Comrade Daredevil Part II

‘NEW sport for motorcyclists’ splashed the Daily Mirror on Monday, June 13, 1928. The headline was referring to the then-novel dirt track racing, which was starting to grip the nation. Dirt tracks were popping up across the country and along with them, a whole host of two-wheeled heroes. Among them was the intrepid Clem Beckett – born and bred Oldham lad and part-time blacksmith. Those of you who read last month’s instalment will know about him already, for those who didn’t, be prepared to meet a true daredevil.

But back to the context: it’s 1928 and Britain is brimming with dirt tracks thanks to huge demand for the high-risk stakes taken by its riders. Britain was barely 10 years from the atrocities of the First World War and yet its public were eager to watch men skid, fly and fling themselves across the hundreds of dirt-and-chip tracks peppered across the country. The proliferation of tracks is staggering when one thinks of how few there are today. Within an hour’s drive from Clem’s terraced street in Oldham there were around 15 tracks, including ones in Manchester, Audenshaw, Droylsden, Rochdale, Blackpool and Sheffield. The popularity of this sport really can’t be overstated.

And like all sports, dirt racing needed its heroes. Clem visited his first dirt track meeting at Audenshaw in March 1928 and by May he was taking part in his first competition – also at Audenshaw – with a makeshift machine. We left Clem in the last feature just as his career started to take off, at a meteoric rate, and today we’re picking up from that point on, as Clem takes the country – and the world – by storm.

Part of the allure of dirt track racing was its risk. Few meetings went without injury and some even resulted in fatalities. Clem witnessed four injuries at his first Audenshaw meeting, but still went on to become