THE ROOTS THEY TRIED TO CUT: THE REAL HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN DIRT MOTORSPORT

Ask most people under forty what "speedway" means in Australia and they'll say Sprintcars. Ask about dirt tracks and they'll say motocross. Both answers are wrong — not because Sprintcars and MX don't matter, but because neither was ever the heart of it. The heart was Solos and Sidecars. Speedcars (Midgets). Long track, run on circuits like Port Pirie in South Australia, where a Civil Aerodrome was converted into a speed track in 1933 and went on to host the Australian Long Track Championship almost every year from 1947 — including a young Ivan Mauger, long before he became a world champion.

One of the old guard from WA put it to us plainly: "The generation thinks speedway is Sprintcars. It was solos and sidecars. If people don't document the history, it will be erased within 2–3 generations — and it already has. We cannot rely on governing bodies to do it for us."

And drag racing belongs in this same story — not as an outsider, but as a direct branch of the same tree.

Some in speedway circles will say drag racing is irrelevant to this history. The record says otherwise. Look at Castlereagh, on Sydney's outskirts — an emergency airstrip used through the 1930s and WWII, which became Castlereagh International Dragway in 1959, when the Australian Racing Drivers Club ran the first U.S.-style dragsters ever raced in NSW. Look at the Northern Territory, where a handful of enthusiasts who barely knew what drag racing was formed the King Cobra Rod and Custom Club in 1969, racing first at Hughes Landing Field — an abandoned WWII bomber strip — then the rough, undulating Livingstone Airstrip, before finally, with government backing, building Hidden Valley in 1986. Today, Hidden Valley runs its ANDRA drag strip alongside Northline Speedway's clay oval, on the same grounds — dirt track and drag strip, sharing the same soil, because they always shared the same roots. Look at Queensland, where organised drag racing launched in November 1965 on the main straight of the old Lowood circuit — itself a converted WWII airfield — before the sport found its more famous home at Surfers Paradise.

Different states, same pattern: dirt, disused airstrips, and determination, long before anyone built a purpose-made, safe venue for it. That's not a separate sport bolted onto motorsport's family tree. That's the same roots, reaching a different branch.

In speaking with drivers and riders across every discipline, one thing keeps coming up: when drag season ends, they're at speedway. When speedway ends, they're racing boats. Anything with a machine and a track, they're in it. The riders never drew the lines between these sports — it was always everyone else who tried to.

The same goes for Scrambles — the rough, open-country motorcycle racing that ran parallel to speedway through its golden years. NDC founder Jocelyn Dare's father, Ron Johnson, was one of the original riders during that era — a firsthand thread running directly from our own family history into this archive.

Somewhere along the way, the tree stopped growing the way it should have. Promoters took more than they gave back. Licensing fees that once sat around $5 license for the year climbed far beyond what grassroots riders can absorb, to now around $400 a year. Passion got replaced with profit. Fun got replaced with fear — fear of speaking up, fear of having an opinion, in a sport built by people who did both loudly.

We've had this same story told to us again and again — from Solos, Sidecars, Speedcars, go-karts, drag racing — the same heartbreak, the same sense that the sport is being quietly reshaped by people who want control rather than continuity.

Some have called our reporting clickbait. We'd call it holding up a mirror. There are always three sides to a story — the front, the back and the middle, which is where the truth usually sits. We built this platform to sit in the middle and to give people a safe place to say what they've been afraid to say.

Because here's the real question underneath all of this: what is this sport actually for? People think winning world championships is what keeps a sport alive. It isn't. It's respecting the heritage and making sure it's remembered properly, accurately for the generations who come after us.

If you have old race programs, newspaper clippings, photographs or family stories from Solos, Sidecars, Speedcars (Midgets), Scrambles or drag racing in Australia — send them to us. It doesn't matter if we've heard a version of your story before. Tell us again. As long as the story stays the same and keeps being told, it won't be lost and it won't be forgotten. And the next generation will know their roots. 

Email us: info@nomaddirtculture.com

Because at the end of the day — y'all Nomads. 🏁

— Nomad Dirt Culture 

image sourced from old program.

information sources: 

1. Penrith City Council — Local History, "Drag Racing"
   https://penrithhistory.com/drag-racing/
   "While the track had been in operation since 1947, it wasn't until 1959, when the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC) took over, that drag racing began. This was the first time that the U.S.-style dragsters had been raced in NSW."

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