The two female speedway stars who beat the men in the 1920s
Fay Taylour and Eva Askquith were good enough to beat the men in the fast and furious sport of speedway... until women were banned
Wembley Stadium was packed with 17,000 spectators waiting to watch speedway aces broadside their 500cc machines into the turns, with plumes of dust and cinders thrown up by the drifting, spinning rear wheel. The racing was fast and furious in a sport where riders had to be prepared to take a few knocks in the chase for glory.
But it wasn’t Sprouts Elder, Fred Varey, Vic Huxley or Arthur Shirlock who were the main attraction on that Saturday night in October 1929. It was Fay Taylour and Eva Askquith.
Looking at this photograph of the two young women sitting on their Douglas dirt-trackers with the pushers standing behind, you’d think they were the best of friends. Fay has lifted the leather mask that would protect her face from flying cinders, while Eva has unhooked hers to let it hang from her neck. Both are wearing leather bibs and their left boots have steel toe caps and sole plates. Fay was 25 years old at the time, Eva a couple of years younger. They’re holding hands and smiling for the camera. But they were not pals – they couldn’t stand the sight of each other... and this was a grudge match to decide who would be crowned the Queen of Speedway.
The pair couldn’t have had more different upbringings. Born in Ireland in 1904, Fay Taylour’s grandfather was the Marquis of Headfort. As a girl, she had nannies and governesses, enjoyed horses, hunting and shooting and was educated at the prestigious Alexandra High School in Dublin. When southern Ireland won independence, her father, an officer in the Royal Irish Constabulary, moved his family to a large country house in Berkshire, not far from Windsor Castle.
After the bright lights of Ireland’s capital city, Fay was soon bored with life in rural England, so in 1927 she bought an AJS Big Port. She quickly got the hang of riding the sporty 350 and, after coaching by the mechanic from the local motorcycle repair shop, entered the Southern Scott Trial. Held during March at Camberley Heath, this annual event was really a scrambles race with two 24-mile laps
over a course that included long, sandy straights and muddy rock-strewn hills as steep as a house that had to be taken flat-out to reach the top. The best riders in the country would take up the challenge, but skill alone wasn’t enough to finish – you had to be hard as nails as well. The Irish lass certainly was, because she finished ahead of all the top women, including 500cc Raleigh works rider and ISDT competitor Marjorie Cottle, to win the Venus Trophy. And she beat the men to take home the cup for the 350cc class.
Less than five months later, Fay was riding an ohv BSA at Post Hill near Leeds, where at least 11,000 spectators paid to watch riders tackle the long, steep climb. Riders started in pairs, with two runs each; AJS rider Albert Hodgson won the 350c class when he beat her by only 0.4 seconds. Next up was the Ladies Solo Unlimited. Fay triumphed over Cottle once again in the Ladies, but in the run-off it was Eva Askquith on a borrowed 500cc Ariel who took home the trophy. It was the first time they had met. While Fay was a posh young lady, Eva was a butcher’s daughter from Bedale in Yorkshire who spent her weekday mornings stuffing sausages. She bought her first motorcycle – a 250cc New Imperial – only a year before the Post Hill competition, joined the Leeds Motor Club and was soon competing in long-distance reliability trials. The Imp made way for a 500cc HRD, and then an AJS TT Big Port. That was the bike she rode in the Scott Trial of September, 1927, the greatest one-day trial in the country. First organised in 1914 by two-stroke pioneer Alfred Angas Scott, the 70-mile route crossed wild Yorkshire moorland tracks, went 1760ft up Flock Rake and down one-in-one descents, with hazards including torrential streams, deep gullies, bogs, boulderstrewn water splashes and bracken to sort the men (and women) from the boys. Her TT racer wasn’t the ideal bike, but Eva was one of only 73 of the 135 starters to finish.
