100 Years Ago Today

[Bavarian 767]

7 hours ago, chunky said:

Well, we had the 1930 Southern Speedway League.

On June 30, 1930, the Wimbledon prog states, "First Speedway Test Match" when England took on Australia.

Also, there was a series of collector's cards issued by "The Rover for Boys", and the series was called, "1930 Speedway Stars". On Jack Ormston's card, it states that, "then became a speedway racer at Middlesbrough".

Yes, which proves my point, that the name "Speedway" was adapted for our sport in England at the time league racing started. It took a few years until the new name arrived on the Continent, where it was still known as Dirt Track Racing. Nevertheless it was the same sport, just an other name for it.

The French, for example, staged their "World Championship" in Paris and this was officially named the "Championnat du Monde de Dirt-Track". It ran under this name from 1931 til 1935, until the FIM introdiced the official Speedway World Championship in 1936.  

In Germany the term "Speedway" did not catch on until after WWII when the BAOR re-started the sport in Hamburg and Hanover. 

[norbold 7,116]

1 hour ago, Bavarian said:

Yes, which proves my point, that the name "Speedway" was adapted for our sport in England at the time league racing started.

 

How does that prove the point!? As I showed above, the word speedway was in use right from the beginning in 1928 in England. I could give dozens of examples of its use in 1928 if really needed!

[Bavarian 767]

3 minutes ago, norbold said:

How does that prove the point!? As I showed above, the word speedway was in use right from the beginning in 1928 in England. I could give dozens of examples of its use in 1928 if really needed!

Of course, I do not put in doubt that the word "Speedway" was in use right from the beginning in England, as it was in America and Australia even before.

I was just pointing out that this was generally used as a name for the racetrack, rather than the sport itself. In England this probably changed in ca 1929/1930. After all in 1929 there was an English Dirt Track League. 

I seem to remember reading about a public competition in a newspaper to find a new fancy name for the sport, rather than caling it "dirt-track"? I roughly recall that Johnny Hoskins had something to do with it, trying to find a plush name for the sport. Does anybody know about that? 

 

 

[Bavarian 767]

Getting away from the question of the name change from dirt-track to speedway, let me tell You how it was when the new sport arrived here in Germany from England on July 7, 1929, with the opening of the Hamburg Dirt-Track. It was introduced by an English-Danish-German consortium and they promoted the new sport here as "Dirt-Track Racing" and not as "Speedway".

In Germany there was a pretty clear distinction between Dirt-Track/Speedway and the other forms of motorcycle oval-track racing, that we, like the rest of the world, did have much earlier.

From the turn of the century, in Germany there was motorcyle racing on steeply banked concrete or wooden cycle race track ovals, and at about the same time, the first motorcycle races were held on horse (harness) racing tracks. The cycle tracks were usually rather short ovals of between 300 and 500m length, while the horse racetracks were of course longer, mostly between 800 and 1200 meters in length. The motorcycle races on the harness tracks with their sandy surface were of course the beginning of what we know as long-track racing ("Sandbahnrennen") today. Interestingly there was no grass-track racing in Germany until the very late 1920s.

When Dirt-Track/Speedway arrived here in 1929, it was totally different. The tracks were shorter than the usual horse race track, more like the cycling tracks, but of course with flat corners. The tracks were covered with a deep layer of cinders. Races were over just three or four laps, usually roughly one english mile, which was a much shorter distance compared to the other forms of track races, and there were only four (sometimes five or six, or only two or three riders in a race). In the other long established versions of motorcycle track racing there were more riders in a race and they rode over much longer distances. 

The style of riding (cornering) was a dsitinctive aspect of dirt-track/speedway racing, because neither on the cycle tracks nor on the horse tracks was is neccessary or even desireable to slide the bike going sideways round the corners. This would have been very much contra-productive.
 
Another new feature of dirt-track/speedway was that it was held at night under lights, which was quite unusual at the time. There were of course a lot of day time speedway meetings as well, so that is not a significant feature of the sport. 

Accepting that these roughly were the defining features of speedway, what would have been the first such meeting to fit these criteria? 

Forget any of the very early track racing in America, Australia, South Africa, or elsewhere in the world. This wasn't speedway as we know it, but rather what today we know as flat-track or long-track racing. 

Was it at West Maitland on December 15, 1923? Just because it was held "under lights"? Certainly not.

Maybe one of the early meetings at the Brisbane Exhibition Ground, when they put cinders on the track? I tend to agree here.

The first purpose built speedway track to fit the bill would be Davies Park, which would also make Brisbane the birthplace of our sport. 

In my opinion it is Mr. A.J. Hunting, rather than Johnny Hoskins, who should be regarded as the founder/father of speedway.  
 

 

[norbold 7,116]

[iris123 20,996]

On 12/16/2023 at 12:30 PM, norbold said:

Indeed. In 18th February 1928 The Register (Adelaide) had a piece on Sprouts Elder and mentioned

"They will return to Adelaide and Elder expects to contest here in a fortnight's time, and he will thus only miss the speedway races at Smithfield next Saturday. After seven years of speedway riding Elder is just now coming into his own."

For instance in the 18th February