King's Lynn boss calls on transponder technology to end 'false start' fiasco

As King’s Lynn Stars prepare to host Belle Vue Aces on Monday in the Premiership, team boss Alex Brady is calling for transponder technology to be used to eradicate ‘false starts’.

The Lynn speedway team, who underwent reaction time training a few pre-seasons ago, seemed to have particularly fallen foul of being pulled up for ‘jumping the tapes’ at the start of races. For example, it’s happened to Lewis Kerr this campaign.

Brady said of transponders, devices used to precisely time laps: “It’s used in Grands Prix and it’s used in motocross as well.

“When the gate goes, it sets off a trigger and the transponder then relates the reaction time to the referee so you would know if someone went before the tapes effectively rose. With that it eradicates any kind of human error, which is what it probably actually is, from the referee.

“It’s a tough job, I understand it’s a tough job, but the transponder idea is the way to solve it.”

Is it feasible at Premiership level to implement?

“I think so,” Brady replied. “The biggest difficulty with doing it is digging under the start line. You’d maybe need to go about half-a-metre underground. Every track in this country can do it.

“If we have serious aspirations about being a professional sport for a long time and trying to grow the sport it has to happen, for me.”

Second-from-bottom Lynn – who were last night in the Premiership Pairs fifth round at Sheffield – simply must beat second-spot Belle Vue and hope to win most, if not all, of their five remaining fixtures in order to have a chance of reaching the play-offs.