Racing and Getting Rowdy in the Northeast

Here’s over two hours of silent 8mm racing films put together and uploaded by the ProNyne Motorsports Museum in Rhode Island, for your enjoyment. The majority of this footage was likely shot at the now-defunct Kingston Speedway up in Ontario, Canada (half way between Toronto and Montreal) and gives a great insight to the variety of dirt track activities beyond a standard circle track race that were hosted in order to bring in large crowds of paying spectators. For a prime example, skip to 48:28 if you want to see a Jalopy Soccer Match. That’s right- long before Top Gear made it famous, these guys are racing in cage-covered coupes and sedans, plowing full speed into an oversized ball, in hopes of scoring goals and having some laughs. There’s even a Model A Roadster and Truck getting in on the fun.

Towards of the end of the footage there is a classic jalopy race with dozens and dozens of sharp-looking 30s coupes turning laps. You know they’re all going to be destroyed soon enough, and it gives us a strong indication where so much of the great sheetmetal of the era ended up, when they were just ‘cheap old cars’…