Encounters on the Dirt Track: Polish - British Speedway from 1955.

This paper examines the post-war history of speedway, the ultimate provincial sport, comparing its development in Britain and Poland. On the basis of a variety of sources, including specialist press reports from both countries, interviews with former speedway riders, both academic and non-academic publications, and Internet fan forums, a narrative of the relationship between the Polish and British speedway worlds is built. Through this narrative the author explores speedway’s peculiar economic vulnerability, and the reasons why the sport has lurched from one seeming crisis to another in both countries, as well as the shared geographical phenomenon that the strongholds of the sport have moved from the metropolis to medium sized towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]