Board Track Racing

At the start of the 20th century, motorcycles and cars competed on enormous, steeply banked wooden racetracks called motordromes. Listen in to find out why these popular tracks quickly earned a much more ominous nickname: murderdrome.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff Works dot com. I welcome
to Car Stuff. I'm Scott and on Ben. As always,
we are joined by the legendary super producer uh Noll
the what's the name of that turn? How about the

(00:24):
Flying Merkel until the Flying Merkel? Brown ladies and gentlemen.
Uh And this is uh, this is a show that
we're going to start off, as you said, off the air,
with a question. Yeah, I've got a question for you.
Who are you one to attend amusement parks? You ever
go to an amusement park? You know, I haven't in
a while, but yeah, I'm I'm a fan of when
you do go there. And I don't know if this

(00:45):
hits you the same way, but I've been to a
lot of amusement parks over the decades, and whenever I
go and I see all the rides that are there,
the the you know, whenever the Ferris Wheels and the
all those kids rides and stuff that you're the ones
that really impressed me are these enormous wooden roller coasters.
The structures that are just so complex when you look

(01:05):
at it, you just can't even believe that humans have
created something like, oh, man, I know what you're talking about.
Two And there's one in or there was one, I
don't know if it's still here in Six Flags over Georgia,
which is a US amusement park just outside of Atlanta,
and they had a vehicle called the American Screen Machine,

(01:26):
a roller coaster rather, and the thing is you can
hear it creak and you can hear the give, which
the engineers designed as part of it. But do you
have time for a quick story? Oh of course, all right,
that roller coaster, I swear to you man, I almost
flew out of it as a kid, because I don't
think we've told the story on air, but because once

(01:49):
when I was a wee young type, my parents met
up with one of their friends of the family and
she had two kids. So these three, these three adults
and that took their three kids to the amusement park
and we all had to sit in this roller coaster.
I'm not going to give the name because this might
be an unflattering thing. But many years have passed and

(02:10):
because of the way this coaster was constructed, you know,
they're like seats of two uh two rows, two seats
each for each car. Because of just the luck of
the draw, I ended up sitting in the same row
with the family friend who was much larger and rounders individual.

(02:36):
And because of this the bar that that pops down
and hold your torso down. Picture this could pad a
lot of empty space between me and at the between
me and the bar. And at this time, as a kid,
I was still kind of frightened of roller coasters. I was,
I was pretty young, and we went on this one.

(02:58):
I was convinced I was told would be fine because
there were no loops. It's just a series of very
uh steep, you know, rises and falls. How scary could
it be? Right, Well, I don't know how it is
if you're in the car for the entire ride. But
when we hit the first and do the physics of
those kind of roller coasters, the hill is going to

(03:19):
be the first or the biggest one is going to
be the first one, and the rest are gonna be
a little bit smaller and so and all those weightless
times in between. Right yeah, And so we hit that
first thing, we start going down and my body goes
up and up and my you know, history of course
makes you exaggerate things, so I used to think it

(03:40):
was like down to my ankles holding the bar. But
there's no way I could have done that without hitting
my face as soon as we at the bottom. But
so like my thighs went up, I went up. This
poor lady was sitting next to me, screamed and like
grabbed me and pulled me back, or tried to, and
I thought, oh crap, and I realized they weren't going

(04:01):
to stop the ride, and there were like five more hills,
and so she just had to like grab me, and
each time I almost flew out of that stupid car.
All to say, I perhaps have a subjective bias against
these wood roller coasters, because you know, some people think

(04:22):
their death machines. I think their feats of engineering. But
you know, how fast should a vehicle go on wood?
That's a good question. Now you know that that's something
that's well, we'll touch on that today. We'll touch on
the speed aspect of this whole thing. And and today's
episode is not about roller coasters, but but I wanted
to bring in the roller coasters because here's here's the

(04:42):
comparison I was thinking, is that you know you're at
at the amusement park and you're standing staring at this
enormous structure. This is this overly complex looking thing that
someone has engineered and put together, and um, it's it's
executed quite well. You know that it works perfectly. Um,
it's scary, it's loose, it's fast, it's everything that you
wanted to be right your roller coaster. But um, you

(05:03):
look at it and you think, like, there's just how
how do they even imagine something like this out of wood?
Do you think that like they have to be more
permanent mater. But but then you realize, we'll back in
the day, you know, that was what they use. They
just simply used wood to create a lot of different things.
And this goes for race tracks as well. Now, and
the reason I'm talking about roller coasters here is that

(05:23):
some of these, you know, the coasters are enormous, but
some of these race tracks that we're gonna talk about today,
they weren't just tiny, little, uh you know, little tracks
the size of like your local dirt track, which these
are placed by the way for some period of time.
These tracks some of them went two miles in length,
and some of them had just very very steep banking,
which we're also going to talk about just can you

(05:44):
imagine a two mile track that's made entirely out of wood,
the whole surfaces made out of wood, and the supporting
structure all around it, the grand the grandstands, everything, These
had to have been incredibly impressive to see in person. Yeah,
and when we talk about steep, just to give you
a sense of how steep they were, Uh, the grade
is a little less than maybe a funnel that you

(06:07):
would use, you know, to pour oil. And yeah, well,
you know what we're gonna talk about banking when we
get to because I've got some comparisons that I think
are going to be real eye openers when we get
to it. But um so, then before we get too
far into this, I think we need there's a few
things we need to explain here. And the predecessor to
what we're gonna talk about today, we're uh velodromes, And
of course velodromes have been around there, European belodromes dating

(06:27):
back to the mid to late nineteenth century in the
United Kingdom. They were kind of well actually really all
over Europe for bicycle racing of course at that time,
and they had very shallow banking in the corners but
they did have bank turns, right, and these were some
were exclusively for cycling, some were also built around athletic

(06:49):
tracks or other stuff, right, Yeah, And the surface of
the track was either made of cinder or shale or
later they made them out of concrete and asphalt and
then later tarmac as well. And those are the out
are ones. There were indoor velodromes that appeared maybe in
the let's say the late nineteenth century or the early
twentieth century. That we're made out of wood, and that
is critical in the development of this whole thing. So

(07:11):
wooden tracks indoors in Europe which were for bicycles only,
But then motorcycles came around, and motorcycles came around around
let's say, let's ballpark. This in the eighteen sixties, and
we're talking about steam powered velocipedes and these were these
are not the ones that were racing by any means,
but they looked a lot like the Penny Farthing bikes,
you know, the huge front wheel and the tiny rear wheel.

