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1 hour ago, OveFundinFan said:

1951,    Who was the other rider in Jack Biggs last heat race.

Aub Lawson. The race finished Waterman, Lawson, Williams, Biggs.

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9 hours ago, norbold said:

It was Fred Williams who spoke to Split Waterman. However, I'm sure Jack Biggs felt there was no need to say anything, he had been totally dominant that night and probably felt that he would get at least one point out of the race as that was all he needed to become World Champion.

You might very well be right Norbold, especially as I think Jack Biggs had been dominant in the qualifying rounds and topped the list of qualifiers . However there is another version that I am sure I got from Classic Speedway . That version was that as Biggs started to get troubled by an old back injury and started to get an attack of nerves as he got closer to the possible tile. That could possibly explain why he came last in his last two rides, especially getting passed by Young and Waterman in the run off . However who of us really knows what was going on in Jack Biggs mind at the time ? 

It’s a funny old sport. Jack Young was only about 10th highest qualifier in the qualifying rounds,  but had a good night, got second bite of the cherry in the run off grabbed his chance with both hands, and as a result got into the history books as a great rider and the first to win back to back World Finals whereas the history books view Biggs as something as an also ran . Time to recognise both as great riders.

I was gutted when Jack Biggs lost his life in such a freak accident. A real solid servant of  Speedway , as by all accounts a really nice guy behind the scenes, always with time for the fans, as was Jack Young. 

 

 

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A friend of mine - who had been to the first meeting at High Beech in 1928, so he knew a bit about speedway! - told me that Jack Biggs was always very nervous. He remembered seeing him in the pits at various meetings and he was just a bag of nerves. He felt he would have won many more trophies and individual events if he hadn't been so nervous. His view of the 1951 final, which he was at, was that nerves once again got the better of Jack, both in his final race and in the run-off and that's why he lost.

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This has become quite a far reaching topic now, so just going back a bit to one of the other issues raised...I have just looked up Stenner's rankings for 1946/7 and 1947/8 to see where Eric Langton and Jack Parker were placed.

1946/7: Parker 2nd, Langton 7th

1947/8: Parker 4th, Langton 14th

Though I think it is safe to assume that Langton was past his best by then and that was his last appearance. Parker went on to be ranked 3rd, 1st, 2nd, 7th over the next four years..

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It is also interesting, although I had already seen the article on Langton claiming he was the rider who started the foot forward style. Fairly sure in the contemporary report of the time (1929) that it stated Lees was the one who invented the style. So I wonder where this came from? I have never looked tbh to see if there are contemporary reports supporting the claim about Langton or whether it popped up later

Of course this was 1937, but the back of Gingers card also gives him the claim to first foot forward rider. But pretty sure, although I must check that the local papers in Hamburg were giving him credit back in 1929 and they must have got all their press info from England

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SPEEDWAY-RIDERS-No-28-GINGER-LEES-PLAYERS-CIGARETTE-CARD-ISSUED-1937-/254206080294

Edited by iris123

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7 hours ago, iris123 said:

It is also interesting, although I had already seen the article on Langton claiming he was the rider who started the foot forward style. Fairly sure in the contemporary report of the time (1929) that it stated Lees was the one who invented the style. So I wonder where this came from? I have never looked tbh to see if there are contemporary reports supporting the claim about Langton or whether it popped up later

Of course this was 1937, but the back of Gingers card also gives him the claim to first foot forward rider. But pretty sure, although I must check that the local papers in Hamburg were giving him credit back in 1929 and they must have got all their press info from England

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SPEEDWAY-RIDERS-No-28-GINGER-LEES-PLAYERS-CIGARETTE-CARD-ISSUED-1937-/254206080294

  I suppose the question has to be asked WHY riders started to ride foot forward. Certainly in the ‘30’s most riders leg trailed so obviously that was the most effective style at the time . I have heard it said that foot forward enabled the rider to take the shortest route round the white line whereas leg trailing was better round the fence but I don’t really buy that one . My Guess is that it is connected to frames and engine development but I can’t think how. 

Anybody have any ideas on this ?

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24 minutes ago, E I Addio said:

  I suppose the question has to be asked WHY riders started to ride foot forward. Certainly in the ‘30’s most riders leg trailed so obviously that was the most effective style at the time . I have heard it said that foot forward enabled the rider to take the shortest route round the white line whereas leg trailing was better round the fence but I don’t really buy that one . My Guess is that it is connected to frames and engine development but I can’t think how. 

Anybody have any ideas on this ?

Lees once explained his reasons for changing to this new style by saying that if you didn’t have to lean your bike so far over sideways entering a corner as all the leg-trailers had to do, it would become upright much earlier leaving the bend and so give more tyre traction. 

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So, if Lees has a valid claim to have invented foot-forward, is it clear who invented leg-trailing?

 My recollection is that it was the American Maldwyn Jones with Eddie Brinck also in the frame.

 

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9 hours ago, Sotonian said:

So, if Lees has a valid claim to have invented foot-forward, is it clear who invented leg-trailing?

 My recollection is that it was the American Maldwyn Jones with Eddie Brinck also in the frame.

 

Always thought it was Jones and Brinck was his pupil. Would be easy to solve if there are pics of Jones leg trailing before Brincks career started, although It still wouldn't prove categorically that Jones invented the style

The answer probably isn't here, but it is an amazing site covering the early US motorcycle racing period

http://archivemoto.com/archive

Some interesting comments on this story about laying the bike over and also the bit about not sliding, so obviously the others were sliding

http://archivemoto.com/thearchive/2019/1/31/in-his-own-words-morty-graves

Edited by iris123
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10 hours ago, Sotonian said:

So, if Lees has a valid claim to have invented foot-forward, is it clear who invented leg-trailing?

 My recollection is that it was the American Maldwyn Jones with Eddie Brinck also in the frame.

 

It's a very interesting question and one which goes to the heart of when did speedway begin.

A rider called Don Johns who started around 1909 and won the National Dirt Track Championship in Chicago in 1912 may have been the first to slide round a bend without brakes. A contemporary description of him goes like this, “Don Johns preferred to barnstorm the 1-mile dirt track circuits of California and the Midwest, gaining experience as well as a reputation as the hardest fighting rider in the no-holds-barred game. By 1914, Johns had improved to such an extent that the Excelsior could not hold him. He would ride the entire race course wide open, throwing great showers of dirt into the air at each turn.” How else could you throw great showers of dirt into the air on the bends if not by sliding? Was Johns the first speedway rider in the world?

He was followed shortly afterwards by another American called Albert “Shrimp” Burns who was killed in a track crash on 14 August 1921. Part of his obituary written by C.E.B. Clement, which appeared in Motorcycle and Bicycle Illustrated reads, “I strolled down the track to watch him take the turns. Here he came with that motor humming a great tune and into the turn he went. Watching him handle that machine in the long slide all the way around, I saw in fancy, the then great battler of the day, Don Johns. For Burns was holding the pole and fighting the rear wheel in a manner that very closely resembled the work of the then known hardest fighter of the racing game.”

After the War, in the late teens and early twenties, two more Americans, Maldwyn Jones and Eddie Brinck, were renowned for the way they threw their bikes in to the bends and broadsided round, using what was known as the pendulum skid.

Now, whether any of this was actually leg trailing is another matter. And so we move on to Australia...

If any American may have influenced any Australians as to the advantages of broadsiding, it would have been Cecil Brown an American who rode in Australia in the early to mid 1920s. However, Brown didn't race all over Australia during the establishment of the popularity of racing on small tracks so it maybe that, just as speedway evolved, the art of "broadsiding" evolved on tracks throughout Australia as riders fought for ways to gain an advantage over their opponents while cornering aboard their powerful machines on the tighter tracks. For example, in Brisbane during the 1926-27 season, Vic Huxley was given the nickname "Broadside" Vic Huxley. He wouldn't have seen Brown nor Eddie Brinck nor Sprouts Elder (who came over later) race, so we can't be sure it was an American who taught him the art of broadsiding. He may just have developed it himself independently.

By the time the Australians came over to Britain in 1928, leg trailing was well established as the preferred (and only) method of sliding round the bends.

Edited by norbold
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3 minutes ago, lucifer sam said:

Did anyone slide a bike at the original Indianapolis, before they laid the bricks to make it safer for the cars?

Think I posted a link a few years back that suggested quite possibly 

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3 minutes ago, iris123 said:

Think I posted a link a few years back that suggested quite possibly 

I vaguely remembered that we may have discussed this before ;)

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Just now, lucifer sam said:

I vaguely remembered that we may have discussed this before ;)

Yes think it might have been a newspaper report of the meeting describing dirt or grit getting showered as the riders went round the bends. Nothing 100%, but evocative of sliding

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