It was speed that Eva enjoyed most, whether it was flatout freak hill climbs, grasstrack or sand racing. Meanwhile, Fay had talked her way into a job at Rudge-whitworth in Coventry and a factory-prepared 500, which she used to stunning effect in trials competitions in the Midlands.
Both girls were avid readers of the motorcycle press and would have seen the reports by Lionel Wills, a former Cambridge University Motorcycle Club member and part of the WD & HO Wills tobacco empire. He went to Australia in January 1926 and was soon hooked on the new sport of speedway.
One of his descriptions of Australian dirt-track techniques appeared in The Motorcycle of September 15, 1927. Star rider Billy Lamont modified his Big Port AJS with a strip of steel fixed between the fork links to prevent all movement, although Wills suggested that a very tight friction damper would have the same effect. The majority of the riders trailed their left boot all round the tack, so there was no footrest on that side. A large inverted hook on the right side of the fuel tank, padded with cotton and leather, allowed the rider to lock his leg between it and the footrest and so stay on the bike.
“Only the really fast men got any benefit from the technique,” wrote Wills. “An unsteady rider made themselves more unsteady by trailing the leg. Riders who learnt to keep their feet on the rests in road races or trials would probably get better at first without broadsiding. It is absolutely necessary to keep the engine spinning fast during a skid, and the average high-geared single needs middle gear all the way around a small track.”
The Adelaide track was surfaced with coarse, rolled gravel, bright yellow in colour. Newcastle Speedway used a mixture of cinders and gravel, which gave the track a
sand-red colour. “I can testify that the surface of Sydney Speedway Royal looks like cinders, feels like cinders, and tastes like cinders!” reported Wills. “Lap speeds of 55mph for a one-third mile track, 70 for a half-mile and 85mph for one-mile tracks do not seem very high in cold print, but in real life a Brooklands sprint seems a crawl in comparison.”
While the Aussie tracks had an almost perfect, even surface, several English motorcycle clubs were thinking of using grass fields or rough, sandy tracks for the new sport. “Little good will come of this,” warned Wills. “There is nothing duller than watching riders hump round a one-mile ploughed field at, say, 50mph... Controlled skidding is the essence of dirt-track racing – nothing is prettier to watch than a Douglas slithering around a turn as steady as a rock, but a wild series of bumps on a rough track is dangerous to the rider, slows the racing to a crawl, and, surprisingly enough, deprives it of nearly all spectacular interest.” No wonder Fay and Eva wanted to have a go when speedway came to England. The first event took place on February 19, 1928 on an old athletics track at King’s Oak in Epping Forest, 20 miles north-east of London. There were eight main events, 50 races and 42 riders including a number of Australians. The organisers had hoped for 3000 spectators, but ten times as many lined the cinder oval for the 11am start and the King’s Oak Hotel soon ran out of beer! Nobody had seen anything like it. Eva described how the Aussie aces powered into the bends on full throttle, the rear wheel slanted at an alarming angle while the upright front wheel pointed at the outside fence so the rider, his chest on the tank and left leg trailing, could hold the slide.
Speed, noise, thrills and spills. Speedway had it all. Within a year there were 70 new tracks across the country, with Crystal Palace in south-east London one of the first. Rudgewhitworth
wasn’t interested when Fay asked if they would help get her a ride, but she travelled to London anyway and was in Lewis Leathers buying a helmet when Lionel Wills walked in. Crystal Palace was his home track and when Fay said that she fancied a go, he drove her there. After tucking her hair under her new helmet, she went out to practice and was still riding when the last of the men had given up. Fay was back the next day... and the next. She spent a week learning how to powerslide the Rudge and her determination convinced Wills to push speedway promoter Freddie Mockford into booking her for a race.
Fay was given a head start against two Australians for her first four-lap race, but was trying too hard and fell on the third lap. The same happened the following week. Her Rudge was heavier and harder to handle than the light Dirt Track Douglas that the Aussies were riding, so for her third appearance Wills decided to even the odds. He lent Fay his own DT Duggie and this time she finished the race. A week later, she beat the local champion at Brighton Speedway and never looked back.
