Ace Cafe London is delighted to host one of the most successful speedway club's in history, the Eastbourne Eagles, at their annual Speedway Day, on Sunday 2nd September starting at 10am and finishing at around 5pm.
Speedway was very much a part of the cafe's history. In the period following World War II, Speedway racing took place regularly, every Thursday night at the world famous Wembley Stadium, just a stones throw from the cafe, attracting tens of thousand of fans, with huge numbers visiting the cafe.
The local Speedway Team were called the Wembley Lions.
The Eastbourne Eagles In 1928, 'The Eastbourne Motor-Cycle Sports Club' was founded, with the express aim of bringing speedway racing to Arlington. They were successful in their endeavours, as only one year later, the sound of dirt track racing was audible among what had previously been a simple field owned by a local Duke.
A lot has changed since those early days of the sport - the winning time recorded in the first ever match was almost a minute longer than the winning times now regularly set at Arlington - yet Eastbourne Speedway is still going strong some 80 years later.
The sport is undoubtedly a family affair at Arlington; in those early days it was Charlie Dugard who was one of the names synonymous with Eastbourne Speeday, but later down the years, his sons and grandchildren have also worn Eastbourne's colours.
Although the sport took a brief sojourn from Arlington Stadium during the Second World War, Dugard bought the stadium outright in 1946 to prepare the track for the 1947 season. Not only did the Eagles move into the sport's 3rd Division in its first year of founding, they promptly won the title and made the cup final to add the first honours to their list.
Speedway Machines Speedway machines have an acceleration on par with a Formula One racing car, but have no brakes, rear suspension or gears. The engines are 500cc single cylinder 4-valve, four strokes with air cooling. Methanol is used instead of petrol to enable them to run at very high compression ratios. Drive from the crankshaft is via a countershaft and clutch (hence no gearbox) and final drive ratios are determined by the selection of engine and rear-wheel sprockets.
History of Speedway Racing A type of track racing took place in the early twentieth century in North America, but it is widely acknowledged that the present day sport originated in New South Wales, Australia.
In 1923, a young New Zealander called Johnny Hoskins was looking for a way to improve the finances of the near-bankrupt West Maitland Agricultural Society, when he hit upon the idea of staging motorcycle racing around the trotting track at their show. This idea proved wildly successful and soon spread throughout the rest of Australia.
The first meeting in the UK was staged at High Beech, Essex, in 1928. Britain with more concentrated areas of population than Australia, could therefore hold a greater number of meetings offering bigger prize money, making Britain the most popular destination for the world's top riders.
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