[h=1][/h] By Justin Hyde









The insatiable lust for the new-found speed of the early 20th century led those few engineers experienced in designing bicycle velodromes to build super-sized examples for cars and motorcycles. On this day in 1910, the largest and most famous of the board tracks to date opened in Playa Del Ray, Calif. The one-mile loop of the Los Angeles Motordrome featured an 18-degree bank (not nearly as severe as some board tracks that went up to 45 degrees) and the inaugural festivities included racing by Barney Oldfield, Henry Ford's "Old 999" and Ray Harroun, a year before winning his first Indy 500. If running on a field of 2x4s sounds dangerous, it was; many were killed or injured, and the tracks deteriorated quickly. The Motordrome itself only survived three years — and the video below shows how daring those years were: