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Race teams grid-up for the start of a race at Baltimore-Washington Speedway in 1925.
Board track racing was a type of motorsport popular in the United States during the 1910s and 1920s. Competition was conducted on circular or oval race courses with surfaces composed of wooden planks. This type of track was first used for motorcycle competition, wherein they were called motordromes, before being adapted for use by various different types of racing cars. The majority of the American national championship races were contested at such venues during the 1920s.
Board tracks proliferated in part because they were inexpensive to construct, but they lacked durability and required a great deal of maintenance to remain usable. Many of the tracks survived for as little as three years before being abandoned.
With the onset of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, board track racing disappeared rapidly. However, several of its most notable aspects have continued to influence American motorsports up to the present day, including: A technical emphasis on raw speed produced by the steep banking; ample track width to allow steady overtaking between competitors; and the development of extensive grandstands or stadium-style spectator seating surrounding many of the courses.
History[edit]
Construction of a board track at Uniontown, Pennsylvania in 1916
1912 Indian Board Track Racer, on display at the California Automobile Museum
Motorcycles racing on a board track in 1911
Some early board tracks were circular. This is a view of the Los Angeles Motordrome, the first of its kind.
Barney Oldfield (left) racing a car on a board track in 1915
Qualifying speeds at two-mile Tacoma Speedway were sometimes higher than those at Indianapolis.
The first board track for motor racing was the circular Los Angeles Motordrome, built in 1910 in the area that would later become the city's Playa del Rey district.[1] Based on the same technology as European velodromes used for bicycle racing, this track and others like it were constructed with 2-inch (51 mm) x 4-inch (100 mm) boards, often with turns banked at up to 45 degrees. In some cases, such as the track at Culver City, banking was 50 degrees or more.[2] Longer tracks were later built – some up to 2 miles (3.2 km) long by 1915 - and lap speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour became commonplace.[3][4][5]
Interest in motorsport was exploding during this period and by 1929, at least 24 board tracks had been built around the country, although by 1931, 20 of the 24 had been shut down or abandoned, and from 1932 on there were no more championship-level races run on boards.[6][7] The tracks were relatively inexpensive to construct compared to more permanent facilities – the total facility cost of the 2-mile (3.2 km) Tacoma Speedway was just $100,000 in 1915, compared to the $700,000 spent in 1909 just to pave the 2.5-mile (4.0 km) Indianapolis Motor Speedway.[8][9]
Name | Location | Track length | Years active | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Los Angeles Motordrome | Playa del Rey, California | 1.0 mile (1.6 km) | 1910–1913 | ||
Oakland Motordrome | Elmhurst, California | 0.5 miles (0.80 km) | 1911–1913 | ||
Speedway Park | Chicago, Illinois | 2.0 miles (3.2 km) | 1915–1918 | ||
Des Moines Speedway | Valley Junction, Iowa | 1.0 mile (1.6 km) | 1915–1917 | ||
Omaha Speedway | Omaha, Nebraska | 1.25 miles (2.01 km) | 1915–1917 | ||
Sheepshead Bay Speedway | Brooklyn, New York | 2.0 miles (3.2 km) | 1915–1919 | ||
Tacoma Speedway | Tacoma, Washington | 2.0 miles (3.2 km) | 1915–1922 | ||
Uniontown Speedway | Hopwood, Pennsylvania | 1.125 miles (1.811 km) | 1916–1922 | ||
Cincinnati Motor Speedway | Sharonville, Ohio | 2.0 miles (3.2 km) | 1916–1919 | ||
Beverly Hills Speedway | Beverly Hills, California | 1.25 miles (2.01 km) | 1920–1924 | ||
Fresno Speedway | Fresno, California | 1.0 mile (1.6 km) | 1920–1927 | ||
San Francisco Speedway | San Carlos, California | 1.25 miles (2.01 km) | 1921–1922 | ||
Cotati Speedway | Santa Rosa, California | 1.25 miles (2.01 km) | 1921–1922 | ||
Kansas City Speedway | Kansas City, Missouri | 1.25 miles (2.01 km) | 1922–1924 | ||
Altoona Speedway | Tyrone, Pennsylvania | 1.25 miles (2.01 km) | 1923–1931 | ||
Charlotte Speedway | Pineville, North Carolina | 1.25 miles (2.01 km) | 1924–1927 | ||
Culver City Speedway | Culver City, California | 1.25 miles (2.01 km) | 1924–1927 | ||
Rockingham Park | Salem, New Hampshire | 1.25 miles (2.01 km) | 1925–1928 | ||
Baltimore-Washington Speedway | Laurel, Maryland | 1.125 miles (1.811 km) | 1925–1926 | ||
Fulford–Miami Speedway | Fulford, Florida | 1.25 miles (2.01 km) | 1926–1927 | ||
Atlantic City Speedway | Hammonton, New Jersey | 1.5 miles (2.4 km) | 1926–1928 | ||
