This is Amateur Speedway. Today we're at the King's Lins stadium with the Southern Track riders. Now Speedway is a very curious sport. It's run on an oval circuit so riders only have to contend with left-hand bends. The bikes have no brakes or gears. More importantly, why it's very noisy as you can hear, but more importantly, it's one of the few sports where you actually accelerate into and around the corners. This enables the back wheel to slide to literally broadside the machine. Now to find out a little bit more about the sport, my sidekick for today's Mick Cooms has been involved in motorsport for well over 40 years. Mick is quite interesting for just seeing all the different ages, age groups of people. I mean, it's from young kids to mature riders. It really is a sport across the board, isn't it? Absolutely, a real family sport. Can you take us through the actual basics of Speedway riding, how it works, how many laps, how many competitors. Right, when it's basically a short track racing on a loose surface, the bike is set up with very steep fulks, rigid back end, too slight around the circuit. Four riders start the race and they're identified with different coloured helmets and it's four laps. The first one past the flag is a winner. Looking at the bike, it's very different from my road going bike that I use every day. Could you run me through a couple of the different sort of specs on it compared to a road bike? Well, basically, if you look at the hubs, there are no brakes. We're very dangerous to have brakes on a motorcycle like this. The riders ride very close together. If somebody got out of shape and touch a brake, the others couldn't stop before the other chap. So no brakes. It's got one gear and a clutch and you adjust the gear with the sprockets to suit every track you ride on. The main difference also is the fork, the steering head angle and the fulks are very steep so that when you're riding, we await over the handlebars. The front wheel has got all the load and it stays planted on the track and you've got an engine which is very powerful. This engine's antique. It's over 25 years old but it's got a very strong torque and over 60 horsepower. Mick, I can't help but notice this wonderful 1928 Douglas ship brought for us. Now, Mick, was this an adaptation of the road bike at the time? Yeah, very much so. It's got all the normal 1928 Douglas features, the outside flywheel. All the valve gears expose. It's got a lovely old antique BTH magneto for the ignition. A car bretter each side, fuel and oil in the same tank, the gate change on the side. They had three gears and you chose the gear for the track. It was the first speedway bike that was available to be purchased. Mick, speedway, it's not a sport you just turn up and have a go. No, it will be very dangerous for a novice to get on one of these very, very powerful speedway bikes with no brakes in competition with three other riders. Before you're allowed to go into racing, you must undergo training. Mick very kindly took me down to a sitting-born speedway club and gave me exactly that training. What we're going to do today, totally learn how to ride a speedway bike. Mick, what's the what's the steel club foot all about? The steel show with hard and surface is to allow your foot to skim over the track surface so you don't catch your foot because you balance a bike on your left foot in the turn. I'd like you to watch me doing a few laps. I won't be doing anything extravagant, but I'm going to try and get the bike sliding. I want you to watch the line I take on the corners which will be out wide when I make the turn and I'll be cutting in a bit closer as I leave the turn. I want you to watch my elbow position, especially on the right hand which will be high because when it slides I don't want the elbow in my body and the use of the throttle seat where I throttle on to make the bike react. So I should be listening for the use of this right? Speedway is very much in the head. If you understand how the bikes were by watching somebody who can demonstrate it you might be able to make a faster learning curve yourself in doing it yourself. Right Rob, you've got your land yard on. So if anything happens it's going to the engine going to stop the fuel is on, the ignition is turned on, we're ready to go. Two laps get the feel of the bike. By that time I should have put some cones on the track. I want you to go between the fence and the cones and when you go past a cone that's a time to get the throttle on. It's doing okay, it's just becoming familiar with the bike. This is an easy discipline, not easier at all. But I can see that it's confident. I hope they get a bit more aggressive shortly. I'll try and encourage him. Yes come on. Yes, he's slid it a bit there. I think we should call him in for a talk. Call him in for a talk because he must be getting tired. To make it slide you've got to get your backside off the seat, stand on the footrest, take the big step forward and plant your left foot down hard, full throttle and pull the handlebar back. Brilliant, get in the hang of that. Perfect, power slide. You tired? Yeah, I just got to get in the habit of standing off the bike here to rest a little bit. So when you actually get up, do you know what I mean? You've got your adrenaline right. What you're fine you're going to be, is you're going to be tense all the time, no relaxation. For years I used to hold my breath up the straight way. I got to the next corner and I've run out of oxygen. I've read in Ivan Major's speedway book, breathe, relax, take deep breaths, load your blood with oxygen. Transform me as a rider for stamina. Okay, so Mick, I've tried the 125. You now think I'm ready for the 250? You're struggling with the 125 because of the lack of power. Now this could cause a domestic upheaval if you bend this one. This is my wife, it's a grass track bike, but it drives and rides the same as a speedway bike. It's just got a broader, bigger spread of power, but it's geared exactly right in second gear for this little tight track. Go out and enjoy yourself. Elbow up, take the step forward, plant your foot and as you enter the corner, give it the lot and count to steer it and you'll go round. You're doing ever so well, I'm very proud of you. You're getting tired, the minute you feel that you're not physically able to cope with it, come in. Snackered. He's snackered. The full circuit. This is the next step. That's what you've got to try and do. Yeah, you won't expect to perhaps do it like that straight away, but I think you've got it in you. Perseverance, good element of courage, remembering the previous instruction. Wide in, lots of throttle, count to steer, balance and you've got to do that because you're in the manning control. You've got to try and do that to the best of your ability. Do I start with this? Oh no, we're going to keep you with the 250 because this is 60 odd horsepower, a bit powerful at your stage at the moment. Gently get me in there again. If you get on well with the 250, big throttle on the 250, then we'll give you a shot on this one and that's really going to catch your attention. Great. Now, power slide, brilliant. Sometimes it's easier on the big track. Well, there it is, your first crash. You put it down now. No, you know what it's like. Mick, what am I doing wrong? It's not as fluid as it's been. I think you're getting tired because you did good before. You're expecting too much. Perhaps you're not working at it as hard. Right. You were coming in faster, but you weren't aggressive enough putting it down. Right. Perhaps if you came in slower and then were then more aggressive with the throttle. I think a couple more times on this, just two or three laps at a time, and then you've got to go on the 500. You're not frightened of the throttle. No. The back's coming out, you're balancing it. You just need a little bit more confidence when it came a bit far. That was what you wanted, but you eased it back and corrected it. You shouldn't have corrected it. Why are you talking about the handlebars? We'll head over the front. Not for bread. Oh! And you can see from the dirt that was showing, the wheel was spinning all the way around the car up to the corner. It was driving the wheel away. It's getting used to the tremendous power of this motorcycle. We'll do one more and then we'll let him see if he can get a slide on on the corner. Happy? Right. That was very good. The power of this 500 machine is just incredible. It just leaves your testing on the black seat. That's it. Well there we have it. Rain stops play. It's had an amazing day with me. What a fantastic guru of teaching is. And your ex that I'm up for it, which is great. So I can't argue with that. Thanks a lot, mate. I think you're going to be okay in a novice race tomorrow. You've had a couple of falls. You've done some terrific power slides. You've done some brilliant starts. What you've got to do is sleep on it. Lock in your head. What you've learned. We'll give you a bit of practice before the meeting tomorrow. We'll see how you get on in your first competitive race. Well done. Mick, thanks a lot. Much appreciated. My play. Fantastic.