page_title: Board track racing
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Board track racing / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of Tacoma Speedway as it was rebuilt following an arson fire in 1920.
context_page_description: Board track racing was a type of motorsport popular in the United States during the 1910s and 1920s. Competition was conducted on circular or oval race courses with surfaces composed of wooden planks. This type of track was first used for motorcycle competition, wherein they were called motordromes, before being adapted for use by various different types of racing cars. The majority of the American national championship races were contested at such venues during the 1920s.
  Board tracks proliferated in part because they were inexpensive to construct, but they lacked durability and required a great deal of maintenance to remain usable. Many of the tracks survived for as little as three years before being abandoned.
  With the onset of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, board track racing disappeared rapidly. However, several of its most notable aspects have continued to influence American motorsports up to the present day, including: A technical emphasis on raw speed produced by the steep banking; ample track width to allow steady overtaking between competitors; and the development of extensive grandstands or stadium-style spectator seating surrounding many of the courses.
context_section_description: The first board track for motor racing was the circular Los Angeles Motordrome, built in 1910 in the area that would later become the city's Playa del Rey district.  Based on the same technology as European velodromes used for bicycle racing, this track and others like it were constructed with 2-inch (51 mm) x 4-inch (100 mm) boards, often with turns banked at up to 45 degrees.  In some cases, such as the track at Culver City, banking was 50 degrees or more. Longer tracks were later built – some up to 2 miles (3.2 km) long by 1915 - and lap speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour became commonplace.
  Interest in motorsport was exploding during this period and by 1929, at least 24 board tracks had been built around the country, although by 1931, 20 of the 24 had been shut down or abandoned, and from 1932 on there were no more championship-level races run on boards.  The tracks were relatively inexpensive to construct compared to more permanent facilities – the total facility cost of the 2-mile (3.2 km) Tacoma Speedway was just $100,000 in 1915, compared to the $700,000 spent in 1909 just to pave the 2.5-mile (4.0 km) Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
  Racing on these tracks often drew large crowds of paying spectators.  In 1915, a crowd of 80,000 was reported in Chicago, three weeks after only 60,000 had attended the Indianapolis 500.  Relatively small and isolated Tacoma (population 83,000 in 1910) had turned out 35,000 to see a race the year before.  To attract both competitors and fans, race promoters offered what were then considered sensational amounts of prize money - a total purse of $25,000 was not unusual around the time of World War I.
  After World War I, the Automobile Association of America's Contest Board resumed and re-organized the National Championship system.  From the beginning of the 1920 season to the end of 1931, the AAA sanctioned a total of 123 championship racing events on 24 different race tracks, and 82 of those races were run on wooden surfaces.  (Of the remainder, 12 were on the bricks of Indianapolis, and the other 29 were on dirt tracks or road courses.)
caption: Qualifying speeds at two-mile Tacoma Speedway were sometimes higher than those at Indianapolis.
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