(07:33):
But they were steam powered, so you can imagine how
efficient those were and not really a racing yeah, And
then then they came up with something called Vello cycles
and they were kind of like a three wheel design,
but those were petrol powered. And that's important to note
because that's two years before the Ben's patent wagon came around.
The first car, really the first recognized car in eighteen

(07:53):
eighty six, so that eighty four is when these Vello
cycles emerged, just prior to cars. And then about ten
years later, let's say, uh, they came out with like
the first UM series production. Well they called it a
motorcycle at that point, so is really the first motorcycle
or the first vehicle to be called a motorcycle that
looked like a motorcycle if you put it that way.

(08:15):
UM basically the first commercial product really one that you
could go out and buy UM at your local dealer.
And I think that Hilda Brandon Wolf Wolf Mueller was
the first motorcycle and then it just kind of spread
from there. You can you can find examples of these everywhere,
and people love motorcycles. But the thing is they weren't
really all that fast. They were just a way to
get around and it was you know, I don't want

(08:37):
to say it was a UM oh not a not
a novelty item or anything, but it was different and
it was not for everybody. Of course, sure people are
still using horses and carriages and like that. That's expensive
to maintain that kind of thing. But but by about
nineteen ten, so maybe fifteen years later into this whole thing,
or even maybe twenty five years into this whole thing,

(08:59):
depends on where you want to start, motorcycles started to
get really fast. People started to realize that, you know,
let's cut some of the weight on these, let's make
the wheels the pneumatic tires, and you know, let's let's
up the horse power. We're gonna put a little bit
bigger engine in this thing. Um. There's just a lot
of developments that made motorcycles um a racing option, and
people were doing that. They were racing them on dirt

(09:20):
roads out the country. Um, they were racing them you
of course where they probably shouldn't be, you know, in
town and things like that. But um, there really were
very few track options at that time, if any, for motorcycles.
And I mean, let's be honest, even in nineteen ten,
there weren't a lot of car racing tracks either. I mean,
their cars were using horse racing tracks dirt tracks. So, um, anyways,

(09:44):
this is where we're kind of starting from here, and
it's right around nineteen um and and this is a
critical time in this history. Oh yes, because in nineteen
ten and in place called Plaid del Rey, California, the
very first US board track venue is built. And it's
called the Los Angeles Motor Drome. Uh. It is opened

(10:07):
in nineteen ten. And sure it's used for auto racing,
but more importantly for the purposes of our show, it's
used for motorcycle competition. This was like, if you can
imagine the Villa Drome that Scott described earlier, this was
like a version of that on steroids. It was. It

(10:27):
was bigger, it was batter more importantly, had steeper banks. Yeah,
steeper banks for sure that they started with. But you
know what, here's the thing about this one. The banking
on this one is about twenty degrees. Now that's that's
pretty steep. Really Yeah, well, I mean it's steeper than
the really shallow banks of the Vela Drome. Should we
just get this out of the way right now? I
think I think we will. We'll talk about banking because

(10:48):
we're we're leading up to this and I don't want
to miss it fighting, So alright, So twenty degrees of
banking on this one mile track, right, and this is
the very first one again the Los Angeles Motor Drum.
And and please take a look online for photos of
this thing, and you're not gonna believe it. It's amazing. Um.
So that's the very first board track again one mile
in length, twenty degree banking. All would just to give

(11:09):
you a comparison, an idea of comparison. That's that's not
a reasonable banking, I guess, and it's not very steep
if you want to look at modern NASCAR tracks now
NASCAR competition, which a lot of people can you know,
reference in their in their head. You've seen a wreck
on Daytona International Speedway, and let's say that the wreck
ends up where you know, the cars slide up to
the top of the wall and somehow remains stuck up there.

(11:31):
The rescue teams often have trouble getting up to that
wreck because they can't walk on that surface. And the
track at that at that in the corners is about
thirty one degrees of banking in the corners at Daytona
International Speedway. And the straits which aren't even flattened in Daytona,
they're they're eighteen degrees at the start finish lines. So, um,
there's always some degree of banking at Daytona. And that's

(11:53):
not even the steepest in the whole series. Talladega is
the steepest in the series at thirty three degrees. So
that gives you an idea. And again watch the the
cruise attempt to climb those banks and you'll understand how
steep thirty three degrees is, and thirty one degrees you'll
you'll get it. So this motor drum, the first one,
again it's twenty degrees twenty degrees banking. But as we

(12:14):
progress through the decades that this is this is a
real thing, a sport. Now for the next twenty years
or so, the banking gets steeper and steeper and steeper.
It goes to thirty degrees, forty degrees, fifty degrees, and
then eventually, by the time they built the St. Louis
Motor Drome, it was a a quarter mile track, it
had sixty two degrees in banking. So that's that's unbelievable.

(12:37):
I mean, you almost have to look it up to
understand what that means. But you know, look at the
wall next to you, that's ninety degrees. It's not that
far off from there. It's pretty much a lazy wall.
Yeah is dangerous and and adding to this, Okay, son,
there's so much I have to get do on this podcast,
but that requires a lot of speed in order to maintain, Yeah,

(12:59):
in your position on the track, and at sixty two degrees. Um.
You know, here's another example. You know a lot of
people have seen um the Ken Block version where he
was at that he's in Paris. I think UM at
one of his gym KNA videos and he does some crazy,
you know, stunts on these on these high bank turns.
The um it's not a velodrome. I can't remember the
name of the place right now, the venue, but got

(13:21):
a written down. Maybe I'll find it today at some point.
That banking is something like fifty one degrees, so that'll
give it. That's it. Yeah, And again he can, you know,
stand and lean. It looks like it's a it's an
optical illusion when he's leaning on his car. It's it's incredible.
And that this does rely on physics. Because we've covered
in earlier episodes that you may have checked out longtime listeners,
some of the motorcycle stunts that you might see in

