Dave
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Post by Dave on Jun 21, 2009 18:42:47 GMT
I intend to do a post tomorrow as I have been going to stockcars and also Plainmoor for over 40 years. What I want to do is look at how both sports have changed over that time and also look which sport out of the two has got better or worse in terms of entertainment and the experience of being a paying customer. So I won’t say too much in this post, as I’ll only end up repeating some things into tomorrows post. Well it was great my son Ant asked me last week if I wanted to go to stockcars today, he treated me to the whole day and it was great to spend time with him. Tell me where you can watch 15 races, have over four hours entertainment and only pay just £10 to get in and today’s meeting finished a bit earlier than many others I have been to, there has been some when it went on for nearly six hours. Ant went to the last bank holiday meeting and said it was really packed, but today saw a much smaller crowd, well it did make getting out in the car at the end so much easier. My life long hero Bill Batten has been very ill of late and not seen of the racetracks for sometime. I remember so well taking Ant to watch him race when he was only about four years old, Ant would wear a big rosette with Bills picture on it that I had bought him. So it was really great to see Bill back to better health and at the meeting. I just had to go and ask him for a photo of him with his car and he was more than happy to do so. The freedom you have to go where you want and walk around the pits is something I have always loved about going to stockcars, but I’ll talk about that in my other post. My love is stockcars and today we also had saloon stocks, not a lover of this format, but their races were not too bad today, banger racing was also on the card and one thing you do know about banger racing is, you will see plenty of action. A great day out so thanks Ant, I just forgot how dirty you get what with the smoke and rubber from the tyres, still I got the bug back if it ever really went away and will be doing a few more meetings this year for sure. stockcars in the pits  Good looking stockcar   My hero's car Bill Batten   Stockcars coming out after warm up laps before the meeting and saloon stocks waiting to go in for a few warm up laps.  The main man Bill Batten  Some more pit shots before the start of the meeting.     Cars racing in heat one  Heat one winner lap of honour, its not just F1 that has the babes   Heat two shot  Yes my man Bill won heat two  A banger racing car turns over and smoke pours out of it  The smoke gets worse  Then it clears and you can see the banger on its roof.  A mixed bag of racing shots from all three formats.      There was four lady banger racers today and one was just like a model, so fit and very pretty, but I could not get a shot of her close up, one banger race was stopped as it was feared she was badly hurt inside her crashed car. After a long delay they got her out and she limped away,still she should be on page three if you ask me.  |
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timbo
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Post by timbo on Jun 21, 2009 19:37:25 GMT
Great pics Dave,I think they are better than what Autospeed show on their own site.
I really should of been there today instead being at home watching a boring British Grand Prix(not because Jenson didn`t win).
As I mentioned in a previous post,I have always enjoyed this type of Motor Racing,especially at Newton Abbot.
Only been to one meeting this year,so I must make an effort to go next time and perhaps will see you there.
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timbo
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Post by timbo on Jun 21, 2009 19:40:20 GMT
I forgot to mention that you got a nice close up of the lovely ladies with Bill!
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jun 21, 2009 19:52:01 GMT
I forgot to mention that you got a nice close up of the lovely ladies with Bill! yes they were sweet girls who's lips must have been worn out by the end of the meeting, I have never seen so many drivers waiting in line to get their winners kiss, I'm just wondering if I'm to old to take up the sport  |
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 24, 2009 19:54:32 GMT
What I want to do is look at how both sports have changed over that time and also look which sport out of the two has got better or worse in terms of entertainment and the experience of being a paying customer.  The pertinent point is Dave that the average stock car circuit is a hovel compared with a football ground with all the creature comforts of Guantanamo Bay. Fine if you like perching yourself on a grassy spoil heap that is an apology for terracing or a rough wooden plank on a couple of upturned breeze blocks that is supposed to be "seating". Perfect for the puff jacketed, multi badged, baseball cap wearing senile delinquent desperately holding on to his youth of forty years ago, but no serious comparison with facilities on offer at Plainmoor for just fifty per cent more......................and of course the two sports just cannot bear comparison they are both so totally alien to one another. I thought the stock car circuit at NA Racecourse was a bloody eyesore to be honest and sadly detracted from the image that horse racing should be portraying in this day and age. Who wants to invest in corporate facilities at the racecourse only to have their outlook blighted by a weed strewn, chicken wire surrounded dump? As a sport, Stock Car Racing is fine and I knew Bill Burgoyne and Chris White who set up the Go Karts on the track at Newton Abbot all those years ago really well. I got on well with Trevor Redmond who was the Stocks promoter too and my first wife operated his catering operation for him one year. But Trevor was the first to admit that the magnificence of the immediate post war speedway in proper stadiums was a far cry from the "Beverly Hill Billies" ambiance of NA and Smeetharpe. Even a trip to today's Lakeside Hammers is a far drop down the ladder of credibility from the once impressive Custom House ~ West Ham Stadium home the sport once graced. In short, I believe motor sport on small circuits has become "Mickey Mouse" these days and if you insist on drawing comparisons with football then linking it with the South Devon League would be a far more realistic comparison than Plainmoor and the Football League! |
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timbo
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Post by timbo on Jun 24, 2009 22:12:01 GMT
I have to agree with this comment from Merse,but it was sad day for fans like me and Dave because the racing there was so entertaining.
