Post by administrator on Mar 27, 2009 12:37:33 GMT 1
THE small oval car history books are specific on two points. That British stock car racing started at London’s New Cross Stadium on Good Friday 1954. And that midget car racing started at another South London venue, Crystal Palace over the 1934 Easter holiday.
There are some sceptics who point out that in fact the early Crystal Palace meetings were not true midgets but rather something akin to Roadsters. They will tell you that real midgets started in 1936 when Harry Skirrow built the car that was named after him. Or they will put forward claims that Belle Vue (Manchester) promoter Eric Spence played his part by bringing an Elto midget from the USA in 1936. Copies were then built by Len Hume for use by the Belle Vue drivers.
Greenford is a place few people are familiar with. It’s situated on the north west outskirts of London, near to Wembley. Perhaps its greatest claim to fame is that it’s on the London tube network and you pass through it when travelling on the Central Line between Ealing Broadway and West Ruislip.
Yet significant evidence shows that Greenford is the birthplace of short circuit car racing in Britain.
The site, in a triangle of land now involving Birkbeck Avenue, Stanley Avenue and Jayners Drive includes an open space which hosted a horse trotting track from 1919. Greenford, was in fact, a horse race venue rival to another track at nearby Northolt, which was later developed as an airport.
Greenford was an ideal venue for motorsport. It was a half-mile circuit with a cinder surface going to a depth of between six and eight inches. The stratights were 220 long with bends between 35ft and 40ft wide. And surrounding the track there was a wire safety fence.
With its banked bends, in 1928 it was an ideal venue for the new motorcycle sport of speedway. This was then mushrooming across Britain in much the same way that stock car racing did following its introduction in 1954.
Legendary speedway stars like ‘Demon Barber’ Billy Galloway, Keith McKay, the South African Keith Harvey, along with England’s Ivor Creek and Alan Kilfoyle raced at the first bike meeting. Of interest, Kilfoyle later had a brief flirtation with midget cars in 1931.
By June 1928, the possibility of Greenford staging car racing was being considered. These were eventually organised by the Junior Car Club and practice sessions were arranged for Wednesday June 20 and Friday June 22. These were staged to determined the amount of interest for cars to be divided into three classes - up to 859cc, up to 1100, and up to 1500cc.
Hardly had the publicity for the two practice sessions been made than the Junior Car Club announced that the first meeting would take place on Saturday June 23. The Junior Car Club, which was based in Empire House, Brompton Road, Kensington, west London, claimed the meeting as ‘Britain’s first authorised dirt track car racing.’
Drivers entered for the first meeting included J Turner, Kay Don, Brian Lewis and Vernon Balls. Because of the width of the track, it was also proposed that cars would start three abreast. However, at the opening meeting this was reversed to allow four cars in action. The main final was won by A Nash (Frazer-Nash) from J Adlington (Standard Super-Sports), R Bowes (Frazer-Nash) and Vernon Balls (Amilcar).
Sadly, the 1928 car promotions held only a few meetings and little motorpsort took place there until 1931 when motorcycling made a brief return.
Then in 1934, Alvin ‘Spike’ Rhiando appeared on the Greenford scene. There is no doubt that Rhiando was one of motor sport’s most complex figures. He claimed to be a Canadian, and also that that he had been born in Tampa, Florida, USA. Sceptics said he was really a Londoner and had been born in Deptford, south London.
With preparations being made for the introduction of midget car racing at Crystal Palace, Rhiando decided that a Greenford revival was long overdue. With the support of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sons Adrian and Denis, he worked hard to get things ready for the opening meeting on Saturday March 24, 1934, six days before Crystal Palace’s scheduled start.
Drivers booked to appear included Rhiando, Miss Cythia Sedgwick, Tommy Sulman (Australia), ‘Babe’ West, ‘Drag’ Johnson, Cholmondeley-Tapper and Vernon Balls. For the programme, Rhiando planned races over 10, 15, 25 and 50 miles.