(13:43):
traveling circuses and stuff like that, where they get locked
into that ball of death and they have to, uh,
the drivers have to begin at their low speed with
small circles that spiral out and get bigger and bigger
and bigger, so that they can rely on the speed
to give them down force. Essentially. You know, we've also

(14:05):
done an episode on the Wall of Death, and all
of death is still something that is traveling. There's somebody
that has I think that the trademark on the name
of that. But there are several acts that travel around
and they set up this wall of death where they
have you know, a small like a midget race car.
They have motorcycles, of course, and they all have their
own little twist on on what makes it interesting. But
those are again the same thing. You spiral around on

(14:26):
a small track below and then and then at a
certain speed you're allowed to climb up onto that ninety
degree surface. This is not that far off from that.
And these were again enormous tracks that range from quarter
you know, like quarter or third mile tracks all way
up to two miles in length. Now that the big
two mile ones, I don't think the banking was quite
a steep. I mean, it might have gone up to
fifty degrees, but it wasn't sixty two degrees. This smaller track,

(14:48):
this is like a core mile track, I think, and
I think when I was reading this, you know, just
for just for reference, I guess um they were saying
that lap times at these smaller tracks sometimes lap times
would be like eight seconds. That's how fast these guys
are going around these blocks. Yeah, super quick. Um, so
ninety plus miles an hour at some point. But early
in early on in this in the nineteen tens or

(15:09):
night and around nineteen ten, um speeds were closer to
let's say sixty or sixty five miles, and that was
going insanely fast for them, you know, like the motor drome. Right.
And there's another thing we should mention here. When we're
talking about racing, we're not talking about time trials or something.
Not only and you'll see how insanely dangerous this was

(15:33):
a little bit later in the show. But not only
were these people in very dangerous conditions, but they were
also in very dangerous conditions maybe inches away from a competitor. Yeah,
that's true. And man, there's so many safety aspects of
this whole thing. Let's let's can we talk about the
bikes just for one, So the start out with bikes
and then eventually automobiles will will enter the scene as well.

(15:56):
But the bike brands that were there were Indian and
like Clone and Pope and Flying Merkel. That's and there's
an old's nicknack Um Norton. There was Harley Davidson, of
course Excelsior. There's just a bunch of these old style
motorcycles that look a lot like bicycles, of course, you know,
with re engines attached, but really really cool looking machines.
And here's the thing that I didn't know about these bikes, ben,

(16:18):
I I figured it was just a regular motorcycle like
you'd find on the street, but maybe you know, a
little faster, little little sleeker, you know, built for speed.
These bikes, I didn't realize this. They don't have any
suspension at all, no no travel. It's like it's like
a bicycle in that way. However, there's also no clutch,
there's no throttle, there's no there's no brakes. Oil just

(16:39):
sprays out. Yeah, that's right. It is a total loss design,
that's right. Total loss. Yeah, I couldn't think of the
name of it. But the lubrication system is designed to
completely empty itself during the race. So there's another factor
into the danger this because those those boards that they're
racing on, the wooden boards, which were really just two
by four is sometimes on the on their edge, but
mainly just two by four, just flat two. Those were

(17:01):
completely soaked with oil all the time, and bits of
rubber and you know, whatever else embedded itself in there,
and of course they would splinter, there would be holes,
there would be timbers that would be completely knocked loose
from the track surface, often in the course of you know,
a single race. Yeah, so you know these things with
you know, no collutch, no throttle, no breaks. It was
just you either had it was like full go and
then off and that's the only speeds. And you could

(17:22):
of course coast to a stop. But I guess the
thought process there is that you have to be full
throttle on otherwise you're not gonna stick to the walls.
The other thing is, of course you wanted to be
full throll. So it's all engine tuning and you know,
making sure that you got the right mixtures and all
that you know, so it's it's competitive in that way,
but it's full throttle on or off with a kill switch,
and that was your only options, right and and okay,

(17:45):
and I said we needed to talk about safety. This
is this is important so over the over the decades
because it started again around and I think the final
track was used for the end of competition was somewhere
in the early thirties, right, So it's the um, I
guess the onset of the Great Depression here in the

(18:06):
United States. That's when that's when it kind of killed
this whole thing off. But um, over those decades, there
were hundreds of these tracks that sprung up all over
the place. Not all of them were um, you know,
Triple A National Championship tracks, which you can find lists
of you know where they were and how big they were,
and um, you know when they were active and all that.
Um online you can find those easily. But some of
the smaller tracks are in the lesser known tracks you're

(18:27):
gonna rely on, you know, going to people's photo books
in small towns and looking through what they've got, because
it really the memories are all that exist at this point. Yuh,
you know a lot of more destroyed by weather. We're
just by time, the ravage of time, because they required
a lot of maintenance. Um as we mentioned, lots of
lots of maintenance, and it was expensive. They were initially

(18:48):
cheaper to build, right yeah, just the material was initially cheaper.
But it's like when you buy a car that might
have a lower sticker price, you have the factor in
the cost of own ship. And the problem was that
the at least in the case of the Los Angeles
Motor Dome, that it took about three million feet of

(19:09):
lumber and sixteen tons of nails two construct what you
know they called the pie pan, which was the track.
That's unbelievable, Okay, so that that was the that was
a motor drume, right yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, so that
is a that's a one mile track, but you're talking
about the entire thing. It took about three million board
feet of lumber to build the whole thing. I've got

(19:29):
a number here just for the track surface, because once
you build the track, you know, once you get that
in place, and I think the ballpark estimate of the
price on this track or other tracks similar you can
just give it a round number of five thousand dollars
back then, Yeah, back then. So the number that I
have is for the track surface only, and I think

(19:49):
it said for a one mile track it took about
one million board feet of brand new lumber, and a
complete set of boards were needed every five years or so.
So you know, along the way, you're replacing individual boards
here and there. But then there's a point where they realize, like,
this whole thing has got to be redone. And that's
about five years into uh competition, and you know, because
of you know, just wear and tear and you know,

(20:10):
the oil soaking and all that stuff. So every five
years they had to be resurfaced. And the cost of
a million board feet of new lumber back in nineteen
ten or nineteen fifteen, I think it was about a
hundred and twenty five thousand dollars and today in today's
dollars three million dollars. So every five years you're gonna
invest three million dollars in the surface of that track,