Can`t really blame the Racecourse for wanting to get rid of it.
I thought the stock car circuit at NA Racecourse was a bloody eyesore to be honest and sadly detracted from the image that horse racing should be portraying in this day and age. Who wants to invest in corporate facilities at the racecourse only to have their outlook blighted by a weed strewn, chicken wire surrounded dump?
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 25, 2009 2:53:02 GMT
As far as appearance goes, I think the kindest thing one can say about Newton Abbot Racecourse is that it is functional rather than beautiful. Having said that the facilities installed in the corporate and Tattersalls enclosures are very comfortable. I've long maintained though that the executive there should invest a little effort and expenditure in "softening" up the paddock area by encouraging someone to take it on as a "gardening and landscaping project".......................travel to other modest little courses like Market Rasen and Uttoxeter, maybe take a look at the wonderful paddock at Haydock Park and try to achieve what Fontwel Park did recently ~ it's amazing what a little imagination with contouring, decking and path deviation; hanging baskets and shrubbery can make to a place. The "out the back" areas of Lingfield Park and around the parade ring for instance are simply majestic and such a leisurely environment gently persuades the punters to spend a little more money on their summer afternoon or evening out if they can stroll on some lawn, sit in the shade under a tree or simply sit back and take in the beauty of it all rather than scuttle about grabbing a coffee here and a hot dog there before perusing the horses and getting one's bet on. Whilst the view from NA's grandstand will never rival those at Kelso, Exeter or Towcester for scenic splendour, the enclosed ambience could certainly do with moving away from the glorified betting and viewing arena it currently represents.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2009 5:39:52 GMT
As far as appearance goes, I think the kindest thing one can say about Newton Abbot Racecourse is that it is functional rather than beautiful. Having said that the facilities installed in the corporate and Tattersalls enclosures are very comfortable. Am I right in thinking it's the line of the old Hackney Canal you can see crossing Newton Abbot racecourse? Did the track once cross the functioning canal (a Canal Turn perhaps?) or was it only extended after the days of the canal? |
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 25, 2009 14:28:36 GMT
Am I right in thinking it's the line of the old Hackney Canal you can see crossing Newton Abbot racecourse? Did the track once cross the functioning canal (a Canal Turn perhaps?) or was it only extended after the days of the canal? (commissioned by Lord Clifford of Chudleigh for the purpose of clay transportation) opened in 1843 and just a year later the South Devon Railway bridged it to carry their line up to Newton Abbot from Teignmouth. The racecourse was laid out and opened in 1866 and the canal ceased to be used in 1928...................so maybe the racecourse used to turn inside the canal and was later extended to run outside it's former footprint. There was a single lock where the canal joined the River Teign allowing boats to carry on down to Teignmouth (the canal came under the jurisdiction of the Teignmouth Harbour Commissioners) and the exceptional width of it (over 30 feet) allowed two 14 foot wide vessels to be taken tethered broadsides (they were fifty four feet long incidentally) through the lock gates in pairs. The Hackney Canal was only just over half a mile in length and, I take it; ran into the area adjacent to the old brickworks. The Stover Canal ran down the other (Newton Abbot) side of the course and was joined to the Teign by the Whitelake Channel. The Stover Canal was built by James Templer in 1792 and was also constructed for the transportation of ball clay from the Bovey Basin and granite stone from the Haytor Quarries borne down to the Basin at Ventiford by the Dartmoor Granite Railway...................for almost a century before that the transportation to Teignmouth had been completed by pack horse! Ball clay incidentally is a derivative of rotted down granite deposits.
