A Matter of Opinion....Brian Forrest....03/07/2002

Brian Forrest is an Ipswich Witches fan.

There's no doubt now that certain riders are sitting out meetings that they could easily race in. The fact that this approach seems to be paying dividends for one rider in particular is also a worrying aspect to all this. I think the only thing that can be done is to not allow a guest or rider replacement facility for a Grand Prix rider who is injured in the week leading up to a GP but who intends to ride in the GP. This punishes the club but I'm sure that this will be borne in mind when certain riders are looking for contracts in future years.

Easy - Sign Greg Hancock until Scotty is fit again. He'd give the team a real boost and it would be much preferable to using guests all the time.

Ideally I'd like to see Elite League racing every Thursday. It seems as though those days have gone forever which is a tremendous shame. My preference though would always be to see the top stars, so I'd have to go for the Elite League every time.

I don't tend to travel any further than Peterborough or King's Lynn. I'm sure most people would agree that Peterborough is the better stadium but Lynn has the better racetrack. On balance I think I probably prefer my trips to Lynn a little more.

It's a catch 22 situation really. You need a big crowd to generate atmosphere and to make the whole thing seem more exciting, but until you get the numbers in then it's not going to happen. Quite frankly the atmosphere at Ipswich these days is non-existent some weeks. I can't imagine that many newcomers will be over-impressed by what they see. I honestly believe that it's a bigger problem to retain new supporters than it is to attract them initially.

This article was first published prior to October 2002