SPEEDWAY AND SIMILAR SPORTS
I attended my first speedway meeting aged 6 months and have been going ever since. Until I emigrated to NZ in 1969 I supported the late lamented Wimbledon team, and thus my heros were Geoff Mardon, Ronnie Moore, Barry Briggs, Ivan Mauger and Grame Stapleton, all Kiwis - no wonder I ended up living here!
My involvement in the sport is as a supporter. In my time I have and at present served as Chairman of the Speedway Commission of Motorculing New Zealand, Chairman of the NZ Solo Speedway Association and as a journalist for various magazines.
Speedway
Speedway is a very exciting form of dirt-track racing where stripped down motorcycles race round an oval track. A type of dirt-track racing took place in the early years of this century in North America, but it is widely acknowledged that the present day sport originated in New South Wales, Australia. In 1926, a young New Zealander called Johnny Hoskins was looking for a way to improve the finances of the near-bankrupt West Maitland Agricultural Society when he hit upon the idea of staging motorcycle racing around the trotting track at their shows. This idea proved wildly successful and soon spread throughout the rest of Australia.
Due to the close ties with Australia at the time, the sport very soon arrived in Britain with the first meeting being staged at High Beech, Essex in 1928. As Britain had much larger and more concentrated centres of population than Australia, a greater number of meetings with better prize money could be staged and inevitably it became the most popular destination for the world's top riders.
Speedway is now a global sport attracting large crowds in many countries around the world. To this day, top riders of all nationalities still compete in Britain but other countries such as Poland and Sweden are increasingly popular destinations.
The motorbikes used for speedway are not remotely like any machine you will ever see on the roads. They have acceleration on par with a Formula One racing car, but rather surprisingly have no brakes, rear suspension or gears. For the technically minded, the engines are 500cc single cylinder four valve, four strokes with air cooling. Methanol is used instead of petrol to enable them to run at very high compression ratios. Drive from the crankshaft is via a countershaft and clutch (hence no gearbox), and final drive ratios are determined by the selection of engine and rear wheel sprockets.
The bikes race anti-clockwise around an oval track on a surface of loosely packed shale or similar. The shale allows the riders 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. Tracks generally range between 250 and 400 metres in length but are often quite narrow. There is also some form of safety barrier between the outer edge of the track and the crowd.
Most races (or heats) consist of four riders racing over four laps from a clutch start. They score 3 points for first place, 2 points for second place and 1 point for third place. A rider does not score when finishing fourth, when failing to finish or when excluded from a race. In some countries, races consist of six riders but this is quite rare in Europe as the tracks tend to be too narrow to accommodate the extra riders safely.
A speedway meeting consists of various types of team and individual competitions. Most of the major speedway nations have leagues in which teams compete, with the British, Polish and Swedish Leagues being recognised as the strongest. The travel schedules of some of the top performers can often be mind-boggling as it is not unusual for riders to race in two or more different leagues whilst also representing their country in World Championship events.
Sidecars are widely raced in New Zealand, Australia, and the west coast of America race Despite appearing at the High Beech meeting in 1928 they are only occasionally seen in the UK.
In Australia and New Zealand the bikes often have to share the meeting with cars and this leads to compromises on the track surface.
Longtrack
Longtrack is very similar to speedway but it takes place on 1000 metre tracks and consequently speeds are much higher. There are also subtle differences between the machinery in that a longtrack bike is slightly larger and has a two-speed gearbox. Races usually consist of six riders although occasionally they have eight.
The sport is very popular in Germany, perhaps even 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 Czech Republic, Hungary, Denmark and Norway. Occasionally, longtrack meetings are held in Australia and New Zealand but these generally take place around horse trotting tracks.
The similarities with speedway means that many of the riders from that discipline also take part in longtrack. Whilst there are no leagues in longtrack, there are many lucrative open meetings which offer a means of additional income. Longtrack also has a great deal in common with grasstrack, down to the point where Britain (having no tracks of it's own) selects riders for the World Longtrack Championship on the basis of their grasstrack results!
Ice Racing
Ice Racing is arguably the most spectacular and dangerous track sport where bikes with spiked tyres race around oval ice circuits. The origins of Ice Racing are obscure, but the first recorded meeting was held in 1925 at Eibsee (a lake near Garmisch-Partenkirchen) in Germany. By the 1930's, meetings were being regularly held on lakes in Bayern and the sport had also become popular in Scandinavia and Canada. Unfortunately, WW2 put paid to any further expansion of the sport, but it was revived in the late-1940's by the Scandinavians. During the 1950's, the Russians started to dominate the sport and this has more or less continued to the present day. In 1963, the FIM (at the instigation of the Russian Federation) introduced the European Ice Racing Championship. This competition gained World Championship status three years later.
Scandinavia and Russia is still the home of ice racing, with the majority of team and individual meetings being held there, but ice racing is also held in Germany, The Czech Rep, Italy, Kazakhstan, The Netherlands, Poland and even Mongolia! Furthermore, the introduction of artificial-ice and indoor tracks has meant that meetings can now be held in those countries where it would not normally be possible to construct a natural track.
The bikes bear a passing resemblance to those used for speedway, but have a longer wheelbase and a more rigid frame. The main difference is the inch-long spikes, 90 on the front and 200 on the rear, which are screwed into treadless tyres to provide the grip. These necessitate special protective guards (similar to mudguards) over the wheels which extend almost to the ice surface. The spiked tyres produce a tremendous amount of traction and this means two-speed gearboxes are also required. As with speedway, the bikes do not have brakes.
Bikes race anti-clockwise around oval tracks between 285 and 400 metres in length. Races (or heats) consist of four riders racing over four laps from a clutch start. They score 3 points for first place, 2 points for second place and 1 point for third place. A rider does not score when finishing fourth, when failing to finish or when excluded from a race.
Unlike speedway, there is no broadsiding around the bends. Instead, riders lean their bikes into the bends at an angle where the handlebars just skim the surface of the ice. Speeds approach 80 mph (130 km/h) on the straights, and 60 mph (100 km/h) on the bends. The safety barrier usually consists of banked-up snow and ice around the outer edge of the track.
The riding style required for ice racing is different to that used in speedway, longtrack and grasstrack. This means riders from these disciplines rarely participate in ice racing and vice-versa (the most notable exception being Erik Stenlund).
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