Re: Sunday for Monday
John tcrossed the finish for the star for his forehead.. The answer today is auto racing. Specifically wooden track high bank racing. It was an offshoot of earlier bicycle racing velodromes.
These were wooden tracks using millions of board feet (440 miles end to end) of 2x4s on edge that had small spaces between each board. The tracks were big and could be four miles in length. They sometimes had a crew of 600 to build these tracks which lasted about two years before splinters made the track unstable, and dangerous for tires and the drivers. At that time public roads were bad and the track locations so off the beaten track that it was less expensive to have the railroads build a spur for the delivery of the lumber than to build roads and hire trucks. The railroads then used the spur to deliver paying customers to the tracks which could total 60,000 on a good day. There were 24 of the wood tracks scattered throughout the nation. At first the tracks (1918-1919) were of a circular shape but by the mid 1920�s were all changed to ovals. The cars used were purpose built for speed�essentially open wheeled metal covered frames with large tires and engines. The cars looked like the kids unpowered soap box racers of the 1970�s and 80�s. When these tracks were built Cecil B. DeMille was a partner in a track, near today�s Beverly Hills.
The unique feature was that the tracks were banked. At first a gentle slope, but eventually reaching a 50 degree bank (North Miami Beach track) around the curves. It has been written that the race cars had to maintain a minimum 100 miles per hour just to smaintain position in the center/top of the track.
The Searles Spiral Easement Curves use was an adaptation of the railroad building tables for banked track for heavy railroad traffic at moderate speeds. When the wooden race track changed from circular to oval the transitions from the straightaway into the curves was, early on, too abrupt and caused the race cars to get squirrelly. The railroad curve adaptation meant that a car at speed could essentially run without steering if timed correctly by throttle control. In a day of open cockpits, open wheels, little in the way of protective gear, and no belts or harnesses, it helped to relieve the driver of some steering tasks (when he was in the clear and not three wide in a bank).
The wood track cars were moving at 140 miles an hour when the best the Indianapolis cars could manage was 117. By the end of the Depression the tracks were gone and many of the tracks used for firewood.
More is available at �Board Track Racing�, Dick Wallen, or Griffen Borgeson �Golden Age of the American Racing Car�.