THANKS for clicking onto the Speedway Illustrated News website and I hope you enjoy the pages.

Describing this website is definitely a bit like a Saturday night at the speedway in the golden days of yesteryear – variety and something for everyone with a two, three and four wheel format.

Entertainment, enjoyment, enrichment.

Speed was a key factor way back then in the golden days of the sport, just like it is today with the news essential.
We live in an exciting modern era governed by the necessity to be informed and kept up to date.

We have endeavoured to provide a speedway website of latest news from all racing categories of the sport, without ever ignoring the importance of history and nostalgia. Also special features, human interest stories, it’s all part of the ingredients necessary for a modern day website. 

This website is unique in many ways because it features today and yesterday!

The wide range of speedway websites fall into two designated categories and feature either history, nostalgia, some are specifically just dedicated to cars, others to just bikes in the same historic theme or a mixture of both.  Then there are the websites devoted only to just a class of racing in the modern era with only divisional current news and that’s as far as it goes. I have endeavoured to make my Speedway Illustrated News website a combination of all those things in one website. It’s for all classes, with daily news updates, and also a website devoted to the rich history and great yesteryear competitors. You will notice there is also a video archival section providing race footage from our glorious past! 

There are many who like reading stories from days of yesteryear and so I have linked my website to the Vintage Speedcar Association of NSW and all other vintage websites are welcome to be linked. What we have here is a mixture of everything covering the past and present utilising all current racing categories as well.  Still on that theme, the website is the result of trying to find a so-called “electronic opening” in the so-called speedway marketplace. 

It presented a golden opportunity to rekindle the “National Speedway Illustrated” chequered flag logo that has been my publishing masthead insignia for many decades. 

My website brings together “the old and the new, current year and yesteryear.”

I believe that’s what makes Speedway Illustrated News website very different from the rest!

There are two people I want to sincerely thank  and single out for very special mention – and their names are in alphabetical order, Keith Nicholls and Bill Roberts.

These two blokes are the foundation of this website. 

Keith has been a tower of strength from day one when this website became reality. 

Back in the day he rode speedway in the Sidecar division as passenger for Sydney’s Maurie Ford. He also drove Speedcars at Liverpool City Raceway and the Sydney Showground. He knows the innards of the sport and, with that, also is well aware of what I am trying to achieve with this website. 

Anyone who knows me can tell you I know as much about this technical computer/website stuff as I do about oxy welding – and I know absolutely NOTHING about oxy welding!!! 

With that, this was going to be a learning process which takes time that I don’t have.

Hence a massive problem straight away in going forward with Speedway Illustrated News. Keith, who is also the editor of the Vintage Speedcar Association of NSW highly informative newsletter, advised he’d be willing to take on the job of webmaster for my site. I cannot thank him enough because he brings a much needed speedway passion to the job.

It’s not that I will never learn this website, but it’s a specially dedicated task that has to be scheduled further down the track. Then Keith and I can share the duties, but, right now, Keith has full control and I’m happy to have that arrangement. Keith is a very capable webmaster who knows the drill and daily routine.

Bill Roberts is the electronic guru who put this website together. His job is building websites and I have previously worked with Bill who lives in Queensland these days after previously residing in Lismore. 

Bill was the man I worked very closely with when we produced the fifty consecutive season history of Castrol Edge Lismore Speedway golden anniversary magazine.

Bill was the graphic design man who compiled the 100-plus page Lismore Speedway magazine. We blended

well and worked very closely on the magazine project over a number of months. He is talented in what he does and knows my style of how I go about things.

He is there for those super sophisticated technical matters that require him to get out his tool box and the spanners, don the overalls, when it comes to a major construction job on the website.

ELECTRONIC NEWS

The more things change, the more they stay the same, so the saying goes.

Massive changes within the electronic industry and the news immediacy of today’s mechanism of communication relates to a whole new news world out there, but the hard core news principles will always stay the same regardless of the era.

It’s only the way the news is delivered these days that has changed so dramatically.

Journalistic values and requirements remain mandatory no matter the sophistication of technology.

NEWS IS NEWS, that’s how it always will be and it’s all about getting it out there to the masses in whatever is the best and fastest means available at the time.

There is only one road to drive along today that gets the job done so swiftly to reach so many .  .  .  the fastest way on the freeway are directions to the World Wide Web!

If it’s news that happens in your street, suburb, town, city or country or on the other side of the world, the story is there on a website almost as soon as it has occurred. 