The Stover Canal closed for use in 1939 with the onset of the Second World War and was allowed to silt up and effectively "return to nature"
As I post this, I am studying an aerial photograph of the racecourse which shows the site of the lock gate and thus the junction of the old Whitelake Channel and the River Teign to be outside the confines of what became the racecourse (on the opposite bank of the Teign in fact) and just upstream of the entry of the River Lemon into the Teign.
Therefore what you almost certainly correctly surmise to be the old canal is in fact now the narrowed down North Eastern end of a series of dikes that cross the interior of the course which drain the area of the extremely high water bed at that point................... I have heard it claimed that part of the racecourse interior is in fact below sea level. In fact the dikes are cut in a wide "H" shape with an entry/exit from the Teign that runs out under the track adjacent to the Eastern turn down by Hackney Marsh ~ one slightly curving cut heads towards the Indoor Bowling Centre with a cross cut running parallel with the home straight alongside the United Training pitches; to another cut which runs NW/SE parallel with the River Teign and there have now been supplementary cuts leading off that to improve drainage of the track. |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jun 25, 2009 17:20:34 GMT
Merse is this aimed at me?
Perfect for the puff jacketed, multi badged, baseball cap wearing senile delinquent desperately holding on to his youth of forty years ago
Because if it is once again you failed to grasp what I have posted and what the aim of my post really was. I do have to disagree with you on so many points, I do fear you hold football in far too high regard, anyway it seems I’m going to have to spell things out in a away you may just get the points I was making.
I was not trying to hold onto my youth, I simply said that I have supported both stockcar racing and TUFC since I was around 11 years of age. While I do not watch racing so much these days, after enjoying a good afternoon out last Sunday, I wanted to have a look back to see what has changed in both sports, one from the sport itself and the other more importantly in my mind, the experience as a paying customer.
Important because the fact is gates have fallen over the years since I started going to Plainmoor and there are many reasons why they have and maybe part of the reason could be down to a change in the experience for the paying customer.
Stockcars came to England from France in 1954 I believe, it was as Petef said a way the working man could get involved and race cars, without big costs being involved. It was also not expensive for the average working man to go to meetings and enjoy a good day or evenings racing.
Football back then was also a working mans sport and its clear from the programmes I put up for games in the mid fifties, that it was also not to expensive to go to Plainmoor, as the wages back then were poor and people had far less disposable income to spend on leisure.
The fact is that stockcar racing is still affordable to the working man, while football has priced out so many fans at the top level and even in the lower leagues, it has become to expensive for some, stockcar racing meetings offer much longer entertainment, while still maintaining and holding on to what the sport was all about from the very start.
You say
I believe motor sport on small circuits has become "Mickey Mouse" these days
So are you basing that on any first hand experience then? But then I feel you do understand the sport and the reasons the venues are the way they are.
You say
Fine if you like perching yourself on a grassy spoil heap that is an apology for terracing or a rough wooden plank on a couple of upturned breeze blocks that is supposed to be "seating".
It is true the seating is often no more than wooden planks( I’ll use your term here) its true there may also be grass banks that some will set up their camp to watch the racing from, but it works perfectly and is fit for purpose, simply because of what happens out on the track.
There is no way covered stands could be built, during racing there is smoke, exhaust fumes, dust and steam etc, the track needs to vent all of this. Take a look at the picture on this thread and you will see what I’m talking about, what would happen if that went into a packed stand and had nowhere to go.
Trevor Redmond never spent any money on the track at Newton Abbot, maybe because its future was always in doubt, yes it never look smart but then when you look at how many horse races take place over one year, I bet far more punters in a year went to watch stockcar racing than horse racing. The problem only really was it was not the best site to have the track and more for the reason of the noise, due to it being surrounded by hills.
No merse stockcar racing has not become "Mickey Mouse" you only need to look at the standard of the cars racing today to see that, the sport is very much alive and healthy across the whole of the UK. Maybe if you want to compare it to F1 then yes some might feel in comparison it is "Mickey Mouse" but then so many football fans and even some of our own fans, felt TUFC had become a "Mickey Mouse" team playing in a "Mickey Mouse" league when it went down into the BSP league.
