HertsRacer

My first race, Yarmouth v Norwich 'B' 1st August 1961. Roy Trigg, Johnny Fitzpatrick, Clive Featherby, Pete Atkins. Think Roy Trigg is living in Australia, don't know about Pete A. Pretty sure JF and CF are no longer with us, apologies to them if I'm wrong.

I can recognise, Back row far left Eric Boothroyd, middle Guy Allott, Ivor Brown (maybe), Jack Geran, Alf Hagon. Ken McKinlay on bike. Kneeling Brian Elliott on the left, possibly Dave Hankins on the right.

Isn't the track tarmac or concrete ?

I agree. In the 60 years I've followed the sport we've had the Panthers, Northern, Barons and Dukes, none of whom drew good crowds, even in the 70's boom years. Not sure why things would change now.

Saw a post on Instagram from someone from Incarace saying there were no plans for speedway at Brafield next year.

If you mean Brafield then that's staged speedway before. Seem to remember Tony Mole trying to bring back the sport there several years ago. Believe the track has now been changed to shale. Could be a good alternative for Peterborough.

Steve, my understanding is that as Emil, along with fellow Russian riders Artem Laguta and Andrei Kudriashav, have previously been granted Polish citizenship, any attempt to prevent them earning a living in Poland due to their original nationality would be deemed illegal in the courts of law on the grounds of discrimination.

Stupid me, misread it as 1966.

Can only tell you that the 1st, 3rd and 4th rounds were won by overall winner Barabas Gyepes. The 2nd round was won by Istvan Pasztor, and the 5th by Zoltan Nagyvaradi. Ther was also a 125cc Championship won by Sandor Csatho.

Seem to remember someone tried to open a track in W S M in the early 1970's at the local football or rugby ground I think. Hope this attempt has more success.

That's interesting. Makes you wonder why they didn't complain back in 1934 when Luton opened. Probably because the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, which was a fair distance away from the track, wasn't built until 1939. Looks like they assumed there were going to be noise problems and complained accordingly, even though the track was there first.

Thanks for that. Looking at an ariel photo of the track there were houses close on two sides, but probably no worse than many tracks of that era.

I have been researching the history of speedway in Luton. It is known that the track operated between 1934 and 1936 on an open licence primarily as a training track for Wembley. Most articles state that the track closed after 1936 due to poor crowds and financial reasons. However I have discovered that the track was then taken over by former rider and Birmingham promoter Arthur Westwood who planned to join the Second Division in 1937. There are several articles in the local newspapers about this, and of fund raising events being organised to achieve this. Then these articles suddenly stop and nothing more is heard of Luton Speedway. I have read that there may have been noise complaints from residents but can't confirm this. Does anybody know what actually happened to end speedway in Luton.

A long shot, but one place which might be worth a look at is the Henry Barrass Stadium in Edmonton. Don't know how close it is to any housing, and it is basically a playing field today being used for non league football. However, it did once have a cinder running track and in the early 1960's Wally Mawdsley and Pete Lansdale unsuccessfully applied too run Provincial League speedway there. Looking on Google it appears that the owners are looking at ways to regenerate the site, and bring back its former glory. If its possible, it would take a lot of money to introduce speedway there, but it could be hugely successful.

Don't think they were ever in the Mail. Sometimes the match reports in the Star gave an estimated attendance, but never an official figure.