And Rhiando also made a bold promise, “My plan is to bring all the American stars to Britain.”
Sadly, the meeting never took place. The RAC (Royal Automobile Club) specified that the cinder depth on the should be two-inches whereas Rhiando insisted half-inch was enough. He said, “Too much depth causes the dirt o bank up on the bends an this could cause a broadsiding car to overturn if it hits a deep patch of cinders.”
Aftere weeks of dispute, Rhiando got his way and he went ahead to stage his first meeting on May 5, several weeks after Crystal Palace had opened.
Rhiando, who had no real finances of his own to promote the venture, set up a company - The Autodrome Racing Club - to promote meetings. And he gave himself the title of Technical Adviser. In a press release for the meeting, it said of Rhiando, “Alvin ‘Spike’ Rhiando well known Amrican dirt-track driver has for the past 12 months been endeavoring to control Auto Dirt Track Racing in this country and has been very instrumental in inaugurating this sport.
“After overcoming the many obstacles with a new venture and with the financial aid of Mr Charles Dickyyson-Gertz, well known Brooklands race driver, and with the sanction of the Royal Automobile Club, meetings are now being promoted.”
Before the opening meeting, some 25 drivers took part in time trials using a variety of cars. Dudley Froy in a 3-litre Buggatti set a lap qualifying time of 36.2 seconds, Bud Burroughs got his MG round in 39.2 seconds, while Hall Caine in a Magnette lapped in 42.4 seconds and B N Finglass took his Lea Francis round in44 seconds.
Rhiando, however, decided there had to be an American influence for the meeting and announced that ‘Babe’ Stapp, who owner a 4-cylinder rear-wheel drive Miller - ‘the second fastest car in the United States’ - would race at Greenford’s first meeting.
Stapp was given a lot of publicity. A release said of him, ‘Hails from Los Angeles, is 30-years-old and has been driving for 10 years, and on the big-time circuit for six. His first race was in 1923 at the San Luis Obispo, one-mile track, and was placed third in in his second race there.
“In his fourth race in ‘big time’ he licked Frank Lockhart, D Leon Duray, De Paolo, Woodbury and others to leap to instant fame in a 100-mile board track event.”
The lavish priase of Stapp continued, “A very skilful and claever pilot, knows how to keep clear of wrecks, preserves his tyres, stays out of pockets, and avoids being pushed into the apron. A daring driver but not foolhardy, drives to finish, first if possible, but his motor generally breaks up under him; good on any track especially Indianaoplis.
“At Charlotte Speedway in 1926, Stapp won a 120-mile race with a Miller at 120.87mph and another at the Phoenix one-mile track in 1929 with a ‘BobbySpecil.’
“He lost a front wheel at Oakland in early 1933, but by sheer skill saved his car from crashing. Later in the same year at the Legion Ascot Speedway blew a tyre while coming out of a curve, the car skidded so violently that Babe was thrown out and slid 50ft on hius back and shoulders. Art Pillsbury, Pacific Coast AAA track official, at the risk of his own life, rushed out onto the track and dragged Babe to safety before the thundering pack reached him: quite a hero.”
The release on Stapp concluded, “Stapp was leading the 500-mile Indianapolis race last year when he was forced out by motor trouble. Is down to drive Mike Boyle’s ‘Boyle Valve Special’ in the same race this year. Is very suprstitious and also carries an ivory monkey tied to his steering wheel, for luck, given him by a friend.”
There is little recorded of what went on at Greenford in 1934 - nor any reference to ‘Babe’ Stapp competing in any meeting. Seemingly it was a short-lived and unsuccessful venture. Some evidence appeared in July 1987, when the influential ‘Clasic and Sportscar’ magazine said, “Greenford had apparently begin life as a trotting track, but through the mid-30s when it was promoted notably by Dickyyson-Geertz and the extrovert Conan Doyle brothers, it made a brief and not altogether respectable name as a motor racing venue.
