Super day of sport in the capital on Saturday

[Canton68]

Re: Super day of sport in the capital on Saturday

Yes. 3 seasons in early 50,s. Stadium Close off Penarth Road is where the track was.

[Loramski]

Re: Super day of sport in the capital on Saturday

Yes. 3 seasons in early 50,s. Stadium Close off Penarth Road is where the track was.

Picture of it here and a mention of one on Sloper Road (where City Gardens is now) between the wars.

https://cardiffpast.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/speedway-in-cardiff/

My mother-in-law (who is 81) says she used to watch speedway on Dinas Powys Common when she was a child but I can't find any reference to that.

[Loramski]

Re: Super day of sport in the capital on Saturday

Answering Loramski, yes the track was rubbish again, too many stoppages, they get it wrong too often, especially as it was an Ole Olesen track tonight.

If you were wondering how the under-21 world championships would go today considering the best riders in the world were struggling to get round in one piece last night then you wouldn't have needed to let your imagination run riot to get the answer.

We turned up about an hour after the scheduled start time, I expected the meeting to be half over but heat 5 was just being restarted. Track grading was taking place after every other race in the interests of safety which was fair enough but it was time consuming and didn't seem to be making it safer at all. There were crashes virtually every race, even the current champion, Jakub Miskowiak, smashed into the air fence with no one near him.

The British boys (Brennan and Flint) rode well and both scored nine points. In normal circumstances this would've qualified them for the semi finals but there weren't any. After heat 20 got stopped three times the organisers decided to call it a day and awarded it on points gained in the heats. Start time was 1.00, it got called off at 4.40 with three races unridden.

A farcical weekend there. A decent crowd today and the presentation was excellent, as always, but if you neglect the sport itself then there's no point in doing it. Dan Bewley saved the organisers' skins by winning last night but I'm sure most riders, fans, viewers etc will realise it wasn't good enough.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Super day of sport in the capital on Saturday

I got to go to Newport to watch a days play in the Welsh Open tennis at Rodney Parade in the mid seventies when the group of school friends I was with managed to annoy Frew McMillan, who was playing singles that day, because we were making too much noise, but, although I always intended to, I never got around to going there to watch the speedway. Motor racing has always bored me rigid, but I don’t mind speedway - I’d quite often watch it when they had it on Sky a few years back.