Speedway farewells an old Chum

“Friday night was speedway night”

It is funny how a few words spotted out of the corner of your eye can open a gateway to a treasure trove of memories.

I was flicking through WA’s once-great daily newspaper the other day when a line stood out.

“Ride on high Chum,” it said. “No brakes, no gears, no fear.”

It was a death notice, one of the newspaper sections that can be guaranteed still to include little but irrefutable facts, and referred to one of Western Australia’s great sporting figures whose innings had just ended at 98.

Chum “The Master” Taylor was a headline name in WA half a century ago.

Christened Edwin but known as Chum from his first weeks, he was a speedway champion at a time that Friday night events at Claremont Showground were drawcards on a par with the Gloucester Park trots or the WAFL matches that would regularly pack 15,000 spectators into grounds built to handle half that number.

Chum “the Master” Taylor was a massive drawcard in his prime.

“The squeal of the motorbikes, the roar of the speedcars, the aroma of high-octane fuel and the smell of fear will be gone forever from Claremont,” Kerry Faulkner reported in the POST 25 years ago when the speedway hosted its final lap.

The dirty, smelly, noisy complex may well have outlived its welcome in an area becoming more genteel, though Claremont’s seedy underbelly was never far away, but the very factors that made it outdated were also the major drawcard in its prime when “Friday night was speedway night”.

The noise, smell and danger – on and off the track - were the elements that drew me, as one of thousands, to Claremont Speedway throughout my childhood.

We lived in Swanbourne, only a mile or so from the Showground, and the summer sea breeze usually ensured no speedway noise or smell would make its way up the Scotch College hill.

Not always, though.

Sometimes, when there was no breeze or the hot easterly blew all night in the middle of January, the enticing whiff of fuel and sound of revving engines would drift all the way to our house.

It was far more intoxicating at the speedway itself where Chum and Ivan Mauger and Ove Fundin were the biggest names on the billboard.

The engine noise was closer to a physical assault than merely an array of sound.

It split the air and left your head spinning while the acrid fumes added another ingredient to the enticing brew.

It was dangerous, too, and not just for the riders who survived – mostly- the regular crashes that added to the anticipation and thrill of another Friday night at the track.

Claremont Speedway in the 1970s.

The shadows and deserted alleys behind Fowl-House Corner were the hunting grounds of dodgy teenagers and young men for whom a night at the speedway would not be complete without a proper punch-up or chance to get the better of a private schoolboy foolish enough to find himself adrift of the main arena.

It was on that main arena in 1973 that one of the most memorable speedway nights took place.

It involved Chum Taylor, a fact I didn’t recall until this week when reading a report of the incident, who had just announced the end of his career at Claremont after racing there for a quarter of a century.

He would continue to race in England, where he had been a regular competitor since his early 20s, until a broken shoulder later that year ended his brilliant career.

“Claremont Speedway fans gave me a great farewell that night,” Taylor said in a revealing interview with motorcycle racing stalwart Ken Duperouzel many years later.

“I had just won my last race at Claremont Speedway and everybody poured on to the track, officials, competitors and a huge number of fans.

“Everyone was emotional, worst of all – me. I still recall the Frank Sinatra song playing ‘I did it my way’.

“Then the crowd gave me three huge cheers amidst all the clapping too. It was very emotional for me.”

I recall, as a young kid, being part of the crowd as it surged past the wire fence onto the track and being surprised at how muddy it was as my going-out Dunlop Volleys sank up to their laces.

Taylor was the star of the track whose performances on two wheels complemented those other speedsters on three or four, interspersed with demolition derbies and other novelties.

He was good enough to become Australian champion in 1966 but may have been even better known for his five wins as WA Speedway champion which earned him the title of the Master.

Chum Taylor was at his peak in 1966.

“Claremont was the biggest and fastest speedway track in the world and Chum was famous for coming from 140 yards back and hanging off the boards where the devil would fear to tread,” rider Greg McNeill remembered this week.

“He was a pretty ruthless character who had a few tricks up his sleeve but his title of Chum the Master was well deserved.”
Taylor ended his career as WA’s greatest speedway rider though that mantle may have been taken by Tai Woffinden, a triple world champion, who was brought up in Perth but returned to England where his career has reached stellar levels.

Woffinden is now recovering from a crash in Poland that left him with a list of bone fractures that he said was “wild” to list.

“Double compound right femur fracture (pinned and bolted), broken back TH9 plated and screwed to TH8 & TH10, right humerus compound fracture, dislocated + smashed right elbow, 12 broken ribs + punctured lung, left broken shoulder-blade, dislocated left shoulder,” he said on X before posting a photograph of Rottnest as his recovery goal.

As a new speedway star shines brightly, Claremont Showground is left with just memories of its 73 years as the centre of the sport in WA and a couple of plinths recognising speedway fatalities.

And the long shadow of Chum Taylor who dominated his sport without gears or fears.