First Ever Speedway Meeting?

[John Miller 0]

I sure that this has probably posted before, but I was amazed when I came across this on Youtube.

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HcVTdukYh7M

Edited December 17, 2008 by oldsaint

[Grachan 7,362]

It's a fascinating piece of footage isn't it? After seeing the same few stills for many years I couldn't believe it when I came across that on Pathe News.

 

I particularly like the shot where they are on the start line and people are milling about at the side of the track. I think it gives a bit of a taste of the atmosphere. And the bit where some bloke nearly rides off the track and into the crowd!

 

Interesting to see no broadsiding too.

[norbold 7,116]

Broadsiding wasn't allowed.

[Trackman 3]

You said the same about Ben Hur... (;0)

Regards.

PS.

Im confused again Norbold

When is speedway, Speedway.... then cobber?

 

 

Broadsiding wasn't allowed.

 

[norbold 7,116]

Im confused again Norbold

When is speedway, Speedway.... then cobber?

Who knows, Trackman, who knows?

 

It all depends on your definition of speedway. The other thing about the first meeting at High Beech was that the bikes were still fitted with brakes.

 

As far as I'm concerned I believe the first proper speedway meeting in Great Britain was either the second or third meeting at High Beech on 7 and 9 April 1928. "Motor Cycle" magazine says that the meeting on 9 April was the first time broadsiding was seen in this country with Digger Pugh, Colin Watson and Alf Medcalf doing the honours. The track on 9 April was also described as having a loose dirt surface, built under the direction of the great Australian promoter, A J Hunting, which the first meeting did not have, nor did the meeting at Droylsden on 25 June 1927, also said by some to be the first speedway meeting in this country. Although the 9 April meeting is described as the first to feature broadsiding, I presume that the meeting on 7 April used the same loose dirt track. What I'm even more unsure about is whether bikes were still fitted with brakes at this point. It seems unlikely, what with A J Hunting, loose dirt and broadsiding, but I have found no mention of them either way. The first meeting at Greenford was also held on 7 April 1928, but with no broadsiding as far as I can tell. At the meeting the following week, 14 April, the New Zealander, Stewie St George, gave a display of broadsiding, "He laid his Duggie over at impossible angles with the rear wheel slewing right round." Billy Galloway also gave a display of broadsiding as did a young English rider, Les Blakeborough.

 

By the time, Britain got round to "proper" speedway" the Americans and Australians had been at it for years. The first reports of broadsiding go back to before the First World War in America with a man named Don Johns. R. M. Sammy Samuels, one time editor of 'Motor Cycling' and 'Speedway News' and manager of an Indian motorcycle agency in London went to the USA in 1911 where he says he witnessed 'Dirt Track Racing'. Years later he commented that Johnnie Hoskins had only reinvented an old idea.

 

Speedway did not suddenly appear overnight, as Johnnie Hoskins would have us all believe. It came about through a long process of evolution that probably started even before 1911. There are reports of oval track racing in South Africa and Ipswich before that, though neither could be called speedway as we know it. I don't think we will ever be able to point to a particular meeting and say "That's when speedway started."

 

(My thanks to Nigel for some of the information in the above.)

 

 

 

 

 

[iris123 20,994]

I think it is reasonable to say that the sort of racing seen on that video was happening in a lot of countries around the world at the time.There are references to motorbike racing on dirt horse trotting tracks for instance in Ireland and in Germany years before this meeting took place.Just look at the clip of the sidecars in the German snow and you can see that this sort of thing was going on all over the place.I have even seen a snippet about motorbike racing on ice in Russia in about 1922 or 1923.

 

On this Austrian motorbike website you can find that the first "sandtrack" meeting(Austria) was in 1911 in Baden near Vienna.

Austrian motorbike

 

And in Salzburg in 1925 there was their first meeting(1000m) on a horse trotting track

1925

Intersting that in this meeting there was also a woman rider,Fraulein Fanny

 

And a link to the sport of horse trotting or whatever it is called.Which allowed motorbikes to run on their tracks

Trabrenn

Edited December 21, 2008 by iris123

[Killer Cat from Mars 16]

Very interesting post above Norbold, as you know I've always been an advocate of Droylsden being the first speedway meeting, but I also like the idea of speedway evolving over time, which is probably a healthier discussion than who was first, so to speak.

 

[Parsloes 1928 nearly 495]

'Speedway' is, though, a 'trade name' as in "International Speedways", who promoted dirt track racing in some of the nations top stadia from 1928 onwards.

IMHO, what happened at High Beech and Droylsden and Greenford was various types of dirt track motorcycle racing. It was only when floodlight, city centre stadia started staging the sport that it became "Speedway".

Ironically, there are so few of such venues left that it may be that by the time we get to the 90th. anniversary of High Beech we will be more or less back to the "dirt track racing" model we stated with...

[TwoMinuteWarning 69]

The sports first magazine in May 1928 was called "Speedway News", but no one called the sport speedway, it was still dirt-track racing, or "dracing"

 

The word speedway referred to the stadium or track, and had been so in the USA for many years.

 

It was late 1929 before the sport was started to be referrred to as speedway racing, though I've seen provincial newspapers as late as 1938 still calling it Dirt-Track Racing!

 

Certainly couldn't call it that today, they'd be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act ...

 

Edited December 22, 2008 by TwoMinuteWarning

[iris123 20,994]

The sports first magazine in May 1928 was called "Speedway News", but no one called the sport speedway, it was still dirt-track racing, or "dracing"

 

The word speedway referred to the stadium or track, and had been so in the USA for many years.

 

It was late 1929 before the sport was started to be referrred to as speedway racing, though I've seen provincial newspapers as late as 1938 still calling it Dirt-Track Racing!

 

Certainly couldn't call it that today, they'd be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act ...

 

Indeed.Even here in Germany the pre-war track in Hamburg was known as the Dirt-Track Arena,not some German equivalent.100,000 people watched Max Schmeling fight there in 1934.The biggest crowd at a boxing match in Europe to this day i think i am right in saying

[Bavarian 767]

In Romania even today speedway is officially known as dirt track.

[Trackman 3]

A dirt track with two left turns, big horse power, two wheels, crash helmets, body armer..... flat out racing for 4 laps...

& at Paffenhoffen they just had a Testimonal for Ben Hur.. Re: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=o46e0tpbqAg

Regards.

Edited December 25, 2008 by Trackman

[star ghost 7]

Careful there Trackman. You will have Ian H claiming this was in Aussie and the frontman was J S H

 

[iris123 20,994]

re-write the history books Norbold.Speedway was invented by Caesar©

[Trackman 3]

The weight of evidence for evolution of speedway is overwhelming. There has, of course, be refinements, but the basic idea is sound in the same way that gravity is.

Regards.

 

re-write the history books Norbold.Speedway was invented by Caesar©