 but, if they want to be an equal partner and they get their apparent wish for the EL to become a kind of glorified wrestling on wheels with added danger (in authenticity terms) then they really have to pay more for the privilege. And support the sport at the PL & CL by showing (say) 30 minutes of highlights every week to market that properly rather than just pay lip service (though a doubt remains as to whether the so-called “new” armchair viewers ever move their arses along to their local track)
If judged by his effectiveness of his reign at Redin, John Postlethwaite at BSI doesn’t exactly cook on gas and, arguably, anyone half competent could have made money from running the GP’s after having the “vision” to gain the GP contractual rights so favourably. Let alone that they’ve wrecked the EL in the key summer months and can squeeze for considerable profit the rider assets owned by others that they don’t pay a penny for the honour of injuring or depriving British fans from seeing (though the riders are complicit with this ongoing scandal). Now that IMG are on the scene, the business acumen and skill set will improve massively, so possibly this could be a ‘golden age’ of co-operation and, worryingly, the British speedway patient really might ever not recover from the deleterious effect of this improved circus. IMG will probably run more one-off meetings in fancy stadiums on a wider geographic basis to improve the apparent lustre of the product on display while continuing to serve up a processional racing (that is invariably inferior to that frequently found at ‘proper’ tracks). Nonetheless, this expansion will devalue the British League product further.
What can we expect from you in 2008? Will we be seeing you on the terraces again at tracks around the country and are there any plans for more books next season?
I’ll be going along to all the tracks as usual but, before I write another book, I need people to buy this season’s ones – Shifting Shale & Shale Britannia – first. Thank you to everyone who has supported me and helped along the way!
Finally a big thank Jeff and to let you all know that Jeff’s books are all available from Methanol Press and at present all P&P is free until the end of January. So for the perfect Christmas (or New Year) gift please visit http://www.methanolpress.com and order the book of your choice.