(20:32):
um in an equivalent of three million dollars, So it
got to be very expensive and tough to keep keep up.
And then of course along the way there's also gonna
be other stuff that happens, because boy, we still haven't
talked about safety. But um, the you know, the railings
are gonna get knocked down, the stands are gonna have
you know, it's gonna be broken grand stands. Wood's just

(20:52):
gonna wear, you know, because of the elements. Yeah, exactly right, Yeah,
you know how it works. I mean, if you have
out would outside, it's going to rot away. And they
didn't run have the preserving um chemicals that we have now,
so it wasn't lasting quite as long. I mean, just
imagine putting a raw piece of wood out in your
yard and see how long that last, and and let
your neighbors know that we told you to do. Yeah, yeah, sure,

(21:14):
we'll take it. We'll take the yeah. Right. So here's
a way for us to change tracks a little bit
towards the safety aspects. So these things during their heyday,
as their ascendency rose, they were drawing in massive crowds.
This type of racing is one of the most popular

(21:39):
forms of racing in US history. We're talking about eighty
thousand people in Chicago. In Tacoma, which was a relatively
small town at the time. Um it had a population
of eighty three thousand people in and thirty five thousand
turned out to see a race. So that's a pretty

(21:59):
big draw, right. It means like one and every three
people in the whole town and more than that, one
and everything people was attending that race. And of course
there are people come in from out of town. Well
sure of that too, but I mean it's a big
deal for a small town like that. It's a relatively
small town. But crowds of nine people, I mean, that's
so that's ballpark what they were getting at, Like the
Indianapolis five hundred in the in the early days. Yeah,
so that was that number was from Chicago in nineteen fifteen.

(22:24):
And here's the thing, Scott, This race in Chicago happened
three weeks after the Indie five hundred and sixty people
attended that so for a time, just for you know,
that's a tricky that's a tricky measurement because it may
have just been that one time, but it was more
popular than Indy well could have been. Yeah, and you
know what, there's a there's another interesting tie in here. Man.

(22:46):
We're not going to get the safety are we. Well, actually,
you know what, this is maybe a good leading because
we talked about how dangerous this is and and over
the decades, I don't know if we've even mentioned this
or not been, but over the decades, this sport cost
the lights of hundreds of individus hundreds in maybe a
twenty year time span. Because it had earned the dubious moniker.

(23:11):
People started calling them not uh, motor drones, but murder droves. Yeah,
that was I'm sure as for you know, sell newspapers
probably you know the the the damning headlines. But and
there's one accident in particular that we'll talk about that
that that touches on that. But Ben, I'm glad you
mentioned the in five D because there's an interesting tie
in and interesting and deadly tie in with Indie five

(23:33):
winners and board track racing. Yes, so this is this
is I guess we're getting into car racing as well,
you know, not just motorcycle racing, but it's kind of
a mix throughout the whole time. Driver fatalities we were
growing in the nine twenties, and in fact, four Indian
Appolis five winners died doing board track racing. So the
people that had won the Indianapos five hundred, at some

(23:54):
point they perished in board track racing. It was that deadly.
It's a difficult race to compete in. Um. Three of
these winners uh that were killed also competed in the
Indianapolis five hundred that same year, so and I think
in one case it was just a matter of you know,
months later. So there was Howdy Wilcox who died. He
had won the nineteen nineteen hundred and he died um

(24:16):
on a race in September that same year. And then
there was a co winner in nineteen four named Joe Boyer,
and then the ninety nine winner, Ray keach Um all
suffered fatalities in the same year. Um as they as
they won the five hundred, and then later um just
I guess it was only seventeen days after he won
the five hundred. Gaston Chevrolet, who was, you know, brother

(24:39):
of Louis Chevrolet, the founder of the Chevrolet motor well
the brand really Um, he died in ninety Uh. Let's see,
he died in June of nineteen nine. So that was
just like I said, just a few days after winning
the five hundred, from the top of the world, top
of the heap, uh to diying on a board track.
And the horrific thing about this is that the accidents

(25:02):
were not unusual, you know, a lot, a lot um
sadly enough, a lot seemed to occur in August as
we record this. Yeah, and you know, and included spectators too,
And that's the thing that's that's probably why it claims
so many lives because, um, you know the design of
the track, and we mentioned the banking and that you know,

(25:23):
the sixty two degrees and even the fifty degree tracks,
the forty five degree tracks not much protection for the
grand stands. Yeah, so there's they build a wooden rail
that's held you know, two by four rail that's also
held up with other two by fours, and really that's
the only thing separating these guys going nine on a
track on a motorcycle with the crowd, and of course
they're on that oil slick track and when you crash

(25:45):
and something like this, there's a good chance that that
bike is going to go up and out of the
track and the and the rider and that's what happened often.
And of course there's light poles all around as well
for eating races, and those got knocked over and uh,
there were there were numerous fires that claimed lives, but oftentimes,
you know, the bikes would end up spinning into the
crowd and killing many many people in one shot, and
it's terrible. I've got one example here, So in July

(26:09):
nineteen thirteen July, this is the kind of accident that
you had just mentioned, Scott, there was a board track
in Ludlow, Kentucky. Right a racer named Odin Johnson crashed
And when he crashed, his motorcycle hit a light pole,
and the motorcycle's gas tank exploded and exposed electrical wire

(26:31):
from the light poles sparked the fuel and spread the
flames into the crowd. So the ultimate death toll was
eight people, and that was the Salt Lake Telegram reported.
And then after that accident, of course you know Johnson
of course Parish in the accident excellent as well. So
I don't know if there's a total of nine or
eight total, but um Johnson's widow then vowed that she

(26:52):
was going to spend the rest of her life, you know,
making sure that these board tracks were banned. But didn't
take too long after that, before you know, they finally
were banned, least from motorcycle competition, which we can talk
about maybe later. Do you want to talk about it
now maybe alright. So by nineteen thirteen, uh, they had
already decided that, uh, these were kind of a bad
and bad thing for the sport. I mean they said,

