Guilty Truth

Posted: 11 Mar 2011 06:50 PM PST

With this video take a ride on a board tracker in German. Here is some brief history on Board Track Racing. Board track, or motordrome, racing was a type of motorsport, popular in the USA between the 2nd and 3rd decades of the 20th century, where competition was conducted on oval race courses with surfaces composed of wooden planks. Although the tracks most often used motorcycles, many different types of racing automobiles also competed. By the early 1930s, board track racing had fallen out of favor, and into eventual obsolescence, due to both its perceived dangers and the high cost of maintenance of the wooden racing surfaces. However, several of its most notable aspects have continued to influence American motorsports philosophy to the present day, including: A technical emphasis on raw speed produced by the steep inclinations; ample track width to allow steady overtaking between competitors; and the development of extensive grandstands surrounding many of the courses.

The first board track opened at the Los Angeles Coliseum Motordome near Playa del Rey, California, on April 8, 1910. Based on and utilizing the same technology as the French velodromes used for bicycle races, the track and others like it were created with 2-inch (51 mm) x 4-inch (100 mm) boards, and banked up to 45°, and some venues, such as Fulford-by-the-Sea and Culver City, boasting unconfirmed higher bankings of 50° or more. Around a half dozen tracks up to two miles (3 km) long had opened by 1915. By 1931 there were 24 operating board tracks, including tracks in Beverly Hills, California,Atlantic City, New Jersey, Brooklyn, New York and Laurel Maryland. The board tracks popped up because of the ease of construction and the low cost of lumber.

Board tracks slowly faded away in the 1920s and 1930s, though racing continued into 1940 at Coney Island Velodrome, Nutley, and Castle Hill Speedway in the Bronx. Notable driver fatalities on board tracks included four Indianapolis 500 winners, three of which occurred at the Altoona course in Tipton , Pennsylvania , and three in the same years in which the driver won at Indianapolis. 1919 “500″ winner Howdy Wilcox died in an Altoona race on September 4, 1923, while co-1924 winner Joe Boyer and 1929 winner Ray Keech both suffered fatal accidents at the facility in the same years as their 500 wins, Keech’s occurring only seventeen days after, on June 15, 1929. Gaston Chevrolet, winner of the 1920 Indianapolis 500, perished that same autumn, on November 25, 1920, at a Thanksgiving Day race at the Beverly Hills Speedway.