“To be slinging cars round in lurid slides on such a tight little circuit seems to have been regarded veru sniffily by the patricians of the RAC and the Brooklands establishment.
“The Conan Doyle brothers, Adrian and Denis, were the sons of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and researcher into the par-normal. ‘Normality’ by the stiff-collared standards of the time didn’t seem to to appeal tohis sons. They exploited their wealth in all manner of high-performance cars, most notably an enormous Mercedes. One who knew them well at the time describes the extrovert Adrian’s race wear as consisting as consisting of tight white shorts and gum boots “...and you might also meet him dressed just the same way in the middle of Park Lane. He really was an extraordinarily colourful character.”
The magazine added. “But Greenford and the other car speedway venues never really established a following against that feeling of disapproval and the ineveitable problems of running road-racin cars in such a specialised milieu. When the developers came along, the brief life of Greenford Speedway came to an end, and it became London’s lost motor racing circuit.”
The likelihood is that in this period under Rhiando’s guidance the Autodrome Racing Club staged at best two or three unreported meetings. And in this period, not ‘Babe’ Stapp but Dickyy Nash, driving his own-built car and very much like a modern midget car and dubbed ‘The Spook’, appears to have been the racing here.
Fittingly, Rhiando laid claim to the best memory of racing at the track. Years later he told how he was testing a car at Greenford when he felt a warm draught blowing around him. He looked round and saw flames licking at his overalls. The car was afire with a vengeance. Rhiando claimed he had to drive for 12 laps to blow the flames away from himself.
For a promotion that was so obviously ill-founded, Greenford has been the object of many researches to produce little in regard to its race meetings.
One such researcher was Trevor Pask of Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire. He bought two Amilcars - a type of car featured in the 1928 meetings at Greenford. One of them, a 1927 Amilcar CGSS, was similar to the cars at the inaugural 1928 meetings. This car had an 1100cc engine and was able to reach 85mph. Pask also owned an Amilcar four-seater sports car built in 1929.
Pask spent five years researching into Greenford’s racing history, then conceded, “Everything about Greenford as a race track is so sketchy.”
In June 2003, Pask made a nostaglic journey with one of his Amilcars to the Birkbeck Sports Association’s ground, and toured it slowly round what what had been one of the track’s straights and bends. He said. “This was a trip down memory lane for me. Greenford is one of motor racing’s forgottem raceways, but there can be little doubt that in its fleeting periods of operation it tended to attract a lot of attention.”
Pask added, “In the late 1920s and through to the mid-1930s, there were no purpose-built track cars. Drivers would actually drive to a meeting, then remove things like mudguards, lights and sideboards before going out to race.
“It was only when Harry Skirrow started to build his midget cars that things changed and racers would be towed to meetings.”
In the dim mists of time surrounding track car racing in the early 1930s, apart from Greenford, nearby Wembley and a track in Leicester also featured car racing. At the old ‘traditional’ Wembley Stadium, then hosting the Wembley Lions speedway team, cars similar to those which had appeared at Greenford were given track time in October 1931.
A crowd of 60,000 turned up at Wembley on October 1 - mainly to see the Lions in action against Stamford Bridge. Three cars went into action after the speedway match. The drivers were Mrs T H Wisdom and respected Brooklands drivers R G Nash an H J Aldington. They all carried passengers. Mrs Wisdom and Aldington in Frazer Nash’s clocked times of 24 seconds for a flying lap start.
Nash then had trouble getting his car started and borrowed Mrs Wisdom’s car. His attempt ended in disaster. He went into a broadside and overturned the car. While Nash held on to the steering wheel, his pasenger F Berry was thrown out and suffered an arm injury. For the meeting at Leicester Super Speedway in November 1929, the track was in poor condition. The deep cinder surface was badly affected by frost for several days, then just before the meeting it rained and turned the track into a virtual quagmire.
In an individual record attempt - three laps to the mile - H Brayshaw driving an Alvis set a time of 104.6 seconds. Other cars at the meting included Amilcar, Salmonson and MGs. Brayshaw finsished as overall winner of the meeting while others who did well were O Bentley (Amilcar) and A Burnham (Salmonson).
