SPEEDWAY GRAND PRIX 2022 Where are they now?

“It’s a disaster for speedway as a sport if you have that many kids who want to become speedway riders each week and you can’t scoop them so that they stay in the sport. Something has to be wrong.

“It’s not about everyone getting to Speedway GP level. But the concept we have had for youth has not been right. We should be able to attract at least 50 of these 200 to stay in the sport.

“I know Poland is on a high now. I hope they really take this seriously and build for their youth riders. If there is a shift in the GP and all the focus goes to Britain for example, it will be much more difficult to attract the youth. I hope they will not make the same mistake that Sweden did.”

New FIM Speedway global promoter Discovery Sports Events has already made big moves when it comes to developing a new generation of stars by taking the FIM Speedway Under-21 and Under-16 World Championships under its promotional umbrella.

The World Under-21s have been rebooted as SGP2 – a three-round series launching in Prague on May 27, before the sport’s top juniors take to the track in Cardiff on August 14 and Torun on September 30. Meanwhile, the SGP3 event for the under-16s takes place in Wroclaw, with the semi-finals on August 25 and the final on August 26.

But launching an entry-level competition for youth riders remains a huge goal for Discovery and the FIM, so the concept of SGP4 was born – a global youth championship for the sport’s next generation.

After years of building his own racing machines without compromise, Rickardsson has been tasked with a completely different brief. He is seeking to create a bike that will be financially accessible to youngsters seeking to try the sport – regardless of whether they have speedway in their blood or not.

have the other equipment you need like a steel shoe. Everything you need to set up and start riding should be there.

“You can walk into a motocross shop and buy a complete bike. It would be great if we could have something similar for speedway. You wouldn’t need a mechanical degree to put this bike together. It should be ready to start up.

“My aim is to get something that will last around 20-30 racing hours without a service, and that’s a lot of laps!”

Rickardsson’s SGP4 project is currently at the assessment stage, as he sends various prototype bikes across the continent to be tested by young riders and their families in his quest to decide which machine best fits the bill.

He said: “For now, we are testing a number of bikes and all the bikes are different. There are different chassis, different engines, different makes of engines and different CCs. This really is our evaluation time.

“They are going to be loaned out to different training camps and tracks. We just want the kids to ride these bikes. We want them to get as many hours on the bikes as they can. Hopefully by the end of the year, we will be able to choose the wheels, the frame, the sprockets, the model of engine and the bike that offers the best ride-ability.

“We are going to have testing this season and, towards the end of the year, we will have a decision as to which will be the best prototype bike. Then we need to engage with the FIM to make sure the bike is safe and fits into their frame of mind.”

If getting your son or daughter a speedway bike wasn’t confusing enough, the fact that youth bikes vary in size only complicates matters further. In an interview with Speedway Star earlier this year, British youth prospect Cooper Rushen’s father Karl revealed that his son possesses five bikes ranging from 125cc to 150cc.

Rickardsson’s vision is to create a standard bike for the sport’s newest recruits - one they can both hone their skills on and ride in international competition.

He said: “I want to have a series where we have kids from different parts of the world, racing under the same rules with the same bikes. In Sweden, we use 85cc two-stroke bikes. If a rider from another country is racing a 125cc, how can they compete against each other?”

Rickardsson admits he is leaning towards a four-stroke machine. He said: “I want the bike to sound like a big bike, look like a big bike and ride like a big bike. The best chance you have to make a small bike ride like a big bike is a four-stroke. It’s just built to a smaller package and a more affordable price than the 500cc version.”

Despite his push for standardisation, Rickardsson insists the project isn’t about consigning other types of youth bikes to the back of the garage.

He said: “While we are creating this new class, I do not want to interfere with the existing classes. There are not enough riders and competitors to exclude riders and start new. If this bike turns out to be good, hopefully families will want to switch over to it by their own decision.”

One of the challenging aspects of designing a youth bike is one size rarely fits all. Rickardsson explained: “When we are talking about an age range from 10 to 15, we can have quite short kids and quite tall ones. We will probably not be able to satisfy everyone completely.

“Of course there will be different seat heights that you can adjust and different footrest heights, so that a really short rider can ride these bikes and a really tall rider too.”

He said: “I just want to make this discipline accessible for more young riders, especially families who don’t have a multitalented father, who can build one of the junior bikes that exist today.

“It’s really to give an appetiser to families, who maybe have a son or daughter who wants to try speedway. There are many who say ‘we would love to, but where do we buy a bike?’. Let’s make it easier for them.

“The cost of the bikes must also fit into our budget because there are so many details and aspects to take into consideration. The ambition with these bikes is to make it more accessible for nonmotorsport families. But even for motorsport families, the hope is it will be a lot easier to go and buy a ready-made bike that can race nationally and internationally.

“A dealer should have one or two of these bikes on the shelf so that if you want to buy one, you are not waiting for it. They should

24 speedway star May 14, 2022