(27:12):
you know, maybe we should just go back to dirt
track racing like we had before. And by nineteen thirteen,
there's already a move to kind of push it in
that way. And that's following the death of a very
famous writer who was only nineteen when he died. Uh.
The guy's name was Eddie Hasha, which was the he
called it. He went by the Texas Cyclone. That was
his name. So you know, early early on, he's a
young guy, he's already got this nicknickname Texas, the Texas

(27:33):
Cyclone with a cool name. But on September eighth of
nineteen twelve, he was killed at a motor room near
Atlantic City. I think the town was something called like
a Nutley, I think is it. It's like two hours away. Um.
But in that accident, four spectators were also killed and
then ten more were injured, and of course they made
the front page news of the New York Times, and

(27:55):
they started that's when they started calling these, you know,
the shorter tracks, the quarter mile and the one third
miles circuits the murder drums. So the murder drome term
comes from this very accident. It started with that, and
that's early on this lve And remember the um uh
the last or in Las Vegas. The Los Angeles Motor
Drome opened in what Yeah, that's only two years later,

(28:16):
and they're already getting this nickname and these are gonna
hang on for another twenty years after this. So in
the place that the place where the Texas Cyclones accident
occurred had only opened that same year in July, and
they shut down after it had already claimed so many
lives of of riders and spectators as well, and they
just realized, this is just a super dangerous sport. We

(28:38):
can't really you know, sanction this type of That's when
the swallow winds began to close. Well, they started to
and and by nineteen thirteen, the Motorcycle Championship races were
moved to a dirt track because dirt was considered a
safer surface at that time. So they it's a different
type of racing, sure, but they moved into a dirt
track and the organization that oversaw motorcycle racing eventually banned

(28:58):
all men all um competitions on board tracks shorter than
one mile in length by and then another problem that
beset the place. I just want to enter this as
a side note so we can remember it when it
comes up, because it'll come up several times. Uh, when
you look at the history here, another unfortunate occurrence that

(29:18):
would befall motor dromes is that they would catch on fire.
Yeah that's true. And of course what are you gonna do.
I mean, it's untreated lumber, um, the bikes are spewing oil. Yeah,
that's true, The track is oil soaked, the there's gasoline.
Of course, there's electricity there. The crowd which is probably
gonna panic and try to get out. I mean even

(29:38):
if the small track, let's see, there's five thousand people there.
I think there's one account of you know, there was
panic when you know, fire happened in one place and
they said it took an hour to get five thousand
people out of one of these motor drums. That's how
long it took. And imagine if the whole place was engulfed.
I think they had that one under control, and I
know spectators perished in that one, but not as many
as it could have it could have happened. Um. But

(30:00):
imagine a huge speedway that it's got ninety people and
the whole and the whole thing is connected of course,
you know, with the structure underneath, all of that could
catch fire. Um. And I know that, you know, they
were able to isolate you know, the fires and keep
some of that to a minimum. But um, there were
just some horrific, horrific things that happened during this era.
And and you know there's cars that enter the scene

(30:21):
as well. And now imagine if a motorcycle flies off
into the crowd, that's that's awful enough, right, Yes, if
a car flies off into the crowd, it's gonna the
damage becomes exponentially more are more serious, I guess, because
you know, just the size of it and the weight
and the you know, it's unbelievable what these crowds went
through to watch these races. I mean it was like
taking your life in your own hands. Yeah, and that's

(30:44):
quite literally what it was. We cannot over emphasize how
popular these things were. And Scott, you and I were
talking off air earlier about you know that. I guess
the best way to say it would be the nature
of morbidity. How no one admits that they slow down
at accidents, but statistically most drivers do, and not because

(31:07):
of traffic, but because of rubber necking. Now, of course,
ladies and gentlemen, drivers and shotgun passengers alike, and shout
out to you in the back seat if you're listening
in the car. Uh, you're so inclusive. We're trying. I'm
not trying to say in any way that the majority
of these fans were there for that kind of um

(31:29):
that kind of shot him Freud. I'm I'm saying that statistically,
it's likely there was a contingent because something about, something
about the possibility of that draws people. But it's also
the greatest competition that they're gonna see, you know that, right,
this is still a world of horse carriages exactly. And
and this is this is gonna be really really interesting.

(31:51):
It's gonna be like the the only show in town
probably on the weekends. So you know, why why not
go to something like this? It's you know, the choices,
either that or hang out on the front porch and
watch traffic go by. Yeah, it's I mean what kind
of traffic to well, early cars, I guess right, Well,
hopefully there might be a few in your town. If
you're in a big city, they're probably probably And you know,

(32:11):
these were in big towns everywhere. It seems like most
of the major towns here in the United States had
a motor drome of some kind. And you'll find no
traces of them today practically. Um, maybe some satellite photos
that indicate, you know, where they were at one time,
but that's about it, because the wood structures, they're just gone.
And we have some side notes. Who want to get
to on this because we had no I don't know
about you, man, but I had I had no idea

(32:34):
how prominent this was an American culture. Yeah, and you know,
of course for motorcycles at first, then auto racing, and
then for a time a mix of both. You know,
there'd be cars and cycles racing at the same time,
not not together, but I mean, um, you know, on
the same weekend maybe. So here's a couple of side
on things that and I'll just throw these out there
and see where we go with the discussion. But it's

(32:54):
kind of like the wrap up of the whole thing really.
So one thing that I stumbled across is we're reading
about this is of course, you know track maintenance, and
you know how difficult it was to maintain these as uh,
you know, the vehicles were really rough on the surface,
very difficult on the track surface. So one thing I
found is that during the last decade of board track racing,
carpenters would sometimes repair the tracks from below. Well, the

(33:18):
race was happening above. So like a timber gets shaken loose,
they climb underneath the structure, you know, because you can
imagine these are elevated. You know, they've got a heavy
wooden structure below. They would repair and you know, reinsert
boards from beneath when they were missing, because timbers would
sometimes go missing and they have to get out there
and take care of it during the race. Incredible, isn't
it that that many? Because you know, we're talking about

(33:41):
the end of the era and speeds are above one
dred miles per hour, you know, they're hundred and twenty
miles per hour in some cases, and there's a carpenter
underneath there trying to slip aboard into place, into position,
And I don't know what that really entails. I don't
know if it was like a you know, a tongue
and groove type situation, or you know what was really
involved in replacing one, if there's a hardware involved, or
the extent of the time it would take consulting, which