There are some sceptics who point out that in fact the early Crystal Palace meetings were not true midgets but rather something akin to Roadsters. They will tell you that real midgets started in 1936 when Harry Skirrow built the car that was named after him. Or they will put forward claims that Belle Vue (Manchester) promoter Eric Spence played his part by bringing an Elto midget from the USA in 1936. Copies were then built by Len Hume for use by the Belle Vue drivers.
Greenford is a place few people are familiar with. It’s situated on the north west outskirts of London, near to Wembley. Perhaps its greatest claim to fame is that it’s on the London tube network and you pass through it when travelling on the Central Line between Ealing Broadway and West Ruislip.
Yet significant evidence shows that Greenford is the birthplace of short circuit car racing in Britain.
The site, in a triangle of land now involving Birkbeck Avenue, Stanley Avenue and Jayners Drive includes an open space which hosted a horse trotting track from 1919. Greenford, was in fact, a horse race venue rival to another track at nearby Northolt, which was later developed as an airport.
Greenford was an ideal venue for motorsport. It was a half-mile circuit with a cinder surface going to a depth of between six and eight inches. The stratights were 220 long with bends between 35ft and 40ft wide. And surrounding the track there was a wire safety fence.
With its banked bends, in 1928 it was an ideal venue for the new motorcycle sport of speedway. This was then mushrooming across Britain in much the same way that stock car racing did following its introduction in 1954.
Legendary speedway stars like ‘Demon Barber’ Billy Galloway, Keith McKay, the South African Keith Harvey, along with England’s Ivor Creek and Alan Kilfoyle raced at the first bike meeting. Of interest, Kilfoyle later had a brief flirtation with midget cars in 1931.
By June 1928, the possibility of Greenford staging car racing was being considered. These were eventually organised by the Junior Car Club and practice sessions were arranged for Wednesday June 20 and Friday June 22. These were staged to determined the amount of interest for cars to be divided into three classes - up to 859cc, up to 1100, and up to 1500cc.
Hardly had the publicity for the two practice sessions been made than the Junior Car Club announced that the first meeting would take place on Saturday June 23. The Junior Car Club, which was based in Empire House, Brompton Road, Kensington, west London, claimed the meeting as ‘Britain’s first authorised dirt track car racing.’
Drivers entered for the first meeting included J Turner, Kay Don, Brian Lewis and Vernon Balls. Because of the width of the track, it was also proposed that cars would start three abreast. However, at the opening meeting this was reversed to allow four cars in action. The main final was won by A Nash (Frazer-Nash) from J Adlington (Standard Super-Sports), R Bowes (Frazer-Nash) and Vernon Balls (Amilcar).
Sadly, the 1928 car promotions held only a few meetings and little motorpsort took place there until 1931 when motorcycling made a brief return.
Then in 1934, Alvin ‘Spike’ Rhiando appeared on the Greenford scene. There is no doubt that Rhiando was one of motor sport’s most complex figures. He claimed to be a Canadian, and also that that he had been born in Tampa, Florida, USA. Sceptics said he was really a Londoner and had been born in Deptford, south London.
With preparations being made for the introduction of midget car racing at Crystal Palace, Rhiando decided that a Greenford revival was long overdue. With the support of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sons Adrian and Denis, he worked hard to get things ready for the opening meeting on Saturday March 24, 1934, six days before Crystal Palace’s scheduled start.
Drivers booked to appear included Rhiando, Miss Cythia Sedgwick, Tommy Sulman (Australia), ‘Babe’ West, ‘Drag’ Johnson, Cholmondeley-Tapper and Vernon Balls. For the programme, Rhiando planned races over 10, 15, 25 and 50 miles.
And Rhiando also made a bold promise, “My plan is to bring all the American stars to Britain.”
Sadly, the meeting never took place. The RAC (Royal Automobile Club) specified that the cinder depth on the should be two-inches whereas Rhiando insisted half-inch was enough. He said, “Too much depth causes the dirt o bank up on the bends an this could cause a broadsiding car to overturn if it hits a deep patch of cinders.”
Aftere weeks of dispute, Rhiando got his way and he went ahead to stage his first meeting on May 5, several weeks after Crystal Palace had opened.
Rhiando, who had no real finances of his own to promote the venture, set up a company - The Autodrome Racing Club - to promote meetings. And he gave himself the title of Technical Adviser. In a press release for the meeting, it said of Rhiando, “Alvin ‘Spike’ Rhiando well known Amrican dirt-track driver has for the past 12 months been endeavoring to control Auto Dirt Track Racing in this country and has been very instrumental in inaugurating this sport.
“After overcoming the many obstacles with a new venture and with the financial aid of Mr Charles Dickyyson-Gertz, well known Brooklands race driver, and with the sanction of the Royal Automobile Club, meetings are now being promoted.”
Before the opening meeting, some 25 drivers took part in time trials using a variety of cars. Dudley Froy in a 3-litre Buggatti set a lap qualifying time of 36.2 seconds, Bud Burroughs got his MG round in 39.2 seconds, while Hall Caine in a Magnette lapped in 42.4 seconds and B N Finglass took his Lea Francis round in44 seconds.
Rhiando, however, decided there had to be an American influence for the meeting and announced that ‘Babe’ Stapp, who owner a 4-cylinder rear-wheel drive Miller - ‘the second fastest car in the United States’ - would race at Greenford’s first meeting.
Stapp was given a lot of publicity. A release said of him, ‘Hails from Los Angeles, is 30-years-old and has been driving for 10 years, and on the big-time circuit for six. His first race was in 1923 at the San Luis Obispo, one-mile track, and was placed third in in his second race there.
“In his fourth race in ‘big time’ he licked Frank Lockhart, D Leon Duray, De Paolo, Woodbury and others to leap to instant fame in a 100-mile board track event.”
The lavish priase of Stapp continued, “A very skilful and claever pilot, knows how to keep clear of wrecks, preserves his tyres, stays out of pockets, and avoids being pushed into the apron. A daring driver but not foolhardy, drives to finish, first if possible, but his motor generally breaks up under him; good on any track especially Indianaoplis.
“At Charlotte Speedway in 1926, Stapp won a 120-mile race with a Miller at 120.87mph and another at the Phoenix one-mile track in 1929 with a ‘BobbySpecil.’
“He lost a front wheel at Oakland in early 1933, but by sheer skill saved his car from crashing. Later in the same year at the Legion Ascot Speedway blew a tyre while coming out of a curve, the car skidded so violently that Babe was thrown out and slid 50ft on hius back and shoulders. Art Pillsbury, Pacific Coast AAA track official, at the risk of his own life, rushed out onto the track and dragged Babe to safety before the thundering pack reached him: quite a hero.”
The release on Stapp concluded, “Stapp was leading the 500-mile Indianapolis race last year when he was forced out by motor trouble. Is down to drive Mike Boyle’s ‘Boyle Valve Special’ in the same race this year. Is very suprstitious and also carries an ivory monkey tied to his steering wheel, for luck, given him by a friend.”
There is little recorded of what went on at Greenford in 1934 - nor any reference to ‘Babe’ Stapp competing in any meeting. Seemingly it was a short-lived and unsuccessful venture. Some evidence appeared in July 1987, when the influential ‘Clasic and Sportscar’ magazine said, “Greenford had apparently begin life as a trotting track, but through the mid-30s when it was promoted notably by Dickyyson-Geertz and the extrovert Conan Doyle brothers, it made a brief and not altogether respectable name as a motor racing venue.
“To be slinging cars round in lurid slides on such a tight little circuit seems to have been regarded veru sniffily by the patricians of the RAC and the Brooklands establishment.
