INTRODUCTION

I raced speedway bikes in Australia, U.K. & USA in the early 1970's. Then, we would often have crowds of over 30,000 at a local meeting in Brisbane Australia and 100,000 at the World Final. The bikes were un-muffled, only had open face helmets and Track & Rider safety were not a big issue then. We lost many riders in Australia where the tracks are big & fast. I lost my friend Geoff Curtis at the Sydney Royale Speedway at the end of the 1973/74 season and subsequently lost the drive to keep racing. I have continued to follow the sport and particularly the advent of the Grand Prix Series. I have enlisted the help of Speedway Grand Prix wild card rider Mick Poole and his 10 year old son Taylor for their thoughts on Techland's SGP. Not only did Mick ride in last October's Speedway Grand Prix in Sydney, he knows many of the riders in the game personally.

Speedway is an unique discipline of motor cycle racing. To ride a speedway bike is something that you'll never forget. The bikes (then & now) are a 500 cc, 4-stroke, single cylinder engines that run on methanol, have no Brakes, no gears (just a clutch) and weigh next to nothing. It's claimed that they are the fastest accelerating racing motor cycle in the world (not including drag bikes). They are designed to go sideways at full throttle for 60 - 90 seconds. You can only go left and their geometry is designed to work at it's best when the bike is sideways. In a powerslide, you accelerate by easing OFF the throttle, therefore gaining more grip and, if you're coming into a corner too fast or approaching a slower rider, you slow down by accelerating and sliding on a tighter lock. Body english is everything. You have to move around the bike to go fast. Forward to keep the front wheel on the ground and backwards to wards the rear of the bike to get more weight over the back wheel to get more drive. All of this whilst you are sideways with at least 3 other riders close enough to you that you often touch elbows mid corner. To gain an advantage over the other riders , you lean the bike even tighter into the corner whilst gravity is trying to push you out. If you take it easy or back off too much, the bike will stand up in a slide and spit you into the fence.

Riding a Speedway Bike is the best experience in motorcycling. From 0 - 100 km/h in 2-3 seconds, you catch your breath and throw the bike into a powerslide with just throttle control and your own courage to keep you from slamming into the fence. Even after years of racing, you are never really in complete control. Through all this, you are getting a face full of shale so you have to take your left hand off the handlebar, reach up to your helmet and peel off one of the 4-5 tear-offs hoping you have enough to last the 4 laps of the race. Of course, the other riders are experiencing the same varying degrees of control over their bikes and most times a sheet would cover all 4 riders at 80- 120km/h ... SIDEWAYS!

GETTING STARTED

As an avid player of Grand Prix Legends and Dirt Track Racing Sprint Cars, I have been eagerly waiting for a Speedway based Sim Game for some time. Now Techland has brought us Speedway Grand Prix. Let's have a look at what we've got.

When Blackhole Motorsports announced that the coming Speedway GP Sim would be powered by a new, "state of the art" graphics controller called a "Chrome Engine", it sounded like we were going to be in for something special. FIM & Benfield Promotions endorsement of the game augured well for a genuine speedway racing sim. Papyrus, through GPL, has shown us that a game can give you realism and the "feel"of vehicle control back in 1998... so 5 years later, we should have a Sim that gives the Speedway experience through the PC.

From the start, SGP graphics are excellent. They have captured the riders, tracks and atmosphere of the venues brilliantly. The sounds are accurate and the actions of the starter are true to life as you come up to the tapes to start your first race. The engine sounds slowly rise as each rider readies for the start. This is an area in real life where you have an opportunity to psyche out the other riders by throwing their timing out. The engine revs rise to a steady 11,000 rpm as you get ready to drop the clutch when the tapes fly up.

Here we have the first major let down... As the AI riders sit at the tapes revving for the start, you sit there motionless. Using the clutch button still doesn't give a realistic feel for the clutch (it's either off or on). It would have been more realistic if the player revved too hard he/she could loop it at the start or too little revs saw the player stall.