Akron-Cleveland Speedway | Northampton Township, Ohio | 0.5 miles (0.80 km) | 1926–1930[10] | ||
Pittsburgh-Bridgeville Speedway | Bridgeville, Pennsylvania | 0.5 miles (0.80 km) | 1927–1930[10] | ||
Woodbridge Speedway | Woodbridge, New Jersey | 0.5 miles (0.80 km) | 1929–1931 | ||
[7] |
Racing on these tracks often drew large crowds of paying spectators. In 1915, a crowd of 80,000 was reported in Chicago, three weeks after only 60,000 had attended the Indianapolis 500.[6] Relatively small and isolated Tacoma (population 83,000 in 1910) had turned out 35,000 to see a race the year before.[11][12] To attract both competitors and fans, race promoters offered what were then considered sensational amounts of prize money - a total purse of $25,000 was not unusual around the time of World War I.[13][14]
After World War I, the Automobile Association of America's Contest Board resumed and re-organized the National Championship system.[15] From the beginning of the 1920 season to the end of 1931, the AAA sanctioned a total of 123 championship racing events on 24 different race tracks, and 82 of those races were run on wooden surfaces. (Of the remainder, 12 were on the bricks of Indianapolis, and the other 29 were on dirt tracks or road courses.)[16]
Safety[edit]
Car raced at several board tracks
The first track in Playa del Rey was banked at a 3:1 pitch (about 20 degrees), but later tracks were built with higher banking and some motorcycle tracks were banked up to 60 degrees.[17][18] Even though the physics of such track designs were intuitively obvious, it was not until construction of the Beverly Hills track in 1919 that builders began to incorporate engineering knowledge that had been known to railroads for decades. At Beverly Hills, designer Art Pillsbury, who eventually worked on more than half of the championship-caliber board tracks nationwide, first employed the Searle Spiral Easement Curve, and the effect on car handling was pronounced.[19][20] According to Pillsbury, a correctly engineered track could be driven without steering input from the driver – the car would steer itself, simply due to the track geometry.[19]
The effects of these changes were higher cornering speeds and higher G-forces on drivers, but not necessarily greater safety. Driver fatalities continued to mount on board tracks into the 1920s, and included four Indianapolis 500 winners, three of which occurred at the Altoona track (another Pillsbury design) in Tipton, Pennsylvania, and three in the same years in which the driver won at Indianapolis. Winner of the 1919 Indianapolis 500Howdy Wilcox died in an Altoona race on September 4, 1923, while co-1924 winner Joe Boyer and 1929 winner Ray Keech both suffered fatal accidents at the facility in the same years as their Indianapolis 500 wins – Keech's occurring only seventeen days after, on June 15, 1929. Gaston Chevrolet, winner of the 1920 Indianapolis 500, perished that same autumn, on November 25, 1920, in a Thanksgiving Day race at Beverly Hills.[21]
Even when the cars did not crash, racing on a board track was exceedingly dangerous due to flying wood splinters and debris, and due to the primitive tire technology of the era.[22][23] In one oral history taken from a driver, he told a tale of wooden shards driven into the faces of drivers and riding mechanics, and sudden catastrophic tire failures caused by track conditions.[24] Cars were fitted with anti-splinter devices to protect their radiators.[25] Other protective devices hadn't been invented yet (seat belts, roll bars, or fire protection).[26] Drivers often were ejected from their cars and would fall tens of feet (several meters).[26] Drivers and riding mechanics often were driven over by their own or another car.[26]Pete DePaolo wrote in his book Wall Smacker that racing on boards was 'a great sensation, tearing around a board speedway dodging holes and flying timber.'[26]
On the motorcycling motordromes, the situation was also very dangerous and the danger was aggravated by the riders' lack of proper safety equipment.[27] Fans sat above the top of the track, looking down at the racers. When a rider lost control, he could slip up off the track and into the crowd. Many fatalities occurred, often involving spectators. The velodrome at Nutley, New Jersey, a 1⁄8 mi (200 m) oval banked at 45 degrees (generating lap times of 8 seconds or less) and built from 1 in × 12 in (25 mm × 305 mm) lumber on edge, was 'unquestionably the deadliest'.[28] On September 8, 1912, 'Texas Cyclone' Eddie Hasha was killed at a motordrome in Newark, New Jersey in an accident which also killed, another racer, 4 spectators and injured 10 more. The deaths made the front page of The New York Times,[29] and the press started calling the short 1/4 and 1/3 mile circuits 'murderdromes'.[18] The 1913 motorcycle championship races were moved to a dirt track because dirt was safer.[30] The national organization overseeing motorcycle racing banned all competitions on board tracks shorter than 1-mile (1.6 km) in 1919.[31] One by one, the manufacturers withdrew their support due to the negative publicity.[27]
