****THE FAMOUS BOARD TRACKS****Thinks of your favorite racetrack. Chances are it is either a dirt or asphalt oval. As we all know, dirt track racing has been around since the beginning of automobile racing although the very early road races that were run were sometimes held on roads that were make out of cobblestone. The first oval dirt track race in the country took place on September 7, 1896 at Narragansett Park in Cranston, Rhode Island on a 1-mile oval.But in the beginning, the dirt tracks that cars raced on were mostly horse tracks at county fairs that were rough and during the race, it would become so dusty that spectator visibility was almost zero and the drivers saw less. As far as asphalt went, it wasn't available yet. But the face of racing was about to see a major change early in it's beginning. In California, an engineer named Fred Moscovics was a big bicycle-racing fanatic. Most bike races were held on small, wooden ovals. So he came up with an idea one day. Why not build a huge track like the bicycles compete on and race cars on that? It would be fast, clean and safe. Perfect idea.Putting his idea into action, Fred and a man named Art Pillsbury designed and built the first wood track in the United States. Located in California, the Los Angeles Motordrome in Playa Del Ray opened on April 8, 1910. It was a huge success right from the beginning. The track was a perfect circle 1 mile in length and was banked 20 degrees all the way around. Nicknamed the Pine Pinwheel and the Pie Pan, the fans loved the speeds attained by the drivers and the fact that they could see the race at all times without the interference of clouds of dust. In 1911, the Playa Del Ray board track held the first night race ever run in the United States.There were 24 board tracks built in the United States for automobile racing that ranged from 1/2 mile in length to the two-mile monsters in Maywood, Illinois, Brooklyn, New York, Cincinnati, Ohio and Tacoma, Washington. The board tracks were extremely fast and easy to drive. Lou Meyer, the first three-time winner of the Indy 500 (1928, 33 and 36) once told me that the way the board tracks were banked, the cars practically steered themselves. He said the only time you really had to turn the wheel was when you were passing another car.As for speed, take 1926 Indy 500 winner Frank Lockhart's run of 147.727 MPH at the 1.5-mile Atlantic City Speedway in Hammonton, New Jersey in 1927. This was faster than any car would go at Indianapolis until 1960 when Jim Hurtibise turned a lap of 149.056. Dario Resta, in an exhibition run at the Sheepshead Bay two-mile board track in New York, turned a lap of 108 MPH in September of 1915. The record for the 1915 Indy 500 was only 89.84 MPH. The major problem with these tracks was with the boards warping and decaying. Without the preservatives we have today, the average life for a board track was 4 years. The longest lasting one was the famous Altoona Speedway in Tipton, Pennsylvania that opened in 1923 and lasted until 1931. Unfortunately, Indy 500 winners Howdy Wilcox (1919), Joe Boyer (1924), and Ray Keech (1929) were all killed at the Altoona track.Wilbur Shaw, a 3-time winner of the Indy 500, once explained how eerie it was to be driving along at 130 MPH and seeing a head in the middle of the track. The head turned out to be a carpenter making repairs during a race and stuck his head up through a hole in the track while the cars were running. Out of the 24 board tracks built, the 2-mile Chicago Speedway in Chicago, Illinois, was the only track to host a 500-mile race. This was run on June 26, 1915 and was won by Dario Resta who would go on to win the Indy 500 the following year. The Miami-Fulford Speedway in Miami, Florida, was the shortest-lived board track. It was a 1.25-mile oval that ran it's only race, a 300 miler, on February 22, 1926 that was won by Pete DePaolo who had won the Indy 500 the year before. Seven months later, a hurricane destroyed the track. The materials and lumber that were salvaged were used to rebuild the town of Miami. To this day, there are still houses in Miami that have numbers on the rafters that came from the speedway. The 50-degree banks of this track were so steep that a car had to be going at least 110 MPH or it would slide off the banking.One unique feature with the board tracks was that most of them had 3 lines painted on them. The low and middle lines were used for racing but the only time a driver would go above the "high" line was to pass another car. By the late 1920s and early 30s, the board track era was winding down. Most of the tracks, when they needed extensive repairs from the harsh weather and the pounding of racecars on them were not repaired by the owners, due to the enormous cost of fixing them. The Los Angeles Motor Speedway in Beverly Hills was torn down in 1924 and the elite Beverly Hills-Wiltshire Hotel built on the property. The San Carlos and Los Angeles Motordrome Speedways in California were destroyed by fire. The Rockingham Speedway in Salem, New Hampshire, closed after Fred Comer was killed there in 1928. The Chicago track was torn down after three years and a hospital for wounded World War One soldiers was built on the site.The last well-known board track race was run at the Woodbridge Speedway in Woodbridge, New Jersey. Some of the smaller board tracks continued to hold midget and some motorcycle races after this but as for the big cars, an era had ended when Bernie Karnatz took the checkered flag at Woodbridge, New Jersey on October 18, 1931.FACT: It took 263 freight cars of lumber to build the 1.5-mile Atlantic City board track in New Jersey in 1924.
updated by @jon-clifton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM