Barrow Speedway

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Barrow opened in April 1972 at Holker st it ran on Thursday nights at first ,the first meeting was a world chapionship round . In june the race night switched to Tuesday night have taken the place of west ham in the second division some of the riders that rode for the club in the first year was Bobby Closes , Mike Sampson , Cgris Roynon who made the round trip of almost 800 miles for a home meeting. also that year Tom Owen , Ian Hindle Bobby Campbel Mike Watkins (captian) Stan Stevens took to the track in the happy face's race jacket. Another rider was the promising 17 year old geoff lyons racing in a meeting at Holker st against local rivals workington was seriously injured an retired from the sport. The track was some what square in shape due to the fact it was round a football field, but some of the racing was top draw. Barrow ran untill the end of the 1974 and had very good crowds .

How ever the relationship between the landlords (Barrow AFC) and the speedway was rocky to say the least, Some of the football club directors believed that the removal of the stand at the Hindeapool end of the ground was a major factor in them losing football league status, which was probably not the case but was due to sevaral year of bottom four finishes and the team who replace them Hereford, who's famous cup win over Newcasltle was most likely a factor in them get into the football league

The nickname happyfaces derived from the fact they where sponsored by duckhams oil who's logo was a happy face, was this one of the earliest team sponsorship in speedway.