Mark Sawbridge writes

To start this article, I’d like to ask you all a couple of questions. 

 Here’s the first: have you ever seen a speedway rider whose surname begins with the letter ‘Q’?

  There are probably very few of you who can honestly answer ‘yes’ to this one.  There have been just SIX riders since league racing began in this country in 1929 who meet this criterion.   

For my part, I saw a Halifax rider in the old British Junior League called Steve Quick.  A name like that sounds very apt, although sadly in the race I witnessed at the vast Shay bowl he was lapped.   Some of you may have seen a Coventry junior some years ago  named Paul Quarterman, but it now looks unlikely that he'll become  the seventh. . 

 

How many of you have seen a dead heat?

 Now many of you will be raising your hands at this point.  If you’ve been watching speedway for a long time, the chances are that you’ve seen a fair few.  Like snow on Christmas Day, dead-heats at speedway meetings are things which used to happen but are as rare as hens’ teeth or rocking-horse droppings these days.   

So imagine a meeting where there were two dead-heats, in successive races no less.  A meeting in which there were two riders who had a surname beginning with ‘Q’.  Furthermore, just to stretch the bounds of possibility even further, imagine if one of the dead-heats was between these two riders. At this point, you probably think that I’ve been drinking too many pints of real ale before sitting at the keyboard.  However, all that I’ve said did actually happen – at Monmore Green, Wolverhampton. 

The date was 23 May 1952, when the Wolverhampton ‘Wasps’ lined up against St. Austell.  One of the local favourites was Cyril Quick, a Taunton-born rider who was on loan from Poole.  Lining up for the Cornishmen was Allan Quinn, who hailed from Australia. 

Wolverhampton roared into a four-point lead after three races, and then the madness began.  In heat four, Wasps rider Jimmy Grant roared past the chequered flag level with Gulls captain Norman Street.  These were the days before referees, and the man in charge was called a ‘steward’.  In this case, it was Mr AB Taylor and he made the decision to award the race as a dead-heat.  Grant and Street therefore were awarded two-and-a-half points each.  As the St. Austell reserve Maurice Hutchens finished third, the Gulls had pulled back a point and the Wasps’ leading margin was down to three. 

The next race was another nip-and-tuck affair, and it was here that messrs Quick and Quinn had their historic battle.  Once again they were level going over the finish line.  And, once again, steward Taylor showed dazzling skills of indecisiveness by awarding another dead-heat. 

The rest of the meeting was fairly uneventful.  The Wasps roared away to a 48-36 victory, despite the efforts of Norman Street who was beaten by a home rider only once.  For the Wasps, Jimmy Grant was not headed home by an opponent but cannot claim a paid maximum due to his dead-heat with Street.  The Gulls captain became the only rider to lower the colours of Benny King and Cyril Quick, whilst Eric Irons and Ken Brown performed well for the Monmore men with eight and five points respectively. 

 

In a further twist of fate, in July that season St. Austell recruited another rider with a surname beginning with the letter ‘Q’.  His name was Aston Quin, and he hailed from New Zealand.  Had you been present at Par Stadium to see the return meeting against the Wasps on 18 July, you would have seen three of the six ‘Q’ riders in action. 

But, alas, no dead-heats.