Why did you not make some remark about the people who pay to go and watch stockcar racing? I’m sure you must feel they are somehow inferior to say a football fan, or even someone who goes horse racing. Each to their own and what sports they like, I have never been to one horse race in Newton Abbot, it just has never appealed to me, there are far more people in the is country who do not go to football matches than ones that do, it’s a choice thing in the end.
I really have to disagree with this statement you made.
No serious comparison with facilities on offer at Plainmoor for just fifty per cent more
So what did I get for my £10 on Sunday? And what do I get for my £15 at Plainmoor.
Well lets start with Sunday, we parked the car and walked to where we had to pay to go in, we were not greeted by a group of stewards giving us the once over and maybe wanting to search us. No instead we paid a very nice dear old man who wished us a good days racing.
Once inside the only officials that could be seen were track marshals, no stewards as they are not needed, but then when did you ever read about stockcar fans fighting, or sticking knifes in each other. Come to think of it, when has stockcar fans ever caused havoc in some city centre, or ran around streets causing all sorts of damage.
Ant and I decided to walk around the pits and look at the cars, we have no worries about having to sit in one particular place, the track in oval and you get a good view no matter where you sit. Unlike at a football match where I try and get on the half way line, stand behind a goal and you end up playing guess what’s going on up the other end of the pitch.
Time to go to the toilet, its clean and a proper building and I don’t need to queue for 10 minutes, just think how until Batson rebuilt the popside, decent paying customers were expected to use that disgusting open air toilet that stunk and there are still grounds where the toilets are not much better than we had to once use on the Popside.
Time for a bit to eat and there is a choice of six different places we can buy food, hotdog stalls, fish and chip van, baked potatoes stall and a few others, I even only had to pay just 80p for a proper coke, not the £1.50 for the same thing I get ripped off at Plainmoor for and I paid for the top and I also get to keep it, but then when has a stockcar fan ever thrown anything onto the track.
Over four hours of good quality racing from the stockcar drivers and the bangers did not disappoint, so how could I leave when the meeting was over and question had I made the correct decision to go in the first place, the same can’t be said for ever time I have ever gone to Plainmoor.
No I could not get a carvery, but how many fans bother with that anyway? While I applaud all the efforts made to improve the Plainmoor experience, how many more fans have we seen support home games since all the improvements have been made? The fact is it’s only those who can afford the extras get to use then and it’s only a very small number who do.
So I turn up at the popside and feel the intimidation from the stewards, pay my £15 and then make sure I go for a wee, as I know at halftime I would have to spend all of it just to get to have one. I have one food outlet only and sorry but it’s expensive.
I now go to my spot on the popside, I get to stand on a concrete step and above me is a tin roof, well that’s sure comfort and high standard, I think not. I will get to stand with some really decent people, but not all will be, some will be loudmouthed and swear and cuss during the whole game, but not to worry I tell myself its all part and parcel of loving football and its just normal and something I just have to put up with.
I mean its football fans and not stockcar fans, how can I compare them, but when I think about it they are all just people, but one group just seems to know how to behave better.
I have to not mind I’m being filmed on some CTV camera, its OK I understand its in case I kick off and the footage will come in handy when they take me to court. I also have to forget those who stand in rows at the front. Not watching the game, but watching me to make sure I behave and do not stay on some yellow line.
Such lines need to be kept clear in case we all need to get out in a hurry, only as soon as the first people move onto them to escape, they will be blocked anyway. Then after I go home I can wait to read the local paper and learn I was to blame for the team not winning, apparently I did not sing enough, or forgot to bring a friend along. It was nothing to do with the fact the team played rubbish, or the manager got his selections wrong for the game, still I bet Bill Batten must have blamed the odd fan or two when he failed to take a corner as he should have done and cost him the race.
So to conclude merse in my view stockcar racing has improved on the track, while nothing has changed in the customer experience, it’s as good as it ever was. Things have changed far more in football and so many changes in my view have made the experience not as good as it once was. Judging by the amount of people who now go to games, I feel I’m not alone feeling this.