The end of board tracks[edit]
A major contributor to the demise of board tracks was the high cost of maintenance. There was no suitable wood preservative available, and depending on climate, tracks needed new boards every five years on average.[20] Resurfacing required as much as a million board feet of new lumber per 1.25 miles (2.01 km) of track, which would have cost around $125,000 at the prices prevalent at the time.[20] Thus, during the last decade of the board tracks, carpenters would repair the tracks from below, sometimes even during a race, while the cars raced overhead at 120 mph (190 km/h) or faster.[24]
An additional factor was that as speeds increased, overtaking became more difficult - the fastest car would almost always win the race, as long as it held together long enough to finish. This led to spectators turning their attention to the less-predictable racing that was taking place on dirt tracks.[32]
Though board tracks disappeared from the National Championship scene in 1932, a few smaller tracks did continue to operate for some years afterward. For instance, the Coney Island Velodrome hosted midget racing until at least 1939, and Castle Hill Speedway in the Bronx ran midgets into the 1940s.[33][34]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
![American Speedway Motorcycle Racing American Speedway Motorcycle Racing](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125634151/425252209.jpg)
- ^Gnerre, Sam (January 12, 2011). 'Los Angeles Motordrome'. South Bay History. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
- ^Davidson, Donald (2005-05-29). 'On the Boards'. 2005 Indianapolis 500 Official Program. Indy Publications. p. 169.
- ^'1916 - A 100 M.P.H. Speed Era'. Automotive Industries, Volume 35. Chilton Company, Incorporated. 1916. p. 1097.
- ^'Speedway Practice - Feb. 5'. Motor West. 32: 46. February 1, 1920.
- ^Christensen, Mark; Thacker, Tony (2005). So-Cal Speed Shop: The Fast Tale of the California Racers Who Made Hot Rod History. MotorBooks International. p. 128. ISBN9780760322635.
- ^ abBorgeson, Griffith (1998). 'Chapter 3'. The Golden Age of the American Racing Car. SAE International. p. 20. ISBN9780768000238.
- ^ abBorgeson, Griffith (1998). 'Apendix II'. The Golden Age of the American Racing Car. SAE International. p. 323. ISBN9780768000238.
- ^Hunt, Herbert (1916). 'Volume 2'. Tacoma: Its History and Its Builders; a Half Century of Activity. New York Public Library: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company. pp. 253.
- ^Borgeson, Griffith (1998). 'Chapter 5'. The Golden Age of the American Racing Car. SAE International. p. 45. ISBN9780768000238.
- ^ abMartin, James A.; Saal, Thomas F. (2004). American Auto Racing: The Milestones and Personalities of a Century of Speed. McFarland & Company. ISBN978-0-786-41235-8.
- ^Moffatt, Riley. Population History of Western U.S. Cities & Towns, 1850-1990. Lanham: Scarecrow, 1996, 333.
- ^'Collection: Marvin D. Boland Collection Series: SPEEDWAY-011 (Unique: 38123)'. Tacoma Public Library - Image Archives. Tacoma Public Library. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 20 July 2012.
- ^'Astor Cup will be 250 miles'. Automotive Industries. 35: 461. September 14, 1916.
- ^Borgeson, Griffith (1998). 'Chapter 3'. The Golden Age of the American Racing Car. SAE International. p. 11. ISBN9780768000238.
- ^Borgeson, Griffith (1998). 'Chapter 3'. The Golden Age of the American Racing Car. SAE International. p. 12. ISBN9780768000238.
- ^Champ Car Stats
- ^Borgeson, Griffith (1998). The Golden Age of the American Racing Car. SAE International. p. 18. ISBN9780768000238.
- ^ abStatnekov, Daniel K. (June 28, 2003). 'Chapter 4 - Pioneers of American Motorcycle Racing'. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ abBorgeson, Griffith (1998). 'Chapter 3'. The Golden Age of the American Racing Car. SAE International. p. 21. ISBN9780768000238.
- ^ abcBorgeson, Griffith (1998). 'Chapter 3'. The Golden Age of the American Racing Car. SAE International. p. 23. ISBN9780768000238.
- ^Davidson, Donald (2005-05-29). 'On the Boards'. 2005 Indianapolis 500 Official Program. Indy Publications. p. 171.
- ^Illustrated world, 37. R.T. Miller, Jr. Publisher. 1922.
- ^Dunkelberger, Steve; Neary, Walter (2005). Lakewood. Arcadia Publishing. pp. 73–74. ISBN9780738530451.
- ^ abBorgeson, Griffith (1998). The Golden Age of the American Racing Car. SAE International. p. 24. ISBN9780768000238.
