Bavarian

Nothing compares to the magnificent Hamburg dirt-track, no other track received such good publicity and newspaper coverage, and no other had so many and such great international riders, as You will find out. The Hamburg promoters payed out fortunes to these international stars, which eventually led them to bankrupcy. I am sure that there were some other tracks in Germany in the early 1930s boom years, such as Saarbrücken, that are still unknown to me. By the way, another pre-war German dirt-track venue I just remember and forgot to name yesterday was this one here at Gladbeck https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadion_Gladbeck

Interesting topic this ! Well I already knew about the Cologne Dirt-Track, promoted by an Englishman, in November/December 1929, but it did not last long. They staged the opening meeting in late November of 1929, and another two in bitterly cold conditions in early December, before closing for the winter. The Cologne track re-opened on Easter Monday in April of 1930, when Slider Shuttleworth was the winner of the opening main event. The track was 350m long. Other tracks popped-up all over Germany like mushrooms, following the huge succcess of the Hamburg Dirt Track, which had been Germany's first purpose built venue for motorcycle dirt-track racing, opening in July of 1929. But none of the other tracks in Germany would be able to match the success story of Hamburg, and even Hamburg itself closed down for some reason after a few years. Berlin was always thought to be an even bigger would-be success than Hamburg, but this did not go according to plan. The scheduled opening meeting early in 1930 was "snowed-off" on a very cold day in March. A week later, about 8,000 spectators attended for the re-staging on a Sunday afternoon. Englishmen Nobby Key and Gus Platts, and the New Zealander Spencer Stratton rode in Berlin's inaugural dirt track meeting. The Berlin track was only 333 metres long, much shorter than the Hamburg 1/3-mile oval (532 metres length). Berlin's dirt track was laid inside of an existing concrete banked cycle track at the "Olympia Radrennbahn". This was a similar set-up to the one at Cologne, and just the same as several other German tracks (Breslau, Chemnitz, etc). But somehow these type of racetracks on the infield of a Velodrome did not seem to appeal to the public. It is hard to understand why, because in Paris (France) this exact same type of set-up worked brilliantly and drew big crowds for many a year at the huge Stade-Velodrome Buffalo. One of the more successful conventional dirt track set-ups in Germany was the one in Munich (Bavaria). This was a big 400m track around a football pitch at the Postsport Stadium, located not far from the Munich Central Train Station. A 15,000 crowd saw Nobby Key take the win in the international event of the Munich dirt-track season opener on the last Sunday of March, 1930. Another rather successful German dirt-track, a big and pacey oval of originally 440m length, was the one at the Niederrhein Stadium in Oberhausen (Rhineland). This was in fact the only one of the German pre-war tracks that was re-opened again after the war years and continued to stage speedway, even FIM World Championship rounds, up until the 1960s. In 1930, all in all there were at least about another dozen or so dirt-track venues in Germany, for example at Stuttgart, Hannover, Breslau, Dortmund, Essen, Mannheim, Chemnitz, etc., but none of these lasted long. Germany's pre-war Dirt-Track "craze" came and went very fast, within a year or two, starting in 1929, reaching its climax in 1930, and then dying out very fast and nearly completely in the next couple of years. By the way, I had no knowledge about the Saarbrücken track You mentioned here. Do You have any more info about any race meetings at Saarbrücken-Dudweiler ?

