Racing in the East

Motorcycle Speedway, Transnational Encounters, and ‘Provincial Heartlands’

 

Motorcycle speedway. A partially forgotten phenomenon that captivated millions in its heyday.

A sport where riders hurtle around a loose-dirt track at over sixty miles per hour. Without brakes. Races are over in less than a minute, but this exhilarating and often deadly spectacle once packed out such vast arenas as Wembley, Moscow’s Lenin Stadium, and Poland’s cavernous Silesian Stadium where an estimated 130,000 witnessed the 1973 World Final.

Yet, for various reasons, speedway gradually lost its footing in metropolises on either side of the Iron Curtain and took refuge in provincial settings around the globe. As the sport thrived at the so-called margins, speedway nurtured deep and surprising relationships between its ‘entangled peripheries’. In the process, it challenged Cold War binaries and offered unique opportunities for its dispersed but interconnected heartlands. 

Through extensive fieldwork and archival research, UEA sport historian Dr Richard Mills is piecing together speedway’s remarkable transnational histories. The sport’s entanglements have led him to communist-built factory towns in Soviet Central Asia, to interview globetrotting riders of the 50s and 60s in rural Sweden, to archives and libraries in Europe, the former USSR, and Latin America, and to surviving speedway clubs across Eurasia.

In East Anglia, one of the sport’s proud bastions since the 1930s, Racing in the East is celebrating speedway’s complex history through a touring exhibition, and harnessing research as a means to collaborate with historic clubs and fight for this unique sport’s future. 

 

Read the project’s research for free:

‘Pride of the East: Motorcycle Speedway, Transnational Encounters and Provincial Heartlands’, History: The Journal of the Historical Association, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.13414

‘“The Russians are Coming!” Entangled Peripheries and Cold War Competition in Motorcycle Speedway’, History Workshop Journal, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbae011

‘Motorcycle Speedway: The Sport with an Illustrious Past Fighting for its Future’, History Workshop, 2024, https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/sport/motorcycle-speedway/

Another article, ‘Remembering the Firs Speedway: Lost Home of the Norwich Stars’, appears in the magazine of The Norwich Society, Aspects of Norwich, Autumn 2024. This can be purchased here.

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Touring Exhibition

Racing in the East: Transnational Speedway in Cold War East Anglia

The exhibition sheds light on one of motorcycle speedway’s interconnected “backwaters”. From rural East Anglia to Soviet Siberia, the sport fostered unconventional interactions. At the height of the Cold War, East Anglia relished its role in transnational speedway, as Scandinavian superstars graced stadiums in Norwich, Yarmouth, and Ipswich, and Eastern Bloc riders lit up the region’s tracks. King’s Lynn was the entry port for communist-built racing machines that dominated international competition. Based on research conducted by the University of East Anglia’s Centre of East Anglian Studies and the East Centre for the study of East and Central Europe and the former Soviet space, the exhibition underlines the region’s stature in international motorsport, highlights the extensive interactions between East Anglia and the wider world, and celebrates migrant riders and foreign machines that stood in the vanguard of continental interactions with the region.

Media Coverage

The touring exhibition has featured on the BBC website, in Speedway Star magazine, Eastern Daily Press, That’s TV – Norfolk, Norwich Evening News, Peterborough Telegraph, and BBC Radio Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire. In July 2025, BBC’s Secret Norfolk podcast dedicated an episode to the project: ‘The speedway roar that thawed the Cold War’.

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NEXT EVENT

The Speedway Show 2026

British Motor Museum, Gaydon, Warkwickshire
14 November 2026, 10am-4pm

Join us at this year’s Speedway Show, where we will present a retrospective on the touring exhibition and celebrate our collaboration with the Mildenhall Fen Tigers. Race jackets from the Racing in the East NORA Best Pairs Championship 2026 and the Fenland Flyer Individual will be on display, and you will also be able to pick up a copy of the exhibition booklet.

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LEVERAGING THE PAST TO SECURE THE FUTURE

Raising awareness of, and celebrating, East Anglian speedway’s rich history is at the heart of the Racing in the East project. The sport’s heritage can contribute to efforts to secure a bright future for speedway in the region, and aid campaigns and initiatives to save embattled clubs more broadly. In recent years, some of East Anglia’s historic speedway teams have been made homeless by redevelopment or been forced to pause activities amid a challenging economic climate. Whether foregrounding history to serve as a focal point for supporters’ club activities, or conveying a team’s transnational past in writing, Racing in the East has looked to support organisations at the heart of local communities. For instance, in autumn 2024 the exhibition formed the centrepiece of a Peterborough Panthers Supporters’ Club evening, against the backdrop of the vibrant “Save Peterborough Speedway” campaign’s fight to maintain a fifty-year tradition of speedway in that city.