(34:05):
I don't see. Everything that we're learning about this is
that each each lap becomes progressively more dangerous because the
track is getting damaged, it's getting soaked in oil. The
drivers are probably eventually going to encounter fatigue. Because let
us not forget that the l A Motor Drome did

(34:26):
do a twenty four hour endurance run. Yeah, I didn't
know that. Yeah they were they did, uh their first
twenty four hour endurance race in nineteen eleven, and it
may of the same year Texas Cyclones set a new
record there when he hits now, so there's okay, he
built his name there then yeah, and and so this

(34:48):
was still you know, they had some autos in there.
But whether it's twenty four hour endurance with a car
or a motorcycle, that that is that's something that should
not have happened. I hate to be, you know, a
Debbie Downer. I guess maybe a bummer ben would be
more appropriate. I like it, but that's that's the kind

(35:09):
of thing where it's a danger to the people in
the stands, the people and the people in the vehicles,
and now come to find because I did not know
that the carpenters beneath the track. Yeah, it's like everybody's
in danger. Every every single person there is in danger.
But interest interesting. Okay, So here's another one, Ben. Yeah,
there's a guy named Jack Prince. I don't know if

(35:31):
you read about Jack Prince or not, but this was
the guy who traveled the country enthusiastically selling board tracks
to all kinds of driving groups and municipalities on the way.
So this is the guy that goes into town. He
gives like the big presentation, you know, kind of like
the mono rail salesman on the Simpsons, and then yeah, exactly,
you got the whole thing laid out, you know, like
what it's gonna look like a model and everything, you know,
and and tells him the cost. It's five dollars, and

(35:53):
you know, the towns people say, now, no way, I
don't want that. And then as he's walking away probably
said something like that, well, I guess this is more
of a Shelby the kind of idea. So yeah, it's
got to be something like that. But this guy, he
sold a lot of tracks, and of course, you know,
the benefit to a lot of these small towns was
that it kept their labor labor force working, kept labor
force working. Also provided a huge boost to the economy

(36:16):
because surrounding towns would all hear about maybe the big
race on Saturday, and then boom, you know, local restaurants
sold out, people are sleeping at the at the motor lodge. Yeah,
and it's something that they can you know, keep going
for years and years and years, you know, aside from
the construction. And you know, of course when it's happening,
when the construction is happening, it's gonna take several months
to complete with lots of labor, and you know, it's

(36:38):
gonna be the biggest construction project probably in an entire
state when it's happening. So it's gonna be a big
draw for for this town. It's gonna put it on
the map. Really, So if it's a smaller town, it's
gonna it's gonna um, they're gonna profit from it if
they can come up with the money ahead of time.
But this Jack Prince guy, he's the one who went
around and sold a lot of these tracks, and he
worked with a guy named Art Pillsbury, and now that

(37:00):
the guy who designed tracks, and he would design a track,
um he or he did design a track in Beverly Hills,
California with a different type of turn. Now, prior to this,
they were just kind of I guess, not winging it.
They were engineered all along, but um, you know, so
that they were a smooth transition, because I think some
of the early ones were a little rough, and they said,
you know, you go from the straight into a bank

(37:21):
turn like that, and it was almost like you're hitting
a wall. You know, they're very very steep and and
you almost smack into it. So Pillsbury started engineering these
tracks in a different way and he created something called
the Cereal Spiral Easement curve and it was designed for
improved handling and speed, of course, but it would load
the cars up with with gs or the the motorcycles
which yeah G force. So uh. Writers would experience up

(37:45):
to two gs at one miles an hour on these tracks.
And the reason that these were so effective or so
um so important for the design of of you know,
the tracks going forward, is that they created um oh,
I don't how how to say this. You can call
it the track transition curve maybe, And I'll try to
describe this. It's that if you were going to a

(38:05):
certain speed at a certain line, the the corner takes
over the steering of the vehicle for you. You You can
let go the wheel and the car will make it
completely through the turn and your back onto the straight again.
And that's due to the you're right, it's a trans
it's that track transition essentially. Yeah, with no steering input
from the driver, the car will make the turn completely.

(38:26):
And again it's because of that banking, because of the
design of the curve. It's uh, I mean it's engineered
perfectly so that it would work that way. And I've
I've heard tales of um, you know, of course they're
manufacturer test tracks that have turns like this. That's exact
same turn that was designed by our Pillsbury and there
are you know, this is something that happened in railroads

(38:47):
as well. Oh yeah, that's right. That's that's part of
why they can, you know, make the turns that they
do and hang on the track, right, Yeah, exactly, and
a much smaller scale, I mean a smaller I mean
less banking. No, No, it's true. They were racing full
size locomotives on these tracks, all right, point taking, I mean,
so it's a it's a it's a method to keep

(39:09):
the keep the vehicle on track or you know, um,
I guess pointed in the right direction at all times
and they will have saved lives. I would say that
it probably did. But again, the first one to use
that was in Beverly Hills, California, and that was again
an art Pills very track. Alright, So another couple of
quick things here before you wrap up. And I know
there's gonna be more that we'll find when we're done.

(39:29):
But uh, there's a guy that wrote a book called
Walt Smacker, and this leads to the other more interesting
part of this. But um, I have not read wall Smacker.
That might be the best book I've ever read, but
I'll find out soon because I think I'm gonna pick
this one up. But it's five former driver Peter Depolo,
and he was a card driver, not a motorcycle driver.

