"I thought it was a tidy little stadium and saw two meetings there: Newport v Glasgow when Frank Smart wiped half the Tigers team out in one meeting and a very eventful Conference League encounter between Newport Mavericks and Scunthorpe Saints. I know the track had its critics but the meetings I saw were superb and I cannot believe how quickly the deal was done to sell to a haulage company. I think the Mallet family had done everything possible to make Newport successful. I saw the Wasps riding at Redcar in what proved to be their final season and they were superb that night and looked like they had a potent team for the following year. Reports that crowds were as low as 200/300 for some meetings then you can maybe understand why the Mallett family sold the land to the highest bidder. A great loss to the fabric of UK Speedway though. "

"Saw a couple of meetings at the Hayley stadium, one against Birmingham the other was the New Year Classic. The Brum meeting had some great racing made even better by the fact that Brum came out on top - this was ridden on a beautiful summers day.

The visit for the New Year Classic was a little different. There had been a lot of rain but the meeting went on even though the track was like a pudding bowl. Racing was very difficult due to the conditions and I had noticed that anyone standing near to the bend three fence got filled in with splattering shale as the riders entered the bend. There were five of us and we wondered around the track watching the racing from different vantage points. I stopped the group at bend three as we chatted. As the riders came round four of us crouched using my brother-in-law as a shield and true to form he got covered from head to toe...as you can imagine we were all very sympathetic.....happy days!"

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