I have ridden one or two speedway and grasstrack bikes back in the late 60s and 70s........my near neighbour was a speedway rider who also made the bikes. .....trouble is I was always searching for a front brake.
looks like a craic. thaught you where going down the pub? me i am going back to my kip to snooz and watch total fishing. holidays rock.
The ones I rode had JAP engines (that's J A Prestwich to you young folks)......the Jawa engine chucks out even more power. But just think about it...... One gear (forward); no brakes; no suspension as such (they didn't have any at the rear when I rode them); just a clutch and a throttle.........imagine the rapid engine braking from those singles........
I've ridden a speedway bike at King's Lynn - did a training weekend with Olle Nygren [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olle_Nygren] many years ago. It's so counter-intuitive: as you lose the racing line around the bend you need to gas it in order to pick up the drive, but of course your brain is screaming at you to shut off, whereupon you just drift out towards the fence. And it was wire and board, no air fences as now. We were all much slower on the second day, because at the end of the first day, one guy did exactly that - drifted wide, clipped the fence, cartwheeled down the track, and broke his ankle quite badly.
You used to be able to buy Godden speedway and 1000cc V twin grass track engines direct from the factory (under Don Godden's ownership) for custom builds. The heads could be machined to run on petrol for road-going projects and they were all non-unit construction, usually paired with Quaife gearboxes. Don't know whether you still can, or even if they still make engines or just parts. I used to be quite into the custom scene in my youth and I can't remember Godden specials being common. They were fairly expensive but reckoned to be well engineered and quite powerful by the standards of the day. A 1000 V twin retro racer or a 500 single supermoto powered by a factory built competition engine is quite an appealing idea..
As a Plymouth Devils fan I'm used to my weekly dose of disappointment, but I'm never less than impressed by the skill and comitment of anyone who can race a 500cc methanol-powered missile with no brakes on a shale surface... Speedway one of the last true grass-roots motorsports where skill and courage play a major part. As they say "no gears, no brakes, no fear!"
I reckon it's just about the most authentically working-class sport there is. Football's audience now includes much of the middle-class. Snooker has/had a wider audience due to mainstream tv coverage. Martin Amis wrote a novel about a darts player. But speedway is very ghettoised. (I love it.) Anyone else at Cardiff for the GP a few weeks back? Even if you don't follow the sport I heartily recommend it as an experience. Very raucous.
I used to go to training tracks at Wombwell and Felton in the 1960 / 70s had a couple of second half rides, but was never that good. I did better on the grass and sand tracks but the long distance between sand venues took their toll. The channel islands races were midweek so ment time of work and loss of earnings. I still go to meetings as often as I can, and am going to have some track time myself in a couple of weeks
The JAP was a lot harder to ride than the Jawa, I had both the Jawa also needed less work between meetings
It was a very easy engine to work on and the 84s short stroke one gave more power but at higher revs. I could strip and rebuild one in little over an hour and it would start first pull on the back wheel. Miss those days the new laydown bike don't have the same appeal
