1928 The Preston Drome
	Preston Park has occasionally hosted sports other than football and cricket, but dirt track speedway racing ... ????

"The Preston Drome has been constructed has been constructed similar to the famous dirt-track motor cycle tracks in the world and enjoys the best reputation in Melbourne ... under the intense gleam of powerful electrical floodlights, the racing track exhibits a brilliant spectacle.  Here the riders give all the excitement a human being can possibility assimilate ...”  The Leader, November 2, 1928  (phew)! 

 Certainly residents around Cramer Street and for up to half-a-mile around didn’t really need to be told as Australia's first dirt track speedway meeting under lights was launched at the Preston Drome (a.k.a. Preston Park) on Saturday, September 7, 1928.

 There was some indication of the fun and games to come for those interested enough in local affairs to keep up to date with reports of Council meetings, especially that of August 14 where an agreement was reached between Australia Speedways and the Council for Preston Park to be used for speedway racing from September 1, 1928 to the first Saturday in March 1929.

The conditions for use of the Park were :

(1)     a cash deposit of "not less than" £250 to cover cost of installation of lighting and supply of electricity, plus 7.5% of the gross takings,

(2)     no excessive noise in be made, all cycles to be fitted with silencers,

(3)     betting be strictly prohibited,

(4)     adequate police protection be supplied,

(5   Australia Speedways to be responsible at termination of each meeting for the track to be levelled and rolled,

(6)     the centre of ground used as a cricket pitch be roped off,

(7)     no person be allowed to carry intoxicating liquor into the park,

(8)     Representatives of football and cricket clubs present and no objection made

One dissenting voice came from the Mayor, Cr. Llewellyn Jones, who claimed the park was worth £18,000 and Council would receive only the £250 if poorly patronised (the cost of  constructing the lights, installing loudspeakers and safety measures was estimated at £175).

Australian Speedways had already run meetings in New South Wales and perhaps had a little problem with the local geography, their early advertisements suggesting the Preston Dome was "18 minutes by fast electric trains from Princes Bridge, two minutes walking distance of electric trams".

The Sporting Globe took to the new sport with a vengeance, devoting around half a page of the mid-week edition to dirt and hard track speedway meetings …“Melbourne is to have its first taste of the thrills of “broadsiding” and skids incidental next Saturday when two tracks will be opened ... White City in Tottenham is already in use  as a coursing track and the Preston Speedway opens at the local cricket ground”

The Parks and Gardens Committee noted despite the August agreement, the meeting had been held with no mufflers on the bikes (noise being reported from as far away as Northernhay Street some three-quarters of a mile away), no protective netting had been erected and practice sessions had been held on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.

The City Engineer, Col. W. H. Scott reported “motor cycles had been allowed to run all over the grass" and recommended to the Council that the promoters be required to provide fire extinguishers, that vehicles and motor cycles be kept off the grass and proper provision be made for storing of cycles between races.  

 Cr. Adams suggested that the company be informed that unless approved silencers be fitted, the agreement be cancelled, and Cr. Robinson (the newly elected Mayor) noted the ground surface was disturbed to a distance of 39 feet from the fence rather than the 20 nominated by Australia Speedways  Time Preston woke up versus complaints by the score

 The Council agreed to give Australia Speedways an opportunity to rectify the problems after the promoters suggested another "trial run", with proceeds being donated to local charities and the official opening of Preston Dome"under City of Preston patronage"  came on October 6 after changes to the track.   

 The previews of the meeting suggested the promoters had to turn away 40 riders, with special invitations issued to interstate riders and Reg. West regarded (by Australia Speedways) as "Australia's best rider and winner of the invitational race at the earlier trial meeting. 

Admission prices  were set at 1/6 for the outer, and 2/6 for the grandstand reserve with schoolchildren under 15 admitted free if accompanied by an adult.  By comparison, the Preston Leader carried advertisements for corned silverside at 1/6d per pound , sausages 3 lb for 1/- and mince meat at 4d per pound. 

Despite cold weather, a crowd of 3000 rolled up for the meeting "under Council patronage" with the venue formally opened by the new Mayoress, Mrs. Gilbert Robinson cutting a red and white ribbon with special pair of gold scissors presented to her by the management. 

The Leader salivated at "the daring and fearless manner in which riders skidded or broadsided through the loose dirt at the turns followed by terrific bursts of speed up the straights" …. "the broadcasting system which allowed full particulars of the events to be transmitted clearly and distinctly to all parts of the ground". 

The speedway craze took off with a vengeance with inner city meetings under way at the John Wren's Motordrome in Swan Street and the Exhibition track on the north side of the Exhibition Buildings, with another major draw card at the somewhat remote privately owned Aspendale Racecourse, the expanses of the latter allowing special attractions including races between bikes and an aeroplane as well as motor cars ("80 m.p.h. guaranteed").   

