Motor Racing at Crystal Palace - London's own circuit

Motor Racing at Crystal Palace - London's own circuit
Author: S.S. Collins
Publisher: David and Charles
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2015-05-18
Genre:
ISBN: 1845846761

Crystal Palace, London's own circuit, has recently been found to be one of the oldest Motor Racing venues in the world - this is its story

Midget Car Racing

Midget Car Racing
Author: Derek Bridgett
Publisher: Fonthill Media
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2017-01-24
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN:

It was by chance that the author stumbled across a long lost programme for the opening meeting of Hanley Car Speedway for 21 July 1938. The programme had been hidden away in family papers for almost sixty years and it sparked an enduring interest in Midget Car Speedway. Motor sport had been the preserve of the rich and glamorous, but now the ordinary man could build a car and race it on a shoestring budget. It was the start of motor racing as we know it today and without the development of midget car racing, we perhaps would not have seen the Formula Three, Formula Ford and other series that we take for granted today. Although a short-lived craze that hit the UK during the 1930s, midget car racing was an incredible motor phenomenon with some races and events attracting over 60,000 people from all over the country. Derek Bridgett's Midget Car Racing chronicles this bizarre but immersive little-known motorsport. Focusing specifically on the Belle Vue Speedway, this incredible book is profusely illustrated with photographs from the period.

Hammerin' Around

Hammerin' Around
Author: Brian Belton
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2002-05-15
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0750952474

This is a history of speedway at the West Ham stadium, from its first-ever dirt track meeting in 1928 to its final season in 1971. Exhaustively researched and supplemented with detailed statistical appendixes, this is a nostalgic but worthy tribute to the track heroes of a bygone era.

British Sport - A Bibliography to 2000

British Sport - A Bibliography to 2000
Author: Richard Cox
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 113528749X

Volume two of a bibliography documenting all that has been written in the English language on the history of sport and physical education in Britain. It lists all secondary source material including reference works, in a classified order to meet the needs of the sports historian.

British Sport: Local histories

British Sport: Local histories
Author: Richard William Cox
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2003
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 9780714652511

Volume three of a bibliography documenting all that has been written in the English language on the history of sport and physical education in Britain. It lists all secondary source material including reference works, in a classified order to meet the needs of the sports historian.

Fay Taylour, 'The World's Wonder Girl'

Fay Taylour, 'The World's Wonder Girl'
Author: Stephen M Cullen
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
Total Pages: 427
Release: 2024-02-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1399099396

Fay Taylour (1904-1983) remains the most successful female motorsports champion. She defeated the foremost male motorcycle speedway stars of the 1920s and 1930s. A household name in Britain and her native Ireland, she won further fame on the track in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Her successes against men led to a ban on women competing against them in the UK, but Fay Taylour carried on, racing around the world. She also built a new career in long distance car racing and carved a name for herself in the new sport of midget car racing. All of this came to a halt with the outbreak of the Second World War, which, controversially, saw Fay Taylour join Oswald Mosley’s fascist movement and become part of an underground pro-Hitler campaign in London. She was imprisoned for three years by the British authorities. After the war, she was one of the very few pre-war women motorsports champions to return to the track. She re-established her career with highly successful tours in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, before moving to the USA. There she first sold sports cars in Hollywood before returning to midget-car racing across America. Later banned from the USA for her earlier politics, she again took to racetracks around the world, competing against the world’s best well into her fifties. This first full biography of Fay Taylour is based on her extensive personal papers, media reports of her racing career around the world, and decades of UK government security files. It covers Taylour’s life on and off the track, her struggles with sports and security authorities, her battles against anti-female prejudices, and her many passionate love affairs.

Both Sides of the Fence

Both Sides of the Fence
Author: Reg Fearman
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2014-07-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 075096099X

'Reg Fearman is the man who knows all of speedway's secrets ... and is prepared to reveal them. He has taken a unique, full-throttle, white-knuckle ride to the top as an international rider, a world-class team manager, a successful promoter and a formidable administrator. He has never ducked a confrontation, on or off the speedway track; he knows the glamorous and the murky side of a tough, fabulously exciting and sometimes cruel sport, and he spares no one's blushes ... not even his own' - John Chaplin, speedway's leading historian 'From humble origins in London's East End, this is the story of how Reg Fearman became a local hero with West Ham, the cockney giants of speedway, and went on to represent his country, first as a rider at the tender age of 17, and then as an international manager. A captivating mixture of sporting achievement, politics and business and social history, it also looks at how speedway was resurrected from the doldrums of the late 1950s and dragged into a new 'Jet Age' golden era, a time which paved the way for the heights that the sport has enjoyed in the twenty-first century as a global phenomenon. Including a plethora of untold truths, revelations and a rich treasure trove of photographs, Reg lays bare for the first time the sensational inside story of the resurrection of speedway ... warts and all!' - Dr Brian Belton, JP and author

The Golden Age of Speedway

The Golden Age of Speedway
Author: Philip Dalling
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2011-03-09
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0752494619

The post-war era was British speedway's golden age. Ten million spectators passed through the turnstiles of a record number of tracks at the sport's peak. With league gates as high as 80,000, speedway offered a colourful means of escape from the grim austerity of the times. A determinedly clean image, with no betting and rival fans mingling on the terraces, made speedway the family night out of choice. The sport thrived despite punitive taxation and Government threats to close down the speedways as a threat to industrial productivity. A three-division National League stretched from Exeter to Edinburgh and the World Championship Final attracted a capacity audience to Wembley. Test matches against Australia provided yet another international dimension. Even at the height of its popularity, speedway was a sporting edifice built on unstable foundations, which crumbled alarmingly as the 1950s dawned and Britain's economic and social recovery brought competing attractions like television.