Neftyanik speedway racetrack opens in Oktyabrsky in the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia.
At one time, the hammer-and-sickle motorcycle racing team was world-famous, the Russian riders repeatedly the victors at international Speedway competitions. With the disintegration of the USSR the Soviet school of cinder-track speedway racing suffered an almost complete decline. In today's Russia there are still are a few places where the fine traditions of Soviet motorcycling are alive and well. The city of Oktyabrsky is one of those places.
Stop anyone in Oktyabrsky and ask what their city is noted for, is it art? Music? Dance? Nyet. It's Speedway Racing. The first Speedway races in Bashkortostan were held on May 18, 1937. Those were not circuit races but a 110-kilometer (68.35 mile) heat along a road leading from a suburb of Oktyabrsky to Ufa, the Republic's capital. A fireman named Alexey Pallo, on a Harley, took the checkered flag in 2 hours 12 minutes and 16 seconds.
The head coach of the world renown LUKOIL-Bashkortostan team, Merited Master of Sport Mikhail Starostin, a living legend of Russian Speedway, knows the history of this sport in Bashkortostan better than anyone else. "The history of Speedway in Oktyabrsky goes back more than fifty years. It all began on August 25, 1962, when a motorcycle racetrack was opened at a local stadium called Neftyanik. It became the venue of international competitions in which Soviet and Austrian racers took part. Later on, in 1970, the city acquired its own Speedway team which was variously named Burovik, Neftyanik and Stroitel. What remained constant, however, was the high racing skill and will-to-win of our athletes."
Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk
