First Ever Speedway Meeting?

[John Miller]

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]

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]

Broadsiding wasn't allowed.

[Trackman]

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]

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]

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]

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]

'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]

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]

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]

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

[Trackman]

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]

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

 

[iris123]

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

[Trackman]

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©

 

[norbold]

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.

:lol:

[Custom House Kid]

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

 

I think horse trotting tracks of 1000M plus, bear little resembelace of the speedway we know of today. However, I believe the 1st Loose surface Motor cycle race took place in South Africa at Pietermaritzburgh in Natal in 1907. I am of course here to be shot down in flames!

Edited December 27, 2008 by Custom House Kid

[iris123]

I think horse trotting tracks of 1000M plus, bear little resembelace of the speedway we know of today. However, I believe the 1st Loose surface Motor cycle race took place in South Africa at Pietermaritzburgh in Natal in 1907. I am of course here to be shot down in flames!

Well they would be the early development that went into Longtrack/Sandtrack,but also speedway.I believe the early tracks in Australia and the US were also quite big tracks.I think,but again maybe wrong,it was only the size of the available stadia in Britain that determined how big the tracks were.I don't really think at the early development stage that the size was that important.Rather the shape and surface.At that stage for instance they didn't have special bikes for the big tracks.I think they just rode the same bikes on any track in the early days.Even one of the most famous speedway meetings going,the Czech Golden Helmet was raced on a very long track with a large number of riders in each heat.Not sure if the early days are classed as longtrack and then later speedway

 

Look at the Maitland track and it was much bigger than British tracks(though not 1,000m) and also a horse trotting track.Here

Edited December 27, 2008 by iris123

[Nigel]

Regarding old films ...... there is more than one film which has recorded the action at High Beech in early 1928 also filmed were Greenford and Blackpool, both were trotting tracks. Blackpool ran racing clockwise for the first couple of meetings. The first Speedway film with sound was recorded at Stamford Bridge 1928/29?

 

I would discount the South African meeting as being the first. The first recorded meeting in America (so far found) was in 1901 'The Old Agricultural park' trotting track Los Angeles California and was in use for over a decade. Trotting was very popular in the late 1800s and just about every country had tracks. The American motor cycle companies were very keen on racing... had dealerships around the world, so events in America soon reach the ears of the rest of the world. I have evidence of dirt track racing on trotting tracks in Italy 1911 and I’ve no doubt there were earlier events. I am pretty sure that motorcycle racing was happening from the earliest times in just about every country that had a trotting track.

 

Who was the first broadsider, well ….. On the evidence that I have (until someone proves otherwise) I believe the Honor goes to an American who was the son of a Welsh emigrant farmer…… Donald ‘Don’ Johns who was broadsiding before 1914.

Americans Maldwyn Jones, Ed Brink and Cecil Brown have been given credit as some of the earliest broadsiders. It is said that Brink and Brown taught the Australians how to broadside during their visit to Oz in the 1920s

 

American trotting tracks where usually half or 1 mile long.

 

In my View.. speedway evolved from American dirt track racing on trotting Tracks

Edited December 29, 2008 by Nigel

[norbold]

Who was the first broadsider, well ….. On the evidence that I have (until someone proves otherwise) I believe the Honor goes to an American who was the son of a Welsh emigrant farmer…… Donald ‘Don’ Johns who was broadsiding before 1914.

Americans Maldwyn Jones, Ed Brink and Cecil Brown have been given credit as some of the earliest broadsiders. It is said that Brink and Brown taught the Australians how to broadside during their visit to Oz in the 1920s

 

American trotting tracks where usually half or 1 mile long.

 

In my View.. speedway evolved from American dirt track racing on trotting Tracks

Yes, I agree Nigel. But don't forget Albert "Shrimp" Burns (if only for his name) who was also sliding his bike around American dirt tracks before the First World War.