The information is available on the super highway – or the electronic speed way of getting the news which is more applicable in our line of work!

That’s our way of the world today when not even the great 20 times World of Outlaws Sprintcar Champion Steve Kinser can travel faster than news!

It’s not my objective to compete with anyone in the speedway marketplace of websites. I just want to do my own thing in my own way. 

I have always loved the written word – and as far as I am concerned this is just another extension of that. My only objective with this website is to hopefully provide interesting and entertaining reading.

The origins of this website go way back in time, literally many years ago.

It was a combination of several factors that came together at the same time. 

It was a case for me of looking for another interest to go along with my other writing jobs, revived production of my Speedway Classics magazine, in addition to my mainstream media Sydney coverage of speedway. With that overwhelming desire of creating something new, the likelihood of this website became more viable as time unfolded.

Firstly, I needed convincing the real values of a website. 

The man who gave me the heads up and provided answers to all my initial questions after many conversations ages ago was Terry Irvine from Artworxfx in Brisbane.

He felt I still had so much to offer this sport and in some areas he even suggested I was being under-utilised and probably just being forced into the background, possibly a bit by my own means.

“You still have so much to offer with your writing skills and amazing knowledge that is perhaps not being used properly or to the fullest,” he told me. 

“I can tell you so many people and customers I deal with speak so highly of you. I speak to so many people across Australia who hold you in such high esteem,” Terry said.

His words are not for me to comment. 

Let’s just say that’s Terry viewpoint.

I know for a fact, it’s not always praiseworthy comment toward me from some areas of the sport, but that’s the world we live in today and it’s best that kind of “spray” from “the peanut gallery”sector is ignored! 

I told Terry I know nothing technical, “but I do,” Terry quickly responded, “and I want to do this for you because I have been reading your articles almost from the day you started writing.”

Terry takes so much pride in his work (typified by his magnificent graphic design speedway artwork portraits) and I could see right from the outset this man is so dedicated to the task. 

I asked Terry in relation to getting a website operational: “Where do I start?”

“Leave it all with me and I will build you a website,” came his consoling reply. 

Terry put together a website that was the blue print for what we have today. It was only when his time became limited that the project laid dormant for several years before the website project was revived with Keith and Bill.

I receive plenty of information via daily emails and have contacts both here and overseas, so I began to think that maybe a website actually was possible!  

When the project gained momentum, the first person I called on was Mike Kerchner from the original National Speed Sport News publication in America.

Mike and I go back a long way and it took only one email for Mike to respond with not only support but also a daily news feed service out of the American speedway scene to use on this website.

Mike these days holds an executive position in editorial administration at Speed Sport magazine, the modern day version of the former NSSS iconic tabloid made famous by the late, great Chris Economaki.

Also with my other American contacts at the historic United States Auto Club, World of Outlaws, Knoxville Raceway, Knoxville’s Sprintcar Hall of Fame and Museum, All Star Circuit of Champions and Ohio’s high profile Eldora Speedway, suddenly a network of overseas players emerged. 

Throw in the British Speedway Promoters’ Association, the Speedway GP and we have on our hands a worldwide daily news feed. Putting this in place was a top shelf priority for the site. 

Australian content will also become reality as time progresses and the word gets out there we have a news website. 

Of course we want news contributions from around Australia – and the world – that will be of interest to speedway people. It only takes an email me to: speedwayillustrated@optusnet.com.au  to get a story on the NSI website.

Tracks, modern day and vintage associations, car and bike association personnel, competitors – anyone and everyone can contribute. 

This website has nothing to do with setting the world on fire or a “you read it here first” mentality – that’s not my style and never will be! 

Yes, news is vital, exclusives a bonus, but it’s not about changing the rotation of the planets.

Slowly, slowly.  

So this NSI website is a new era for National Speedway Illustrated which commenced publication as a newspaper in 1980.

Right now the most important obstacle has been achieved and we’re up and running!

We have a gift shop where some race archive publications can be purchased. All the details for purchase are provided. 

General advertising and a Trade Mart also are planned for the future.

Yes, this website will require a commitment – and, yes, at first it will be steady as she goes and some stories that get out there on other websites may not be initially covered here, but for me it will always be “work in progress” to ultimately get to a standard of news I want to reach and maintain on a daily basis– but that will come only with time. 

I am not prepared to say how long that will take but I know what heights I want to reach with this website.

The website construction, innovations and additions will continue.

Rome wasn’t built in a day – and either was this website!!!