Rather than continue to irk, bore, and distract those on the F1 and NASCAR fora with any further discussion involving automotive history and the issue pertaining to the possible origins of oval track racing and, thereby, interfereing with the placing of comments dealing with the here-and-now, I thought it best to re-open the discussion here.

Here is how the discussion began:

Originally Posted by MAX_THRUST
Oh and oval racing started in europe and then was done properly in the US.
This was followed by:

Originally Posted by Don Capps
Having managed to miss any previous mention of this historical feat, the birth and development of oval racing being European in origin, I would be interested in knowing more.
Which was then followed by:

Originally Posted by nigelred5
ever Heard of The Brooklands?
Which led to my response:

Sorry, but to claim that Europe -- and Brooklands in particular, is the origin of oval track racing simply does not seem to square with the research done by automotive historians.

The Narragansett Fair Grounds in Cranston, Rhode Island, had an oval track racing event for automobiles as early as September 1896. This may have been the first automobile race in the modern sense of the term -- cars comppeting head-to-head on a closed track. Indeed, you can even find an oval track contest between two self-propelled "steam wagons" in Wisconsin in August 1878.

By the opening of the Brooklands track in July 1907, oval track racing was already quite commonplace in the United States. In 1905, the American Automobile Association held the National Motor Car Championship -- the earliest such automotive championship that we are aware of -- that was conducted exclusively on oval tracks. One of those tracks, Morris Park, was converted to use exclusively for automobile contests that year.

When the Brooklands track held its first event in July 1907, there had already been many, many autombile races held on oval tracks in the United States. I literally have page after page after page after page of such race records prior to the opening of Brooklands, easily, the number ofsuch events is well into the hundreds I would guess.

If we automotive historians have been so terribly mistaken all these years, then please correct our errors regarding the origins of oval track racing.

Which then prompted this query:

Quote Originally Posted by BDunnell
Were these US tracks banked ovals?
If this is suggesting that the banking of the Brooklands circuit made it a "true" oval as compared to the American tracks, then I would question that assumption.

The addition of banking was made to several of the American ovals by the advent of Brooklands in the Summer of 1907, the practice of banking turns already taking place in several instances. Being dirt or clay tracks, the degree of the banking was relatively shallow, but banking none the less. However, the many velodromes that supported the sport of bicycle racing, which provided a number of the earlier racers on the American tracks, Oldfield being one of several who made the transition.

Again, Brooklands was the first facility of its type, but it should be noted that few other such facilities were built in Europe at that time, although a few did follow some years later in France and Spain.

A factor which benefited the growth and development of oval track racing in the United States was that many states passed laws outlawing parimutuel betting at horse races in the early years of the Twentieth Century.

Again, I suggest that it might be difficult to build a good case of the origins of "oval track racing" being European -- which would include Britain.