“The Conan Doyle brothers, Adrian and Denis, were the sons of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and researcher into the par-normal. ‘Normality’ by the stiff-collared standards of the time didn’t seem to to appeal tohis sons. They exploited their wealth in all manner of high-performance cars, most notably an enormous Mercedes. One who knew them well at the time describes the extrovert Adrian’s race wear as consisting as consisting of tight white shorts and gum boots “...and you might also meet him dressed just the same way in the middle of Park Lane. He really was an extraordinarily colourful character.”
The magazine added. “But Greenford and the other car speedway venues never really established a following against that feeling of disapproval and the ineveitable problems of running road-racin cars in such a specialised milieu. When the developers came along, the brief life of Greenford Speedway came to an end, and it became London’s lost motor racing circuit.”
The likelihood is that in this period under Rhiando’s guidance the Autodrome Racing Club staged at best two or three unreported meetings. And in this period, not ‘Babe’ Stapp but Dickyy Nash, driving his own-built car and very much like a modern midget car and dubbed ‘The Spook’, appears to have been the racing here.
Fittingly, Rhiando laid claim to the best memory of racing at the track. Years later he told how he was testing a car at Greenford when he felt a warm draught blowing around him. He looked round and saw flames licking at his overalls. The car was afire with a vengeance. Rhiando claimed he had to drive for 12 laps to blow the flames away from himself.
For a promotion that was so obviously ill-founded, Greenford has been the object of many researches to produce little in regard to its race meetings.
One such researcher was Trevor Pask of Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire. He bought two Amilcars - a type of car featured in the 1928 meetings at Greenford. One of them, a 1927 Amilcar CGSS, was similar to the cars at the inaugural 1928 meetings. This car had an 1100cc engine and was able to reach 85mph. Pask also owned an Amilcar four-seater sports car built in 1929.
Pask spent five years researching into Greenford’s racing history, then conceded, “Everything about Greenford as a race track is so sketchy.”
In June 2003, Pask made a nostaglic journey with one of his Amilcars to the Birkbeck Sports Association’s ground, and toured it slowly round what what had been one of the track’s straights and bends. He said. “This was a trip down memory lane for me. Greenford is one of motor racing’s forgottem raceways, but there can be little doubt that in its fleeting periods of operation it tended to attract a lot of attention.”
Pask added, “In the late 1920s and through to the mid-1930s, there were no purpose-built track cars. Drivers would actually drive to a meeting, then remove things like mudguards, lights and sideboards before going out to race.
“It was only when Harry Skirrow started to build his midget cars that things changed and racers would be towed to meetings.”
In the dim mists of time surrounding track car racing in the early 1930s, apart from Greenford, nearby Wembley and a track in Leicester also featured car racing. At the old ‘traditional’ Wembley Stadium, then hosting the Wembley Lions speedway team, cars similar to those which had appeared at Greenford were given track time in October 1931.
A crowd of 60,000 turned up at Wembley on October 1 - mainly to see the Lions in action against Stamford Bridge. Three cars went into action after the speedway match. The drivers were Mrs T H Wisdom and respected Brooklands drivers R G Nash an H J Aldington. They all carried passengers. Mrs Wisdom and Aldington in Frazer Nash’s clocked times of 24 seconds for a flying lap start.
Nash then had trouble getting his car started and borrowed Mrs Wisdom’s car. His attempt ended in disaster. He went into a broadside and overturned the car. While Nash held on to the steering wheel, his pasenger F Berry was thrown out and suffered an arm injury. For the meeting at Leicester Super Speedway in November 1929, the track was in poor condition. The deep cinder surface was badly affected by frost for several days, then just before the meeting it rained and turned the track into a virtual quagmire.
In an individual record attempt - three laps to the mile - H Brayshaw driving an Alvis set a time of 104.6 seconds. Other cars at the meting included Amilcar, Salmonson and MGs. Brayshaw finsished as overall winner of the meeting while others who did well were O Bentley (Amilcar) and A Burnham (Salmonson).
(c) John Hyam 2009