[Stephen Cording]

I thought this may be of interest to my American friends that often ask me if Midgets / Sprint Cars are raced in the UK.

Sadly not any more (our tracks are too small for Sprint Cars, thou Midgets would work.)

But I did stumble upon this Film Footage from High Beech Speedway, near London from the 1940's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-p2zRBl-b4

While this webpage for those interested gives a little history of High Banks Speedway. In the UK we refer to Speedway racing as bike racing.
It's worth a look just to Check out the early photo's

http://www.defunctspeedway.co.uk/High%20Beech.htm

But by far the best find is this footage from Stamford Bridge (Chelsea Football Clubs ground) from 1948 look at the size of the crowd (around 80,000 + those sitting on the advertising signs, roofs and fences) packed in to watch the sideways action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTpW5sjtU88

The American tour arrived in the UK on April 28th 1948 and consisted of around 20 cars divided up into phony "teams" as all the drivers were Americans aprt from one Kiwi !! - USA; Belgium; Great Britain and France. 20 cars & drivers came over from the California "Red Circuit"

USA - Byron Counts; Jack Stroud; Inky Ingram; Crist & Richardson.

"Great Britain" - Rosie Rousell ; Frank Brewer; Noel Coath, Fletcher Pierce & Joe Kennison.

"France" - Billy Martin; Art George; Fred Hatfield; Barney Dana & Kelly Johnson

"Belgium" - Al Hendrix; Frank Armi; Speed Boardman; Danny Harrison & Sam Dockery.

[Stephen Cording]

John Hyam knows a lot more history of this event -

FILM star Lana Turner was the glamour attraction when an American group brought their version of midget car racing to Britain in 1948. She was the wife of one of the promoters, Henry Topping - but even her attributes failed to attract consistently large crowds after a promising start at Stamford Bridge, the home of Chelsea Football Club, in early May.

From the beginning, the United Racing Association of America, who sanctioned the racing met opposition from the motorcycle speedway promoters. Originally, the midget car promoters had hoped to make use of the many speedway tracks operating in Britain. But suddenly, the speedway bosses decided that midget cars presented a challenge to them and refused to let the cars race on their circuits. It left the midget car bosses with the problem of constructing their own tracks at the Chelsea and Charlton football grounds and reopening the Walthamstow speedway, which had closed for bikes in the mid-1930s.

The series operated under the rules of the United Racing Association of America, whose UK directors were Bert Friedlob, Henry J Topping Jnr and Norman Hanks. The racing director was Al Wessling, while his deputy was Cubby Broccoli - later to become famous in film making and linked to many of the James Bond epics. The chief race steward ws Harry la Bahn and the race commentator was James Cross.

Because of the confines of the football pitches, the 440-yard tracks did not allow for wide bends and reduced the chances of overtaking. But there was some hope when the pre-war speedway at Walthamstow was brought into the promoting circuit. This though proved to be too small - about 300 yards in length with very tight bends.

Despite the opposition of the speedways, the Americans managed to generate plenty of early publicity.

A staggering 50,000 crowd fans packed Stamford Bridge for the opening meeting, mainly because Lana Turner put in a celebrity appearance. The intention was to run meetings twice weekly at each venue - on Mondays and Fridays at Walthamstow, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Stamford Bridge, and on Wednesdays and Saturdays at The Valley in Charlton. The scheduled season of international events was set to run 10 weeks.

It was claimed that the 20 drivers (19 Americans and one New Zealander) were the best in the USA, which was surprising because the highly organised American season ran through from April until early October and was just starting as they arrived.

The New Zealander was Frank ‘Satan” Brewer, a recognised international star, who proved himself in the USA, Australia and New Zealand until the early 1970s. But the other drivers were ‘unknowns’ on the competitive American scene.

Meetings were run on speedway lines, mostly with four cars over six laps, although some races featured eight cars over 10 laps and 12 cars over 20 laps. It was intended that teams accumulate points from each meeting to give an overall series winner.