Eva, on the other hand, got her first ride at Leeds Speedway in October 1928, just as the season was coming to an end, and convincingly won two heats in the Junior Handicap. The Douglas was by far the most successful dirt-track machine and she scraped together £85 to buy one of the blue and silver flat-twins for the 1929 season. Tracks in the north of England were her territory and she began to make a name for herself. Then came an invite from Denmark to race in Copenhagen, all expenses paid plus £6 a week and £3 for each appearance, and of course prize money. That might have seemed a lot, but the promoters were well satisfied.
A record crowd of 10,000 saw her first race, when she beat two Danes but also lost a couple of races. The next night she was on form and took several easy wins. Then followed a
‘MEN HAVE MORE MUSCLE, BUT I HAD THE ART, SKILL AND SENSITIVITY RACING ON A LOOSE SURFACE REQUIRED’ FAY TAYLOUR
trip to Spain, where she beat Ted Clairmont, a Wimbledon Speedway regular, by two races to one at the Barcelona oval and then left Spanish ace Jose Vinals eating cinders. Eva was only two seconds off the track record. Newspaper reports had raised her profile back in the UK, and she was soon competing all over the country.
While Eva was making her name in Europe, Fay was in Australia. She arrived in January 1929 with the Australian aces. No British men made the trip. The Aussies loved her grit. Her first outing was at the famous Claremont Speedway in Perth. Fay turned out on her Douglas for a three-lap match with Frank Brown and beat him easily, averaging 52.7mph – the best speed of the evening.
The record was held by Western Australian champion Sig Schlam, with 54.9mph. When the promoters asked Fay to race against him, she replied that she couldn’t consider an international match unless her prize money was increased to £50. They refused. Letters were sent to newspapers in support. Editors took her side. The promoters caved in...
Three weeks later, Fay lined up alongside Sig and waited for the flag to drop. Then she squirted her Douglas down the straight and into the first bend, cinders flying and wheelto-wheel with the Australian champion. Three laps later, it was the Irish lass who took the chequered flag with the astounding time of 1m 17s to equal his record. “Miss Taylour departed for Melbourne, presumably leaving behind pleasant memories for everyone except Sig,” reported one newspaper. “We were prettier than the men,” said Fay. “We were more delicate, they have more muscle. But I had the art, the skill and the sensitivity that racing on a loose surface required. Perhaps more sensitive being a woman!”
She took wins in Melbourne and Adelaide and broke lap records. The Brisbane Sunday Mail reported: Never has Davis Park been so crowded for a speedway meeting as it was on Saturday night.” Fay was the star with pulling power. Over in New Zealand, she was welcomed by the All Blacks rugby team before defeating most of the top riders in her first appearance and setting the fastest time of the night. “Fay Taylour was good,” wrote one journalist. “Always happy and confident, she is an exceptional woman with the skill, judgement and guts which 80 per cent of experienced male competitors might envy.”
Soon after Fay returned to London, Johnnie Hoskins, the Australian manager of Wimbledon Speedway, arranged a series of match races against Eva to decide who would be crowned the Queen of the Speedways. Things didn’t get off to a good start. “I’ll never forget the first time I rode against her,” Eva recalled in a 1973 interview. “She wouldn’t let me share the dressing room which was for both of us!” Fay was dismissive of her opponent. “The Northern girl,” she said, and it wasn’t meant as a compliment, “does not powerslide into the bends in a streamlined fashion. Instead of throwing the bike wide into the turn, she prefers to ride around the inside with bent knee.”
Wimbledon’s Empire Stadium had been fitted with new floodlights that made it ‘The finest lighting ever seen in this or any other country’. The track was 30ft wide on the straights and 45ft wide on the bends. In the centre of the track was a lawn mowed to give light and dark green stripes. Around this was the dark grey speedway, smooth as the lawn and bordered on the inside by a narrow white line and on the outside by a white board at the bottom of the wire safety fence. Suddenly a bugle blared and from the opening at the far end of the arena emerged Fay and Eva on their blue and silver Duggies. A cheer erupted as they did a warm-up lap, and then came to the start line. The girls smiled for the camera.