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 25, 2009 18:58:35 GMT
Merse is this aimed at me? Perfect for the puff jacketed, multi badged, baseball cap wearing senile delinquent desperately holding on to his youth of forty years agoBecause if it is once again you failed to grasp what I have posted and what the aim of my post really was..............................   ..........................I did say that "as a sport, stock car racing is fine" and that " the two sports cannot bear comparison with one another"Let's be honest here, the average fan of professional football would compare the "facilities" of the average motorsport (Stock Car, Banger and Speedway) circuit with what they are used to and laugh. As a sport to watch, yes very entertaining; as a venue to go and spend an afternoon ~ no thanks; and personally I don't find any problem with the "disciplines" and behaviour expectancies of attending professional football NOR have I witnessed any knife wielding, violence or felt threatened for so many years it doesn't even warrant thinking about. Now stop getting your knickers in a twist!  |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jun 25, 2009 19:07:54 GMT
Let's be honest here, the average fan of professional football would compare the "facilities" of the average motorsport (Stock Car, Banger and Speedway) circuit with what they are used to and laugh. I fully explained what I got for £10 merse and also what I got for £15, its clear you can't come up with any argument to support your original statement about what I would get for just 50% more, so I take it you must have made a mistake |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2009 20:26:08 GMT
There's plenty about the Hackney Canal at www.devonheritage.org/Places/Kingsteignton/TheHackneyCanalPage1.htmThis comes from Charles Hadfield's The Canals of South West England:  These two OS maps show the extension of the racecourse over the years. The first is dated 1961 but this type of detail sometimes takes a while to be recorded:   |
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 26, 2009 3:36:32 GMT
Great detection work Barty! Armed with the two O/S maps you re-produced and going back to the aeriel photo I have in the book called simply: "Racecourses" written by John White and published by Collins it's a definitive guide to the racecourses of England, Scotland, Wales and selected Irish courses all with aeriel shots taken by Getmapping....................the path of the Hackney Canal is now clearly shown to run where the little dike now exists inside the present day course. Another study of the shot of Newton Abbot Racecourse clearly shows the footprint of the old side straight that did indeed follow the contour of the old Hackney Canal (so that now the d**e is in fact all that remains of the old canal and must still therefore be fed by the Rydon Stream just as the canal was) and the further path of the canal can be seen proceeding towards where the old Bookers Motor Bodies works utilised it's former quay which is exactly where the former Hexter Humpherson Brickworks (known colloquially as "The Potteries") stood ~indeed one of the illustrations on the Devon Heritage Website has a clear view of one of the brickwork chimneys in the background of the "Newton Road Basin".Now I'm wondering if the "Richard Harris" credited with so much of the research on the site is the same Richard Harris of Kingsteignton I went to NAGS with and who I regularly see on my travels watching the Gulls around the country......................if it IS you Richard (and I know you refer to this site) come on out and identify yourself.....................you've been outed old son! Come to think of it now (as senility clears!) I DO recall visiting the races a few years ago and thinking to myself that the track looked " a little different" at the far end what with the location of the water jump there from it's old position in front of the grandstand and the giveaway re-sighting of the various starts on the course; and I can see now how "corners" have been turned into more sympathetically graded "bends" and a better grade of racing ensuing in modern times. I'll just have to go and have a good walk around the track when I'm next down there with some time to explore, but I DO recall playing around those eery old "cellars" on Hackney Marshes in my childhood (c 1965-68), the old wrecked barge at Coombe Cellars (which now sounds like one of the old clay lighters) and a bit later in life (c1974) enjoying some nice meals and a pint or two at the Passage House Inn which used to be an excellent place and the view down the estuary from Hackney Quay to Teignmouth at either high or low tide was stunning.....................is the pub any good now?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2009 20:54:59 GMT
After a Sunday Roast at the Whistlestop Cafe at Teignmouth railway station - honestly, you can't beat it - I spent time this afternoon looking for the old Hackney Canal.
I missed it at first but it looks like one of the old clay cellars has now been taken over by the Swanson Motor Company on the Pottery Road estate. This is right behind Matalan and Brantano Shoes.
Then, if you head down to Hackney Marshes Local Nature Reserve - follow the path off Greenhill Way - you'll eventually find an "interpretation board" which explains the industrial history of the area. From this point follow the lesser path - not the main one towards the Passage House - and you can get close to the old lock gate which now forms part of the flood defences.
Meanwhile, on a theme loosely related to the original topic of this thread, it's been reported that Exeter Falcons speedway has hit the buffers on plans to move to Haldon. Agreeing a lease with the Jockey Club has proved difficult - no blame attached - and it's now back to Square One.
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