The following meeting at the Preston Dome in November attracted 4000, but by this time, three or four meetings were being in or around Melbourne on Saturday and Monday nights.

With the rapid development of the larger and centralised Motordrome and Exhibition Speedway, neither Australian Speedways or the Preston Drome appear to have lasted very long and after the New Year, it seems just two more meetings were held, one of which featured 42 riders in the Preston Handicap. 

Remarkably, the dirt track circling the oval did not appear to have worried the cricket club (and is not mentioned in track reports), but a Council meeting in February considered a letter from the Victorian Football Association via football club secretary, Ern. Hannah, expressing concerns about "the playing area at Cramer and Bruce Street ends being formed with ashes and cinders", the problem again referred to the City Engineer.  The same meeting demanded that the promoters take action to "prevent men and boys climbing the netting in front of the grandstand to get a better view" and revealed that sixteen loudspeakers had been installed around the ground. 

“Only three weeks ago one of the riders at the Preston track gave the crowd a thrill when he was somersaulted off his machine into mid-air while his machine instantly burst into flames. Some fully thirty or forty spills have already occurred on the Preston track and fortunately none of the riders has been hurt ..."

After several crashes at the third meeting of 1929 (where the track was described as “too fast”), the promoters proposed additional dressing to deepen the track and conducting trials every Wednesday night to eliminate poor riders that might prove dangerous to their opponents,  “it is considered that a rider should “lap” the track in no more than 28 seconds to qualify for championship events". 

A strange twist came around the same time when Council considered an application from the Preston Cycle Club asking that they be allowed to run combined cycle and motor cycle meetings at the Park on Wednesday nights.  The request was denied, and the Council indicated it was not prepared to extend the agreement with Australian Speedways beyond the early March date.

This seems to have come as a surprise to the promoters. 

Given the rapid growth of the sport and no controlling body, every track boasted its own "State champion", and Australian Speedways issued an unexpected announcement that "State Championships for the one mile dirt track have been allotted to Preston Speedway by the Auto Cycle Union of Victoria. Practice meetings will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 on Wednesday evenings”.

No further reports of the Preston Speedway ever appeared, but other venues were going from strength to strength.

The Exhibition Oval (managed by Arthur Reynolds) and the Motordrome regularly attracted crowds of 7,000 to 8,000. Melbourne Carnivals brought out a Belgian rider, signing up Louis Gysler, who outgunned locals and set a number of track records, the Exhibition track organisers responding by featuring Fay Taylour, the champion British women's motor racing cyclist who had been riding with some success in Western Australia where dirt track racing had been in operation for some time.  The Irishwoman was narrowly defeated by the "Victorian champion", Cliff Bounds, and “impressed critics by the dexterous manner in which she handled her machine” and she won races at later meetings against her male counterparts in front of crowds of up to 12,000. 

At the February 9, 1929 meeting, two spectators at the Motordrome were killed and another critically injured when a rider was thrown from his machine and careered up the concrete side of the track before crashing into spectators leaning over the lip.  Jack Campbell, Melbourne Carnival's manager of the track, responded to press reports that the cycle had gone over the lip of the track as “impossible”, suggesting that any one “who would be foolish enough to crane his neck over the "Drome track” was courting trouble.  The rest of the evening's races were cancelled, Campbell later organizing a benefit meeting on behalf of the relatives of the deceased men.

Melbourne Carnivals soon after abandoned their promotion of motor race meetings, leasing the venue to Con. McCarthy, a popular “racing motor cyclist”.  McCarthy in addition to the sloped concrete embankments added a dirt racing track and a new lighting system,  One of the advantages reported at the early meetings was that "the saucer track prevented cinders and dust (previously inseparable from dirt track racing in all parts of the world) from being thrown into the faces of spectators". 

Both the metropolitan tracks were put in the shade by a Monday night extravaganza  at Aspendale that attracted 15,000 spectators.  The meeting was the first where bookmakers were allowed to operate, but “comparatively few people showed any desire to back their fancies and the voices of the odds men were drowned by those of the programme sellers”. 

The meeting featured a race between Harry Shaw in his Farman sports aeroplane and a driver named Cooper in a Ballot car.  Sadly, reports on the meeting do not reveal just how the race was conducted, but several laps were completed, “Shaw flew sufficiently low to allow a good comparison of speeds to made”, and "the aeronaut “crossed the line half a length of his plane ahead of Cooper”.    

Cooper was reported as starting two-to-one on in the odd race, Mr. J. H. Crooke, described as the mortgagee of the course, later revealing that he had prohibited Aspendale Speedway Pty. Ltd from licensing bookmakers, and those who fielded did so "without official sanction”.