Everyone expected Fay to run away with the race, but Eva let her riding – and her spannering – do the talking. In the first heat, the Northern girl shot into the lead to take an easy
win, while the Irish lass struggled with a Douglas firing on one cylinder. Round two and Eva drew the inside line, which suited her feet-up style. Fastest from the flag, she steadily increased her lead and was a couple of yards in front before the final bend. Desperate to win, Fay broadsided into the turn on full power, but drifted wide and fell heavily. Eva had two rounds in the bag, so there was no third race tie-break.
A week later, they raced at Crystal Palace – and this time Fay led from the start. Into the last corner she kept the taps wide open, put the machine over near the end of the straight, and did a beautiful clean slide right round the bend to win the first race. “It really was a pretty piece of work and showed that Fay is the more experienced of the two,” The Motor Cycle reported.
On lap three of the second round, Fay about-faced while trying too hard and Eva just managed to miss her front wheel. Then on the next bend, Eva hit the cinders as well, probably for the same reason. But she kept her cool and quickly had her machine running again. Fay got rather excited when the crowd bellowed for her to get a going, but she couldn’t push the bike fast enough to start it. One each – time for the decider... Fay took an early lead, but after one lap Eva nipped past on the inside and stayed in front to the finish. “Eva’s Douglas was in wonderful tune, and her style is excellent,” continued our scribe. “She has certainly mastered the art of riding close to the line. Her method of going about things will win her far more races.”
Used to long Australian tracks, Fay had trouble with the small oval at Coventry’s Brandon stadium and kept oversliding on the curves. The Northern girl cleaned up by sticking to her well-tried technique of taking things gently in the corners and accelerating hard down the straights. Carburettor trouble ended Fay’s hopes of success at their Sheffield match.
There would be eight rounds in total. Eva won five after
Fay was plagued by engine troubles. The Northern queen claimed her crown. It might have been different if the Irish lass had Eva as a mechanic...
At the end of 1929, Fay was one of eight British women to enter the International Six Days Trial, which started in Munich and ended in Geneva. She came home with a silver medal. While Eva toured the South Africa circuits in the winter of 1930 – the first female speedway rider on that continent – Fay sailed to Australia for another successful season.
After their return to England, they were shocked to read the headline: ‘WOMEN BANNED FROM SPEEDWAY RACING’. It turned out that, on the way to the start line, a novice girl rider had fallen and broken her collarbone. Eva and Fay fought to get the ban lifted, but without success. They decided that men didn’t like being beaten... or sharing the prize money. Eva returned to Spain, where racing wasn’t banned, while Fay raced speedway in Munich before driving a Talbot and an Alfa Romeo at Brooklands. It was while in Germany that Fay made contact with the National Socialist Automobile Corps (NSAK) and became infatuated with Hitler. She joined the British Union of Fascists, whose blackshirt thugs were led by Oswald Mosley. Her extreme right-wing views led to her being sent to a camp in Port Erin on the Isle of Man in 1940, along with the Mosley family. The camp commander described Fay as: “One of the worst pro-nazis in Port Erin. She is in the habit of storing pictures of Hitler and had in her possession a hymn in which his name was substituted for God’s.” Fay was released in October 1943, on condition that she lived in Ireland. Meanwhile, Eva spent the war as a dispatch rider for the National Fire Service. So, after that brief time when they were pitched together as bitter rivals at the same sport, they continued their lives as they’d started them – miles apart.
EVA ASKQUITH ‘SHE [FAY TAYLOUR] WOULDN’T LET ME SHARE THE DRESSING ROOM WHICH WAS FOR BOTH OF US!’