Taking chances on the Wall of Death

Remaining Wall of Death acts recall the old board racing era, including Harley Davidson and Indian motorcycles from early last century alongside more modern machines.

Paul Charman recalls an era when men were mental and some of the things they did on motorbikes were off the wall

Few riders get to defy gravity and thrill the crowds on the Wall of Death these days. Only a few of the old wooden tracks still exist; most are mouldering in garages, or under houses - a sad requiem for the big circuses and sideshows which once toured the world.

The first Wall of Death ride was built on Coney Island, New York, in 1911. The idea sprang from board racing, a bloodthirsty form of motorsport popular across the US early last century. With tracks banked to 45 degrees or steeper, car drivers and motorcycle riders jousting on these "motor dromes"often lost control and careered into the crowd.

Board racing tracks made a lot of money, but newspapers campaigned against them as death traps.

Some put their eventual demise down to the Great Depression of the 1930s. But board tracks were always going to be temporary. Though relatively cheap to build, their untreated timber required constant replacement, making them expensive to maintain.

But circus impresarios knew a good idea when they saw one. Ringmasters shrank the motor drome to portable Wall of Death tracks and the rides flourished alongside the travelling shows right up to the mid-1950s, when TV killed the circus.

British singer-songwriter Richard Thompson immortalised the era in his song Wall Of Death, where he rates the act higher than the Crooked House, the Ghost Train or the Bearded Lady.

In New Zealand the Wall of Death launched the career of Kiwi speedway legend Ronnie Moore.

As a boy, Moore rode both speedway and Wall of Death stunts with his dad. Then he sailed to England to become at 17 the youngest rider to ever qualify for speedway's world
champs.

So what is the difference about the Wall of Death and some of the acts you'll see on TV thrill shows today?

First a word about that sanitised modern version, that odd-looking ''Globe of Death'' thingy.

This is a spherical cage, inside of which bike riders buzz around like trapped blowflies.

While tastes may differ, in my view the Globe of Death is too boring to watch for more than about 30 seconds.

The old Wall of Death, on the other hand, had an appeal both raw and elemental.

You peered over the edge of the tank-shaped track, the noise and smoke levels rising ominously as the rider circled below.

Trained to resist a natural urge to straighten the bike up, the rider reached terminal speed and became horizontal.

He completed a circuit every two seconds or so, inching nearer to the top on each lap.

Pressure waves and the deafening engine noise warned the little boy in the crowd to scuttle away and save himself while there was still time, but I held my ground.

A good Wall of Death act is now relatively hard to find.

A variation seems to have flourished in India, where cars are used as well as bikes, while several of the original shows survive in the United States.

These are apparently something to see, rekindling memories of the old board racing era by including vintage Harley Davidson and Indian motorcycles from that time.

NZ legend began on dad's homemade track

In his day Ronnie Moore now 80 and living in Christchurch was a speedway phenomenon.

Renowned for an astonishing natural ability, Moore rode competitively from age 15 and sailed to England to ride professionally at 17.
After joining the Wimbeldon Dons he became the youngest rider to qualify for the world championship. Crowds of up to 20,000 chanted the name of the man dubbed by the the press ''the Baby Faced Racer''.

But this glittering career could have been snuffed out early. The Moore family's travelling Wall of Death act nearly came to grief in the Australian desert.

Though he considers himself a Kiwi, Moore was born in Hobart, where his father Les became inspired after watching a post-war Wall of Death display at the showgrounds. Les built his own track in the backyard, using 1.8m fence palings donated by understanding neighbours.

Though shallow and difficult to ride, the homemade structure drew motorcyclists from far and wide. Moore recalls that the enthusiastic amateurs, who often crashed, gave the circular track such a hammering it became egg-shaped.

Les soon staged his own Wall of Death act for the Hobart show and was invited to tour it to Sydney. He'd spiced things up by developing an act with two riders himself and a mate
riding in opposite directions simultaneously. Almost unheard of today, this resulted in a head-on crash which took Les' mate out of the business. Aged just 13, his son took the
man's place father and son timing the act perfectly.

Boosted by the lad's repertoire of tricks, the act was a great success in Sydney and the family was soon offered a contract in Perth. They packed the Wall of Death track into an
18m trailer and began to tow it more than 3000km across the Nullarbor Desert.

However, the truck cracked a cylinder head, stranding Moore, his parents and sister
deep in the desert.

Les decided to ride one of the Wall of Death bikes 30km to the next town on the map.
But since it was unsafe to travel in the desert alone, his son had to ride along on the other machine. They left mum and sister in their caravan.
Moore recalls that the AJS single-cylinders were reliable, even when stripped of lights,
mudguards, speedos and so forth.

The speck on the map turned out to be a ghost town, so father and son rode about 160km to Norseman and phoned Melbourne for a new head. This arrived two days later and the two headed back, the replacement part balanced on Les' lap.

Not having speedos to calculate their mileage, they overshot the caravan in the darkness by many miles. Feeling they had gone too far, father and son turned around and retraced their route, eventually seeing a faint glimmer in the distance. It turned out to be the caravan.

The family drove on to Perth, where their act was successful, earning invitations to tour South Africa and New Zealand. Les chose NZ, and the family spent six months with
a circus before settling in Christchurch.

A couple of years later Moore had his first taste of speedway racing, discovering a natural ability riding his father's bike.

By 17 he was riding professionally and beginning a long and illustrious career, topped off by winning the world championship twice.

The Ronnie Moore Story, as told by Rod Dew, says riding the Wall of Death, plus his dad's interest in all forms of racing, was a huge inspiration.