Motorcycle speedway

Motorcycle speedway

A speedway rider on the track
Highest governing body
Nicknames	Speedway
First played	1923
Characteristics
Contact	Contact
Team members	2 at a time on track
Type	Outdoor

Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. Speedway motorcycles use only one gear and have no brakes; racing takes place on a flat oval track usually consisting of dirt, loosely packed shale, or dolomite (mostly used in Australia and New Zealand). Competitors use this surface to slide their machines sideways, powersliding or broadsiding into the bends. On the straight sections of the track the motorcycles reach speeds of up to 70 miles per hour (110 km/h).

The exact origins of the sport are unknown but there is evidence of a type of speedway racing being practised in the USA before the First World War and in Australia in the late 1910s and early 1920s. There are now both domestic and international competitions in a number of countries including the Speedway World Cup whilst the highest overall scoring individual in the Speedway Grand Prix events is pronounced the world champion. Speedway is popular in central and northern Europe and to a lesser extent in Australia and North America. A variant of track racing, speedway is administered internationally by the (FIM). Domestic speedway events are regulated by FIM affiliated national motor sport federations.

The early history of speedway race meetings is a subject of much debate and controversy. There is evidence to show that meetings were held on small dirt tracks in Australia and the United States before World War I. An American rider named Don Johns was known to have used broadsiding before 1914. It was said that he would ride the entire race course wide open, throwing great showers of dirt into the air at each turn. By the early 1920s, Johns' style of cornering was followed in the US – where the sport was initially called "Short Track Racing" – by riders such as Albert "Shrimp" Burns, Maldwyn Jones and Eddie Brinck. Consequently, two long-held and common beliefs are incorrect: first, that New Zealand-born rider Johnnie Hoskins invented the sport, and second, that the first meeting was held on 15 December 1923 at West Maitland Showground, in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. For instance, a contemporary newspaper report of this meeting, in the Maitland Mercury, mentions previous meetings.