(39:49):
But this guy happens to be the nephew of Ralph
de Palma, and Ralph de Palma is a famous race
car driver. I'll tell you about Ralph in just a moment.
But this book Wall Smacker is all about Peter Depolo's um,
you know, time as a as a board track racer
back in the you know, the right in the heyday
of this whole thing. So he had some great tales,
and you know he talks about, uh, you know, the
great sensations of dodging holes and flying timbers and you know,

(40:11):
the splinters and the face and all that stuff, because
these guys would get just horrific injuries sometimes from the
wood surface, you know, when they would wreck. And uh,
you know, one thing we haven't even talked about in
the safety was that the steep the steep banking sometimes
meant that if a rider fell off his bike, he
was likely to be struck by his own vehicle as
he as it fell without Yeah, they would fall, you know,

(40:33):
fifteen twenty ft to the bottom of the track, and
then the bike would come down and hit him. It's
like just a double whammy, I guess. And and of
course the bike traveling across the traffic would sometimes take
out other riders. In fact, one of the cases that
we mentioned, I think I don't remember if it's the
hash I wreck or not, but his bike took out
another rider and eventually killed him. So the steep corners,

(40:54):
you know, all played into that whole thing. And this guy,
so he's Peter de Paulo. He is the nephew of
Ralph da Palma, as I mentioned earlier and now DiPalma.
He's an interesting cat and I think he may be
someone that we can talk about in a full podcast
some day. Um time he was racing was the early
nineteen hundreds up until I think he made an appearance
like as a track official at at Indie in the

(41:15):
nineteen fifties, but that was it. And I think the
guy lived into like the mid nineteen seventies or something
somewhere in there. But he was racing right again in
the board track era. And he was also um he
was a car racer, he was a motorcycle racer, a
little bit of both. He's probably better known for his
auto racing, and of course he's He was the eventual
winner of the Indie five hundred in nineteen fifteen. He

(41:37):
held world speed records in a packard on daytona beach
man packard on the beach on the sand. He had
a hit on the sand record of something like a
hundred and fifty miles an hour on the sailing Daytona. Yeah,
in nineteen nineteen. I believe it was. Um, he's a
member of several Hall of Fames, just an all around
good guy because everybody liked him. They said he was
a good sport on and off the track. He would

(41:58):
take responsibility. If he caused an accident, he would say it,
you know, it wasn't the other driver's fault. Um. He
would do things like I think before one race, a
young boy was starting his race car and he was
a hand cranked car and the car, the engine kicked
back and broke the boy's arm right before the race. Now,
so then the guy diploma went on to win that race.
And they said that instead of taking the podium, you

(42:19):
know and accepting the cup for the for the victory,
he went to the hospital and sat by the boy's bedside,
you know, with him as he was, you know, being
bandaged up. He was, he's a good guy. And then
they said, there's just countless tales of him like that.
So he's a really good guy. And uh, he's probably
most famously known for and we'll wrap ut up on this,
I guess maybe is that he famously lost the ind

(42:41):
f But what came from this was that a lot
of photos came from this, really that that are famous
photos of he and his riding mechanic pushing his car
across the finish line in order to collect the you know,
the the winnings from that race. Even though he finished eleventh.
His car gave out on him after he had led
something like one laps of on lap, with just two

(43:04):
leads to go, his his car cocks out of him
into Mercedes. I think he had a correct piston or something. Um.
He and his mechanic had to get out and pushed
the car across the finish line in order to finish
the race and collect the money that they were they
were due. But the crowd, the crowd was like ninety
at this point, and the crowd was cheering louder for
them pushing the car across the line in the eleventh
place than they were for the winner of the race,

(43:24):
who was almost forgotten to history now, not not really,
but almost compared to what had happened there. And there's
famous photos of him and his his righting mechanic. The
guy's name was Rupert Jeffkins, and this car was like
like you know, pound cars something's enormous racing Mercedes that
they're pushing across the line on the on the bricks.
And so this guy is also let's see, he was

(43:47):
still winning awards. He got he's one of his most
recent awards was in two thousand six. Yeah we posthumously,
of course, of course. Yeah. So so forty years after
he's still winning awards. And you know, Ben, here's the
last little bit onto Palma here and this is this
is a bit gruesome, though, I think we should do
the same year that he famously lost the five, you know,

(44:09):
the nineteen twelve race. Uh, the series went on to
Milwaukee next, and um, I don't know where that falls
in the series now, if it's still the same way
or not, but they wanted to Milwaukee and this will
give an idea of the era. Here. So he goes
off track, you know, the car goes off track because
of an incident, and the car flips over and he's
out in the middle of a corn field when it
flips over. That's that's how the early days of racing.

(44:31):
I guess it wasn't surrounded completely by grandstand So he's
flipped over and he's in a cornfield and when he
flipped over in his car. Of course he's thrown out
because you know, he doesn't have a seat belt, there's
no seat belts and you know the leather cap. He's
impaled on two corn stalks in that cornfield, and they
kept him out of racing four eleven weeks while he's
in the hospital being you know, bandaged up for this thing.

(44:52):
Can you imagine being in a race car. You're one
minute you're racing Woman Milwaukee, you know, on the racetrack.
Next minute you're impaled on two corn stalks out in
some field somewhere. He probably doesn't even remember it, but um,
man an eleven week recovery and what a horrific injury too.
I mean that that could have ended his life right there.
But he went on to one went on to race
some you know, a long time after the in fact,

(45:12):
you know, won some big ones after that. But man,
what there's story after story after story like that in
this series. You'll find um a lot of really interesting characters.
And I think in that book wall Smacker, which I
am definitely gonna pick up and read, um, I think
you're gonna find, you know, hints. I guess that other
interesting people like that that maybe we can dig into

(45:33):
on this podcast and the world of board track racing,
like the old T. S. Eliott poem ended not with
a bang, but with a whimper as one by one Scott.
As you said earlier, national organization overseeing UH bike racing
banned all the board tracks shorter than one mile nine

(45:54):
nineteen and this continued on until about thirty one. As
we said, but the entire time time one by one,
manufacturers were slowly withdrawing their support because no one wants
to be known as you know, as the the automaker
behind the or the bike maker behind the most successful

(46:16):
death machines in America. Yeah, that's true. And you know,
I guess the timing is just it worked out so that,
you know, as the manufacturers pulled out of the competition,
out of the series, and the racers and you know,
the racers were probably still wanting to compete because it
was big money back then. I think some of the
purses were you know, the dollar range at the time,
and that was you know, ballpark. Do you want to
put that in a today's perspective, that's like five hundred

(46:37):
or six hundred thousand dollars. It could be one on
a weekend back in nineteen ten or nift. That's huge.
That was a huge draw for for the racers. That's
why they did it. And of course you know the thrill,
of course, and they were you know, they were they
were well aware of the risk. But also also there's
one thing I don't think we mentioned which is important
for anybody as a fan of the race. So as