You used to get hit with some terrific blocks and knots of wood. We all came in with pieces of wood bigger than kitchen matches driven into our face and foreheads. They'd go in, hit the bone and then spread out. Then you had to remove them, of course.
- ^Glick, Shav (October 14, 1987). 'BOARD TRACKS : Before Indianapolis, L.A.'s Toothpick Ovals Were King'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 31, 2012.
- ^ abcdBerggren, Dick (June 2016). 'Wall Smacker'. Speedway Illustrated. pp. 62–65.
- ^ abScott, Missy (2008). Harley-Davidson Motor Company. p. 30. ISBN9780313348891.
- ^Circle Track Magazine, 9/84, p.77..
- ^'Six killed by motor cyclist jumping track'(PDF). The New York Times. September 12, 1912. Retrieved 2007-12-05.
- ^1918 Indian 8-Valve Racer, Dave Tharp, Retrieved December 10, 2007
- ^Pioneers of American Motorcycle Racing, Daniel K. Statnekov; Chapter 15; Retrieved December 10, 2007
- ^'The Miller Dynasty', Mark L. Dees
- ^Twomey, Bill (2007). The Bronx: In Bits and Pieces. Rooftop Publishing. p. 63. ISBN9781600080623.
- ^Gabriele, Michael (2011). The Golden Age of Bicycle Racing in New Jersey. The History Press. p. 106. ISBN9781596294271.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Board track racing. |
- The Board Track In Motion, a silent short film of motorcycle racing on the boards in Daytona Beach, Florida
- Beverly Hills Board Track Racing (1921), a film about motorcycle racing at Beverly Hills Speedway
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Board_track_racing&oldid=944255063'
Contents.Nature of the sport Track racing involves between four and six, sometimes eight competitors riding around an oval track in a counter-clockwise direction over a set number of laps - usually four to six sometimes eight - with points being awarded to all but the last finisher on a sliding scale.These points are accumulated over a number of heats, with the winner being the team or individual who has scored the most overall.The machines used are customised motorcycles, these have no brakes and are fuelled with methanol. A typical Speedway motorcycleSpeedway racing takes place on a flat oval track measuring between 260 and 425 metres long, usually consisting of or loosely packed. Competitors use this loose surface to slide their machines sideways into the bends using the rear wheel to scrub-off speed while still providing the drive to power the bike forward and around the bend.FIM regulations state that the motorcycles used must have no, run on pure, use only one and weigh a minimum of 78 kg.
Races consist of between four and six riders competing over four to six laps.Originating in, Australia in the 1920s, there are now both domestic and international competitions in a number of countries including the whilst the highest overall scoring individual in the events is pronounced the Speedway world champion.Flat track. Main article:Flat track racing, also known as, looks similar to Speedway racing but is quite different. Flat track motorcycles can have either or engines in amateur competition.
Flat track bikes have front and rear suspension, and rear brakes. The brakes are what make it completely distinct from speedway, as the brakes allow for a different cornering technique. Four-stroke motorcycles dominate professional competition and depending on the venue, can be single or multi-cylinder. Racetracks vary in length from 1/4 mile (400 metres) to 1 mile (1600 metres).Successful riders will often move to road racing, which is considerably more lucrative. Many top American riders in began their racing careers as flat track racers. Stadion Haunstetten, a Sandbahn trackLongtrack (also known as Sandbahn) is a variant of Grasstrack held on tracks up to 1000 – 1200 meters in length and with speeds reaching 90–100 mph (140–160 km/h).
![American Speedway Motorcycle Racing American Speedway Motorcycle Racing](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125634151/141848601.jpg)
The machinery and rules used are the same as for Grasstrack.The sport is popular in Germany, possibly more so than Speedway. This means that the majority of tracks are to be found in that country, although tracks can also be found in the, and Norway. Occasionally, Longtrack meetings are held in Australia and the United States, but these generally take place around arenas during their off-seasons (such as the, often known as the Sacramento Mile in motorcycle racing).Ice Racing. Ice racing using studded tyresIce Racing includes a motorcycle class which is the equivalent of Speedway on ice.
Bikes race anti-clockwise around oval tracks between 260 and 425 metres in length. The race structure and scoring is similar to Speedway.The sport is divided into classes for full-rubber and studded. The studded tyre category involves competitors riding on bikes with inch-long spikes screwed into each tread-less tyre, each bike has 90 spikes on the front tyre and 200 on the rear (or more).In the studded tyre class there is no broadsiding around the bends due to the grip produced by the spikes digging into the ice. Instead, riders lean their bikes into the bends at an angle where the handlebars just skim the track surface. This riding style is different from that used in the other track racing disciplines.
This means riders from this discipline rarely participate in Speedway or its other variants and vice versa.The majority of team and individual meetings are held in Russia, Sweden and, but events are also held in the, Germany, the, and occasionally other countries.Notes.
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