Varied Entertainment In Speedway Programme

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27636, 18 April 1955, Page 12

Varied Entertainment In Speedway Programme

For a very considerable proportion of Christchurch’s population, Satur- ’•*' day night means the Aranui speedway as inevitably as Monday morning .. means a reluctant return to work. These thousands of enthusiasts, attending week after week during the sum--mer months, thrive and wax eloquent on the diet of spills and thrills offered by the speedway, and they are as , familiar with the form and performances of competitors as the most ardent worshippers at the shrines of the Totalisator Agency Board. But to the newcomer, the speedway offers a bewildering mixture of noise and smells, light and dark, drama and farce—yet few could fail to acknowledge that 1' the speed and daring "of the drivers and riders are not without appeal. On Saturday night the programme followed the usual pattern, but it provided an extraordinary diversity of entertainment. There were motorcycle races, ranging from a novices’ event in which all four competitors were hors de combat before a lap had

been covered, to skilled demonstrations by the experts; there were races ‘ for motor-cycles with outcrops of metal which go under the name of side-cars, and on which passengers perched precariously; there were races ? for midget cars, others for racing cars, and the piece de resistance, the rough ” and tumble which sadly understates the activities of the drivers in the stock ] s ear races. Everything seemed to be included on the programme except an event for Transport Board buses. ’ln daylight, the sand dunes, the terraces and the sketchy buildings about the track must look anything but exciting, but night casts a berx coming mantle over the place. When * «tne arena is plunged into darkness ’ rave for the white ribbon of light about Ihe track, when the shriek of engines reaches a crescendo at the start, the

atmosphere also becomes super-charged J pnd none but the entirely insensitive could escape it completely. Anyone reflecting on a speedway evening must marvel that the outpatients’ department at the hospital is rot reduced to standing room only. **o Saturday cars rocketed into fences, one drived had the unenviable expert- < nee of hitting a fence, spinning about, .and have one of his rivals climb over "his bonnet—car and all. Motor-ctycMsts

strewn about the track through- " iout the evening with complete and unpremeditated abandon, but nobody was ’seriously hurt. Crash helmets, safety - straps, protective equipment of various » kinds must reduce the carnage, but one is forced to the conclusion that - fortune does, indeed, favour the brave, n... The motor-cycling events were “ eagerly contested, but they are no -J longer the basis of speedway entertainment. They take second place to the sidecar races, the midget cars and the others. The sidecars provided one z delicious moment. The first time they • faced the starter, with the passengers . stationed in inexplicably eager attihides ready to mount the moment the , machines moved, one driver took off « solo, with his companion pounding £ ' down the track behind him in the t same fruitless but instinctive pursuit of .the man who has just missed a - train. k* the sidecar races there is more , than a suggestion of a Roman chariot f- contest, with a dash of Boadicea from

the inescapable feeling that destruction of some sort is The passenger and driver sway outwards approaching the bends, and take them leaning inwards, like some sort of mechanical yachtsmen. In the last of these races there was a fearful smash, with one passenger executing a spectacular somersault, and another diving into the machine in front of him, but again the damage was not serious. When the men and machines were sorted out, the race was rerun—to make a Roman holiday. Midget Cars Popular The midget cars announced themselves with their acrid fumes, but they were perhaps more popular with the spectators than anything else. They are very small, but very fast, and although the drivers did not dispense with the road code as utterly as their brethren in the stock car event, it was certainly a case of every man for himself, and when bunched in the bends the cars seemed to be tossed about like small corks on a very rough

sea. There were 16 entrants in the stock car race, and they did not include a Picton fisherman who broadcast an appeal to be allowed to take part as a passenger, a request which was very reasonably refused. Of the 16, seven were still in motion at the end of the two miles. The entries in this event with their extraordinary slogans, their brilliant colours, and their metal crash frames, which look like scaffolding round a partly-constructed building, suggested that they had all been made to the design of the cartoonist Emmett. Many of them looked as if they should have been in the more sedate surroundings of a vintage car rally, others carried no more than the bare essentials for locomotion. One was simmering gently even before the race began, and anyone accustomed to regarding even an old car as an asset worth preserving must have shuddered at- the things done to the machines.

The stock car race consisted of eight quarter-mile laps, and of these the first five are set aside for the drivers to rid themselves of some of the opposition. This was achieved with a variety of methods, all designed to turn over opponents, or force them off the track or into the fence or, even more happily, into some other car. By the time the race proper began three laps from home, the track looked like a wrecking yard, with the battered and steaming vehicles in all sorts of inelegant attitudes, and the drivers climbing out over the top or even through the windscreen. But when it was all over, the cars were disentangled, or reversed out of the fences, and the drivers collected those more essential parts which they had lost on the track during the race. These young men—and one woman —who risked their necks so willingly, did it for remarkably small rewards. The most a motor-cyclist could win in one race was £B, the biggest first prize for midget cars was £l5, the racing car first prize was £2O, and the total prize in the stock car race, distributed over most of the field, was £loo—rather lika being required to swim the Chanart jut a half-crown bet. But most of the Competitors must find it a satisfying outlet for the speed urge; the season will end soon with a charity meeting, at which they will perform entirely without reward.