To give the series an international flavour, the teams were divided as follows:

Great Britain - Frank Brewer, Rosie Roussel, Noel Coath, Fletcher Pierce, Joe Kenison.

USA - Jack Stroud, Byron Counts, Inky ‘Cowboy” Ingram, Chauncy Crist, George Richardson.

Belgium - Frank Armi, Speed Boardman, Dan Harrison, Sam Dockery, Al Hendrix.

France - Art George, Bill Martin, Fred Hatfield, Barney Dana, Kelly Johnson.

But after the opening meeting at Stamford Bridge, the spectators soon realised these were not the true nationalities of the drivers and the teams were renamed Stamford Bridge FC, Walthamstow and the American Athletic Club.

The British press crucified the midgets and a lack of competitiveness because of track shapes led to a quick decline. Charlton staged only one meeting, Stamford Bridge ran for a month, and only a handful of meetings took place at Walthamstow.

The track surfaces were a based on a mix of dirt and crushed bricks surfaced with three inches of cinders. On these type of circuits the midgets could not reproduce the thrilling racing that had made the sport so popular in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. There was a nosedive in attendances - from a 25,000 opening crowd Walthamstow went down to 10,000 and for its last meeting just 2,000 went through the turnstile. Stamford Bridge never again saw its opening 50,000 attendance and gates plummeted, with just 3,000 at the last meeting. Charlton which pulled 52,000 for its opener failed to stage any more meetings.

After just five weeks of the schedule 10 week season which had opened on Thursday May 13, 1948, tour organiser Bob Friedlob called a halt to venture, but he promised British fans, "We will be back in 1949." It never happened, but the organisers kept faithful to the drivers and they were paid in full. It was estimated that the tour organisers lost £100,000. The drivers were paid a fee of £12 a week plus a percentage of the gate money. The drivers also had a daily meal allowance and were provided with free accommodation.

It was a sad end to the venture and did much to damage the reputation of midget car racing in Britain. Yet the Americans had travelled to Britain fully prepared. They travelled on the SS Panama which had on board 20 V8-60 midget cars, 800 gallons of methanol fuel, 800 gallons of oil and 500 tyres. There was also hardwood timber frames, netting, and barrels of nails and screws to be used in the construction of safety fences. And, to make sure the cars kept running, there was a complete machine shop with valve grinding machines and a range of engine spares, lathes, welding plans and air compressors. Nothing seemingly was left to chance.

In an attempt to save the sport at Walthamstow, the promoters even ripped up their first surface and laid ashphalt but it made little improvement. Certainly the American drivers did not like the original attempt to lay a dirt-***-brick track. Noel Coath said, "The original tracks were really bad, Rolling bits of brick into the dirt and then covering them, with cinders isn't the way to build a race track.

"We couldn't get any bite on the surfaces and you could easily get hit on the head by a piece of flying brick. If we could have had clay surface tracks or even aspalt from the start, the racing could have been so much better."

Rosie Roussel, another American driver also rapped the poor tracks. He said, "We couldn't race on the cinders, cpuldn't pass and the shower of cinders tossed up by the cars made it imposible to even get near to the guy you were chasing."

Frank Brewer commented of the bad conditions, "The first few times we raced the track was covered with loose cinders, which gradually formed big grooves on the outside. When you took your car to the outside, the ceinders would fly up and just about turn you over. Then they sprayed tar on the bricks, covered the tar with cinders and watered the whole lot. That made it worse than ever, for water licked up by the car tyres would hit you in the face and darken your goggles."

A belated attempt to generate interest among British fans featured Frank Brewer racing against pre-war British racer Billy Murden, but this soon fizzled out as an attraction with Brewer winning all three of their races. Other British drivers, Walter Mackereth and Frank Chiswell also challenged the Americans but were turned down. This was because they raced four-wheel drive Skirrows while the Americans used rear-wheel drive cars, as did Murden.


(c) John Hyam 2009

Taken from - http://midgetcarpanorama.proboards.c...e=1&scrollTo=9

[i love dirt track racing]

Thanks for sharing. Wow the crowd was great.