Racing in the East Challenge Trophy

Mildenhall Fen Tigers Speedway – 50th Anniversary Season

Mildenhall Stadium, West Row, Suffolk
20 September 2025

In 2025, the project embraced a community effort to resurrect a storied local team. The Racing in the East Challenge Trophy, contested between the Mildenhall Fen Tigers and the Isle of Wight Warriors, marked the 50th anniversary of a rural Suffolk club that gained an international reputation during the Cold War. The occasion saw the Fen Tigers return to race action – after a two-year absence – following the establishment of the Mildenhall Speedway Supporters’ Community Trust. Alongside the installation of the touring exhibition for the stadium crowd to enjoy, Racing in the East’s Richard Mills underlined the club’s proud past through a feature in the souvenir programme: ‘Cold War, Hot Fen! Fifty International Years of Mildenhall Speedway’. Mildenhall’s return to track and innovative approach to community ownership are rare success stories for a sport which has endured the demise of multiple teams in recent years.

Racing in the East NORA Best Pairs Championship 2026

Mildenhall Stadium, West Row, Suffolk
25 July 2026

Project leader Richard Mills joined the Mildenhall Community Trust’s Steering Committee on the eve of the 2026 season. The Fen Tigers’ season began with meetings against famous names from speedway history: the currently homeless Peterborough Panthers and a team representing the lost but not forgotten Norwich Stars. The third home meeting saw the club host the Racing in the East NORA Best Pairs Championship. An exciting event that brought together talented young riders to race under the NORA Motorsport umbrella, the format saw six pairs compete with the emblems of historic clubs emblazoned on their race jackets.

The line-up celebrated different eras of East Anglian speedway’s history, with a nod to the long-lost Wisbech side of the 1930s-40s and to the short-lived Anglian Angels venture, which sought to foreground youth development in both Norfolk and Suffolk in the 1990s. The meeting also provided an opportunity for long-term nomadic side Cradley Heathens to travel to East Anglia to compete. It was a showcase of contemporary talent from the East of England: in addition to the aforementioned pairs, riders from the Ipswich Witches Academy and NORA team Kent Eagles joined hosts Mildenhall Fen Tigers at the starting tapes. Congratulations to the Kent Eagles pair for their deserved victory on the night.

It’s an honour for Racing in the East to collaborate with the Fen Tigers Community Trust and to play a part in fostering both the legacy of this remarkable sport and contemporary efforts to ensure it survives for generations to come.

 

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The RITE Exhibition Tour

Norwich Launch Weekend

Hungate Medieval Art, Princes Street, Norwich
24 & 25 August 2024
We welcomed over 400 visitors to the Norwich launch.

 

Ipswich Witches Speedway

Foxhall Stadium, Ipswich
29 August 2024

Hundreds of speedway fans had the opportunity to see the exhibition trackside prior to the Ipswich Witches v Birmingham Brummies Premiership fixture.

King’s Lynn Stars Speedway

Adrian Flux Arena, King’s Lynn
2 September 2024

Norfolk speedway fans were able to view ‘Racing in the East’ during the King’s Lynn Stars v Leicester Lions Premiership fixture. The curator was interviewed about the project over the stadium address system during the interval.

Diss Heritage Transport Festival

Town Centre, Diss, Norfolk
22 September 2024

‘Racing in the East’ went on display alongside hundreds of classic vehicles in the picturesque streets and squares of this Norfolk market town.

The Speedway Show

British Motor Museum, Gaydon, Warwickshire
2 November 2024

Over a thousand people attended The Speedway Show, where former World No.2 rider Les Collins was reunited with his old JAWA speedway bike on the ‘Racing in the East’ stand.

Peterborough Panthers Speedway Supporters’ Club

Colonel Dane Memorial Hall, Alwalton, Peterborough
22 November 2024

‘Racing in the East’ were proud to be invited to form the centrepiece of a Supporters’ Club event, at a time when campaigners are working to save the Peterborough Panthers. The evening was covered by the Peterborough Telegraph and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

Vintage Motor Cycle Club – Norwich Section

Bracon Ash Village Hall, Bracon Ash, Norfolk
11 February 2025

Richard Mills was invited to address the Norwich branch of the VMCC, where he gave a talk about the Norwich Stars Speedway Club and introduced exhibits from ‘Racing in the East’.

Norwich History Festival

The Forum, Norwich, Norfolk
16 & 17 July 2025

‘Racing in the East’ travelled to the inaugural Norwich History Festival. This multi-venue event was hosted across the city, with the speedway exhibition serving to generate awareness of the new festival prior to and on launch day. This installation was the subject of an edition of the BBC’s ‘Secret Norfolk’ podcast series.

ICCEES XI World Congress

Institute of Education, University College London
21-25 July 2025

The exhibition ventured beyond East Anglia for the second time for the International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES) World Congress 2025. This event welcomed over 1,400 delegates from 57 countries. ‘Racing in the East’ was displayed in the exhibition hall for the duration of the Congress and also hosted a reception.

Especially for the ICCEES World Congress, the exhibition was expanded to reflect the deep Cold War links between the Soviet Union and the port cities of northern England. A new ‘Racing in the North East’ section showcased a Newcastle Lada Diamonds race jacket and a Belarus-made Minsk Cossack motorcycle, imported through Hull alongside Lada cars and Belarus tractors. As was the case in East Anglia, these products were marketed via sponsorship deals with local speedway clubs.