ECSR Southern X Sidecar Teams Championship Australia V New Zealand (select) Plus Speedway Sidecar Support Oakburn Park Speedway, Tamworth Friday Night 11th October 2019 ECSR Southern X Sidecar Individual Championship This will also double as RD2 of the 2019 ECSR series. ALL NOMINATIONS ACCEPTED Oakburn Park Speedway, Tamworth Saturday 12th October 2019 The ECSR Southern X Sidecar Championships was originally going to be run over two rounds, however due to a number of factors, 2019 Championships will be run over one round for each, “teams” & “individual” at Tamworth, on the dates as listed above. There will be a HUGE tow money/prize money pool of $12,000 on offer for the ECSR Southern X Sidecar Championships double header on the Friday & Saturday nights of racing! CALLING ALL KIWI TEAMS!!! We would like to invite any New Zealand Sidecar Teams that are interested in racing in Australia in our series & the ECSR Southern X Sidecar Championships in 2019, to put forward their EOI to me via email ... garnhams@bigpond.com or phone +61 412858666. A rough timetable is to have you here in Oz by September or even earlier, and have your bike loaded some time after the Indoor race meeting on 30th November, ready for shipping back to NZ. At this stage we don’t have a limit on the bikes to come over, but are hoping for at least 8 Kiwi teams in total will compete in our series and in the ECSR Southern X Sidecar Teams Championships against the Aussies! Initial thoughts are that the NZ bikes will be based out of Newcastle, where we have free storage available & only 3.5 hours from Tamworth. Newcastle is about 2 hrs drive or 3 hrs on the train from Sydney, 9 hrs drive from Brisbane, or about 1 hour flight from Brisbane or Melbourne. Costs..... Each Kiwi bike that we are transporting across the ditch, will contribute $1,000 to that freight cost, with the ECSR & hopefully some sponsors, picking up the balance. As we did when the Aussie team went across the ditch in 2017, we encourage the sidecar teams to do a bit of fundraising or maybe arrange a fundraising race meeting to help us make this happen & keep it happening. As we are a not-for-profit entity, we would love to have sponsors from both countries help us fund this task and make it all happen, so feel free to get in touch and donate some coin, remembering that tax Invoices are supplied for all sponsorship donations. The 2019 series is looking exciting and once again, has a few unique pieces in the puzzle, just to give the racers & new challenge!! Keep an ear to the ground for some fundraising to bring the Kiwis to Oz! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1658284211101515/permalink/2140781266185138/

2019 SOUTHERN CROSS SIDECAR TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS - AUSTRALIA v NEW ZEALAND (Select) Just so everyone is aware, the Australian team to take on the Kiwis this year in a two round ECSR Australia v New Zealand (Select)Test Match Series, will be results based for the majority of the team, with two wild card selections making up the balance of the Australian team. To be eligible for selection in the Australian (Select) team, including as a ‘wild card’, you must have competed in a minimum of three ECSR events since the start of our series in 2015. This is for obvious reasons and our way of saying ‘thank you’ for supporting the ECSR series. The inaugural running of the ECSR Southern X Sidecar Championships in 2019, will be two DOUBLE HEADERS (Friday & Saturday nights at the same venue) consisting of ..... • a two round individual championship run on the Friday night of each double header, • a two round Australia v New Zealand (Select) teams championships run on the Saturday night of each double header So the ‘Southern X' Sidecar Individual Championship will be run over two rounds. The 'Southern X' Sidecar Teams Championship will also be run over two rounds. It is anticipated that each double header will be 4 to 8 weeks apart with dates and venues to be announced once we have confirmed them, but one venue is definitely Tamworth, the other we are still negotiating. Remember you must have raced in 3 ECSR events to be in the running for the Aussie team!! For the Kiwis, obviously you are all invited to compete in the Friday night individual Southern X Sidecar Championships. The Kiwi team will also be selected from results and if we are lucky enough to have more than 8 Kiwi teams competing, results and ECSR support will also form part of the selection process. If there are any Kiwi teams in NZ that would be interested in racing in Oz in this championship, please contact either Aiden Thwaites or myself. We know there is a fair number already racing in Oz but would like a minimum of 8 Kiwi outfits if that is possible & would certainly welcome more if you want to compete. We will be trying to include some other race meets while the Kiwi teams are in Aussie, like an indoor sidecar meeting, but will have more on that in due course, assuming we can get the venue etc.

Yes http://www.speedwaychampions.com/resources/Sidecars/Score%20Summary.pdf and here (scroll down to NEW ZEALAND section) http://www.speedwaychampions.com/sidecar-champions-p2.php

There is a reason for that as well. His father demanded that his son should get a spot in the World Championship and European Championship ahead of any other German riders, but the DMSB did not grant him his wish. Therefore Bayuer sr. said that his son from now on would ride with an Italian racing license, which would get him what he wants.

Tbf not a good advert for Australian solo speedway, really, and Crump and Williams are dull commentators. There is zero excitement coming over. Give me Pearson & Tatum anytime

Polish Wikipedia with a couple of Pictures of the Stadion RKS Skra Warszawa And here is some info about the History of Speedway in Warsaw (in Polish language) of which google translated the following part relevant to Your inquiry: Warsaw was the host of the first post-war meeting on the Speedway. The opponent of our representation was Czechoslovakia, which at that time was a recognized company on the European tracks. The place of the competition was a 405-meter track "Budowlanych", still under construction. The date September 26, 1948 probably well stuck in the memory of all those who managed to get to the stadium at Wawelska Street. The first steps on the international arena turned out to be successful for Poles. Starting with: Smoczyk, Draga, Jankowski, Kołeczek, Krakowiak, Siekalski, Wąsikowski and Wrocławski, they made a huge sensation, winning 75 - 73 against a reputable international rival. Later the "Budowlanych" track has been the place of international competitions many times. We hosted in Warsaw teams from Sweden, Finland, Austria, the Netherlands and the then professors of the slag, or league teams of the Three Crowns, Monakerna, Getingarna, Indianerna, Kaparna. Monakerna, Getingarna, Indianerna, and Kaparna. The biggest match was undoubtedly played in October 1955 with the English team Belle Vue Manchester, in whose ranks competed the newly minted world champion Peter Craven. During these competitions, Włodzimierz Szwendrowski proved able to "get around" the proud sons of Albion. In a direct clash, he defeated the "wizard of balance", and this only a few weeks after he won the title of world champion. The Warsaw facility was visited by many other speedway aces, such as Nilsson, Pajari, Bishop, Kamper, Fundin, Plekhanov, Wright, Briggs, Moore, Knutsson.

Stadion RKS SKra Warszawa This is the sports Stadium in Warsaw, where the speedway meetings were held from 1948 until 1969, when the cinder track was replaced with an artificial track for athletics. The Stadium has a 35,000 capacity, so I guess that the 50,000 crowd reported for that international speedway meeting in 1956 was a little bit exaggerated (as usual in those days).

Though its not flat track, but mx, here's an interesting report of African dirt track motorcycle racing. It's mx racing at Donnybrook Motorsports Park in Zimbabwe

While Speedway is slowly dying out, there's increased Flat Track motorcycle racing activities in many parts of the world. Here's some Hooligan Flat Trackers in Brasil

There will be no Superprestigio in 2018. After five years in Barcelona this event was set to go to Paris in France on December 15, 2018, but this has now been postponed until 2019 http://superprestigio.fr/

So, riders from just seven European nations have entered this F.I.M. Flat Track World Championship event, but there are no Americans, Canadians, Aussies, Kiwis, Japanese, etc. Considering that the FIM Flat Track World Cup in the past has received next to no media attention, no tv coverage, with only a few hundreds instead of thousands of spectators attending these Events, one has to ask how this has now been given world Championship status. Well, it would perhaps be o.k. to make it a EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP, but for the F.I.M. to call this a World Championship is quite ridiculous. They should rather award the world titel to the annual winner of the American Flat Track series, which is without doubt providing the highest level of flat track racing worldwide. But it is interesting to know that for some years now the F.I.M. has accepted the A.M.A. Supercross series as a world championship. The top Europeans have to enter and go racing in America to fight for the world title in Supercross. This is what should be done with the F.I.M. Flat Track World Championship as well.

Here is the First Test between New Zealand and Australia from Moore Park in Chrischurch