How About Some Speedway History?

[Ecosse]

[HavocTurbo]

Gorgeous.... absolutely gorgeous.

[754]

LOOKS LIKE AN 08 iNDIAN RACER.. I know a guy that has one, he ended up with my 06 Indian stuff..

 got to get up close to a Cyclone at the salt flats in Sept, got a few nice pics of it.. one of the coolest and most exoensive bikes ever made.. last one sold for around 500K!.. you have more finger than there are Cyclones in this world...

[Ecosse]

These things to me are as elegant as watches.


Loud, deadly, fast watches.

[HavocTurbo]

LOOKS LIKE AN 08 iNDIAN RACER.. I know a guy that has one, he ended up with my 06 Indian stuff..

 got to get up close to a Cyclone at the salt flats in Sept, got a few nice pics of it.. one of the coolest and most exoensive bikes ever made.. last one sold for around 500K!.. you have more finger than there are Cyclones in this world...

Well..............

Where are they???     

[bill440cars]

These things to me are as elegant as watches.


Loud, deadly, fast watches.

 
                 ABSOLUTELY Bill, ABSOLUTELY! (smiley with drool!)


                                     Great stuff there!    

[bill440cars]

       How about a JAP?  Called the "Copperknob"


       

       Didn't know Greeves had this one

       

       All I'd ever seen were bikes like this one

       

[Ecosse]

OK, I'd have to say... WOW! That copper JAP is just unbelievable! Imaging seeing that in the flesh? That trials bike is very impressive too. The fork on it and the Greeves I've seen on the virtual pages of Eurospares I think. The guy who runs that is an engineer I think had seem to like 'em. Another guy too but don't recall who. 

[HavocTurbo]

You want speedway history? YOU GOT IT....

Quoted from some book I know...

Jack Prince poured excitement into motorcycling in an entirely different way. Prince was a New Jersey engineer who had the soul of a promoter. Velodrome bicycle racing pulled large crowds into grandstands in the early twentieth century, but prince had more spectacular blueprints than push-bike racing. Prince engineered small oval board-track speedways which varied in distance from one-quarter to one-third mile around; the largest "motordrome" stretched out to a half-mile. The turns banked steeply to permit high-speed racing, tilting at forty-five to forty-eight degrees, though some motordrome walls tipped sixty degrees.

Builders constructed a timber framework which anchored into concrete bases. The actual surface of the track was formed with two-by-four pine boards laid on edge, or with two-by-twos. According to Prince, the tricky part was blending the banking and straightaways smoothly together. Not surprisingly, Prince had his own construction methods, which he claimed eliminated blending irregularities in the surface.

After Prince's first wooden saucer opened in Patterson, New Jersey, in 1908, a spree of motordrome construction followed. Dromes went up in major cities - New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and Los Angeles, among others. Perhaps it was no accident that these dromes were built in or near amusement parks, since the pocket-sized board tracks sold speed and danger in a compact setting. It was comprehensible racing, and well organized too. Promoters put together the American Motordrome League in which cities fielded home and traveling teams. The teams were professional, and league scores were kept in early baseball fashion.

TO BE CONTINUED... if you want....

[Ecosse]

Awesome Havoc! I say keep it coming!

[HavocTurbo]

Hey Bill and Bill and anyone else.. I can't seem to piece these together...

Wanna give it a shot??

[bill440cars]

Hey Bill and Bill and anyone else.. I can't seem to piece these together...

Wanna give it a shot??   

         I sure can't figure out how to help out! Of course, I'd have been very surprised if I could have done it!   Sorry!

[Ecosse]

Sorry, I tried and after more time than I'd care to admit I had no luck.

More sexy beast.

[Ecosse]

1930 Rudge

[bill440cars]

         How about this bike?

         

         

       Check this link out and find about a Cyclone Board Track Racer that sold at an auction for $520,000!

        http://www.ridermagazine.com/output.cfm?ID=1701325]

[Grumpol]

Hey Bill and Bill and anyone else.. I can't seem to piece these together...

Wanna give it a shot??

[bill440cars]

       1912 Indian 8 valve Board Track Racer:

        


        Check the link for the whole story:
  
           http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/classics/bike.asp?id=8

[bill440cars]

    Great job, Grumpol. Let's see if I can bring it up to size now?

     

[Ecosse]

    Great job, Grumpol. Let's see if I can bring it up to size now?

     

Yeah Grumol!

[Ecosse]

[HavocTurbo]

Part Two...

Early motordrome racing seemed safer than racing on small horse tracks which would engulf the riders in blinding dust after a few laps. The safety point was debatable because the motordromes had their own peculiar brand of danger. Intense rivalry filled every racing program. There were six or seven events: a couple of heat races, a final even, match races between team captians or the quickest riders, handicap and consolation events. The racing stayed incredibly close, and dead-heat finishes weren't unheard-of occurrences. Since motordrome racing was team racing and handlebar-to-handlebar racing, hooking, elbowing, and bumping made up the finer points of good inside fighting. Officials often winked at those deadly tactics. But the most lethal development in motordrome racing was the most inevitable one: Speeds shot up as the competition stiffened.

Indian and Excelsior waged a battle of racing technology with their 61-cu. in. V-twin engines. The first Indian drome racers had engines which were not substantially different from the unit Cannonball Baker's record-breaker. (Referrs to the Indian Power Plus with the Spring-Cradle Frame) The engine, which was dropped into a spindly rigid frame, accounted for most of the bike's 175-pond racing weight. The motorcycle rolled on 28-inch tires pumped up to 100-psi. From it's dropped handlebars to it's frail tubing, the drome racer looked like a racing bicycle built around an enormous V-twin engine.

The earliest twins might have delivered 10 or 12 HP at the rear wheel; that was strong enough to produce speeds in excess of 80 mph. As drome racing became more competitive, Indian - the biggest name in the field - dropped development of the old inlet-over-exhaust V-twin and struck out at Excelsior with special eight-valve V-twins which had clutches and two-speed gearboxes. The bikes, with their spaghetti-gauge frame tubes, remained delicate, but they were far more powerful and therefore faster. Laps in the 90's became commonplace.

Caption:
Morty Graves (left side), the Flying Merkel jockey, battles with Al Ward at a match race at the old Los Angeles Coliseum in 1910. The one-third mile drome was a Jack Prince project completed in 1909. That year lap speeds apporached 90 mph on the board saucer.

[Ecosse]

I'm throwing these in just because they look like they should be taking hard left hand corners.

'62 BSA


'48 HRD Blacklightning

[Ecosse]

Havoc, one of my goals is to try and locate where that board track was located. I live not far away from Springfield and went to school in the city. The college was down the road (I think) from where the Indian factory use to be.

Keep 'em coming!

[HavocTurbo]

The LA one??? Or one in Springfield?? lol I'm lost....

[Ecosse]

Springfield MA. The college use to be the Springfield armory and my grandma built M1's there during WWII. Just had to slip that in there.