Speedway City (known as Speedway Park from 1979 to 2001 and Speedway City from 1997 to 2016) is a Dirt track racing venue located 26 km north of Adelaide in Virginia, South Australia, adjacent to the Adelaide International Raceway.
History
Speedway Park came about due to the closure of Rowley Park Speedway following the 1978/79 speedway season. Rowley Park had run in the Adelaide suburb of Brompton since 1949 but had closed for such reasons as the track becoming too small for the faster cars appearing on the scene, and the local residents complaining about the noise; while the speedway was located less than 5 km from the Adelaide city centre, parking was mostly street-based, which brought more complaints from residents.
The land for the new speedway was located 26 km north of Adelaide near the town of Virginia which from 1969 to 1974 had hosted speedway at the local showgrounds called Thunderbird Speedway, while the neighbouring Adelaide International Raceway as part of its 2.41 km road racing circuit had an paved oval, which had also been used for speedway during the mid-1970s. Speedway Park's new neighbours were and still are market garden's which meant noise complaints were non-existent while ample on-site parking also did away with parking restrictions. Unfortunately though, the new location so far north of Adelaide severely contrasted with the old Rowley Park site which was centrally located and was readily accessible by public transport, something that Speedway City can not offer. Though for a number of years this was barely a factor as the new track was well patronised.
The Speedway Park track itself is a long clay surfaced oval track with a width of and a camber of 1.2 metres. The track is surrounded by a 6'0" high concrete retaining wall with another 3 metres of catch fencing located on top of the wall. Beyond the track fence is a 3.5-metre safety zone surrounded by a 1 metre high chain mesh safety fence. Spectators are not permitted beyond the smaller fence, although when an accident on track occurs and a red flag is shown it is not uncommon to see kids at the catch fence to get a closer look at the crashed car. The venue has the capacity to hold more than 10,000 spectators and this has been pushed to the limit on numerous occasions.
The speedway was originally run and promoted by the Racing Drivers Association of South Australia and after a lot of hard work, the track held its first official meeting on 2 November 1979. Its opening meeting saw the track officially opened by the Minister for Transport, Recreation & Sport, the Hon. Michael M. Wilson MP. Unlike Rowley Park which had a dolomite surface, Speedway City has a clay surface which specifically suited the car racing categories such as Sprintcars, Speedcars and Super Sedans with their wide racing tyres, but was not so popular with the Solo and Sidecar riders who felt the sticky clay track and the solid concrete retaining wall made racing more dangerous than it needed to be. This often led to criticism that even for championship bike meetings the surface was prepared more for the supporting car events than it was for the bikes. 1985 was the last year that the bikes ran regularly at the speedway, although the sidecars did make a few appearances during the 1990s. From 1985 the bikes raced at the motorcycle only North Arm Speedway (opened in 1981) located in the industrial suburb of Gillman.
During the mid-1980s the RDA sold the promoting rights to MJS Promotions, run by Mike Powell and John Hughes, then a local Grand National sedan competitor and in 1987 the founder of the World Series Sprintcars. Under MJS the speedway was then managed by Malcolm Cribb, it became known as Winfield Speedway Park due to a naming rights deal with cigarette manufacturer Winfield. This saw the speedway join other venues around Australia with track sponsorship from Winfield including Perth's Claremont Speedway, Sydney's Liverpool City Raceway and the Motordrome in Newcastle.