(47:00):
the speeds increased, and this was something that that goes
along with my earlier statement that each lap was more
dangerous than the last. As the speeds increase, it became
more and more difficult to overtake other vehicles. So the
fastest car would almost always win the race, you know,
as long as it kept on the track. Well, that's

(47:21):
the thing they said. Of course, there's you know, the
quality issues because the cars didn't always make it to
the end of the race, or the bikes did always
make it, you know, this mechanical failure or you know,
of course an accident. You're either either crash out or
your bike would fail you. So the fastest one, like
you said, very little passing in the in the later days.
Um and and honestly, would you really even attempt passing

(47:43):
in something like this. I mean, it's like, well, my
bike's just not quite as fast and not gonna really
pull any kind of crazy move. I'm just gonna stay
in it. I'm gonna try to win the prize money
for a third place, right and be happy with that
and walk away with my life from this one. Maybe
next weekend I'll push a little imagine by the second lap,
knowing what place everybody who's gonna be in as a racer,
that's gonna be completely irritating as a spectator. You know,

(48:05):
maybe maybe people eventually got tired of that too. Well
maybe I guess, you know, yeah, I don't know. It's
it's tough to say because you know, because you're you're
thinking that, well, there's gonna be either human air, there's
gonna be um mechanical failure, as we said, so there
are things that can change that. But you're right, once
after you get into two laps and you settle into
the racing groove, you kind of knew who's gonna win

(48:26):
that eight lap race. So now I've got a question
for you, my friend. Oh boy, I think I know
what is. I'm just gonna I'll ask you, Okay, are
you for it? Or again, oh okay, that's not what
I thought. I can ask you to do it, yeah, exactly.
You have to be out of your mind to do
this something like this. But people still do this today.
There's a their their vintage leagues that do it. But

(48:47):
I don't think it's quite as competitive, quite as uh
um cutthroat as it was back then. Um, spectators aren't
killed normally at the at the historic events. Um. Yeah,
I guess then I'm gonna have to say that I
am for it. I think that it helped the help
the series grow, you know, it helped the you know,
motorcycle racing gain popularity and auto racing of course. But

(49:08):
would I be for bringing it back today, you know,
in the form that it was then, No way, there's
there's just no there's no need to do that. We've
had much safer, um, much much safer tracks now. Yeah.
I think I think that's a really good point in
the technology, both in terms of track construction and material
science as well as auto engineering, is far far beyond

(49:32):
what we have. I mean, we're looking at life a
century later and it's it's weird to think about it
in those terms. But what that means unfortunate way is
we can we can have exciting races where it can
still be any driver's game and everyone can walk away after.
Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, I would I would

(49:54):
love to see a board racing track that that you know,
people are really competing where they're they're they're in true competition,
but much safer than what it was back then, because
you can't you can't be losing a rider every weekend
and and ten ten spectators that that just can't happen now,
I mean, it shouldn't have happened. Then. I understand why
it happened because there's just there was no other way
around it. You know, they didn't have a better you know,

(50:16):
the safer barriers they didn't have, um, you know, the uh,
I guess the thought that maybe the crowd shouldn't be
perched over top of the railing as they're you know,
the riders are going just feet away from them. Um,
it's it's a different world, really it was. It was
a danger and everybody knew it when they went there.
You took that risk. But but then again, like you know,
you hear incidents where you know, a four year old

(50:39):
or four or five year old was killed because a
motorcycle hit him in the head because the kid was
curious and had his head sticking through the rail. I
will admit, despite the at times gruesome history, that if
I were if I were the same age now, or
if I were a kid back in that time, I
would have done anything to go see this, you know

(51:00):
what I mean, because these are amazing machines and the
chance to see one up close performing and its utmost
ability is uh fairly profound optunity. Biggest show in town,
biggest show in town at the hands of professionals too,
you know, I mean, it's it's the top writers that
you're reading about the newspapers every week. Yeah, would and

(51:21):
you can still you can find a lot of information
about board track racing, both online in print and their
their photographs. Well there's even film of these, and man
does it look exciting? And oh man, I would love
to be able to go and see a two mile
track made out of wood. How cool would that be? Yeah,
it's something that just doesn't exist. It's it's just not
anywhere right now. Smaller velodrome sure, and they're they're impressive,

(51:43):
but nothing like that except no substitutions. Ladies, and gentlemen. Uh,
and speaking of shows, I think this is going to
draw our show to a close before we hit too
hard on the banks of this podcast. The podcast studio,
of course, as long time listeners know, is composed of

(52:04):
a series of tracks and banks. We have lost a
few good people on them that I don't mean that
they died in any way, I mean they got lost
and with and with this, uh, we would like to
point you in the direction of Car Stuff Show dot com,
where if you haven't checked out yet, you can listen
to many more of our motorcycle and racing related episodes.

(52:27):
We have stuff about the history of the evolution of
the motorcycle. We have stuff about some of the greatest
moments in racing and some of the strangest races across
the planet. Let us know what you think about board
track racing as well. Were you one of the people
who had access to photographs of this from someone in
your family maybe, or have you been to the old sites? Yeah,

(52:49):
the like the long gone tracks, you know, the ones
that were knocked down in a tornado or a hurricane
or fire something like that. But uh, you know, there's
just no other record of them other than again, and
and you know small town scrapbooks. Yeah, exactly, So that's
where some of them live. And if you have them,
feel free to send them in and we'll share them
with the fellow listeners out there. Uh. And also, if

(53:11):
you happen to be on Twitter or Facebook, you can
check out a lot of cool car stories that for
one reason or another may not make it to the air,
such as one guy I'd actually like to do a
story on in the future. I'll just say the word
spoiler Graham. Oh, yes, yeah, we might check that out.
You can find these kinds of behind the scenes looks

(53:32):
on our Facebook and Twitter where we are car Stuff
h s W. And if you have a story about
board track racing, if you have a suggestion for a
topic we could cover in the future, you can write
to us directly. We are car stuff at how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of

(53:52):
other topics, is how stuff works dot com. Let us
know what you think, send an email to podcast at
how stuff Works. Got hum