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American Pro Six Day Racing
Most people today think that American Pro Six Day Racing from the
mid 1800's to WWII was just like today's European pro six day
racing. The truth is that American pro six day racing was
almost nothing like today's European pro six day races.
When I first started racing in 1968, I had several really great
opportunities I am very thankful for. First, I knew quite a
few people who either raced in American pro six day races prior to
WWII or regularly watched those races. Through these people
and the old, out of print books and materials they had, I was able
to learn quite a bit about how American pro six day racing was run
and it was easily one of the toughest modern sporting events ever.
The second thing I was thankful for was getting to study the
growth and development of modern sports in college which taught me a
lot about how truly tough the old sports and athletes really were
along with what happened. They were incredible people and I
don't know any athletes today who would even think of competing
under the conditions those athletes competed under. Most of today's
pro athletes would stand around whining at having to do anything
half as tough under better conditions with better tools.
In the mid to late 1800's or 19th Century, they started running
the first American pro six day races on outdoor board tracks when
Europe was focused on starting pro road racing. The original
six's were an American innovation and started out as individual
events. The original format was a points race which ran, non
stop for six days and seven evening "jam" secessions with the winner
being determined by who had the most laps and, if two or more riders
were on the same lap at the end of the 7th jam secession, then the
tie was broken by the points earned in sprints during the jam
secessions. The last time I checked, the existing record for
most miles ridden on a bicycle without stopping was still from a pro
six day race in the late 19th Century at 1,256 miles.
The event would start on a Sunday night with a 4 to 6 hour jam
secession and wouldn't stop until six days and 4 to 6 hours later at
the end of the 7th jam secession with there being a 4 to 6 hour jam
secession every evening between the first and last jams secessions.
These jam secessions were a period of time in which the points race
never stopped. The race announcer would announce that there
would be jams of so many laps depending on the mount of money being
sprinted for at the end of the jam (more money meant more laps
before the sprint), the head official would ring a bell to start the
jam as the pack came out of turn four on a velodrome which was
usually about 1/8th mile board track with bankings of 50 degrees or
more, the pack would race or "jam" for the announced number of laps
to decide who won the sprint, points, and cash for that jam.
Then the riders would get a brief respite while continuing to ride
around the track as the announcer talked up the crowd and gave the
instructions for the next jam. These jam secessions were 4 to
6 hours of extremely intense interval training, 7 nights in a row
with no rest between those jam secessions to make a living the very
hard way.
After each jam secession was over, the crowd would leave but the
riders would have to keep racing for laps because they were promoted
as non stop bike races. If any rider got off the track for any
reason, he lost laps and, probably, the race. These events got
so intense that riders began pushing themselves to ride the entire
event non stop and started falling asleep on their bikes, crashing,
and getting hurt. To keep from crashing and getting hurt, some
riders started using drugs to stay awake which caused them to keep
riding until they literally rode themselves to death. It
turned out that falling asleep was the body's defense mechanism for
forcing the athlete to quit and rest before they could ride
themselves to death.
The riders falling off their bikes dead before they even hit the
track, caused the US Congress to threaten outlawing six day racing
in the late 1800's. To keep the sport from being outlawed, the
promoters and pro governing body changed the rules so that it became
a team sport of two to three riders per team. Most events were
for two rider teams. Each team had to keep at least one rider
on the track at all times to keep from losing laps but each rider
was required to take at least a 6 hour rest every 24 hours.
The way they worked this was that, after the evening jam
secessions had ended and the spectators had left the velodrome, one
of the two riders for each team would take a six hour rest while the
other riders kept riding so that the event would remain a non stop
event, which was the big selling or promotional point for the
events. Being a six day, non-stop event made the event much
more spectacular and interesting to the fans but also much tougher
for the riders.
During this rest period, the riders on the track would have an
unannounced truce with no attacking permitted but they still had to
ride at what we, today, call tempo riding. After the first
rider had taken his rest and returned to the track, then their mate
would take their six hour rest after which the racing would resume
as normal.
To make things even tougher and to earn more money, the
organizers added a two hour matinee or lunch time jam secession from
11 am to 1 pm for each of the six days which brought the daily total
of jamming to 6 to 8+ hours per day because, some times, the evening
jam secessions would go over the programmed 6 hours.
After the sport was turned into a team sport, during all of these
jam secessions, one rider for each team would remain in the race
pack at the bottom of the track while the other rider rode higher on
the track and out of the way of the pack to rest. The riders
regularly took turns trading off racing and resting during the jam
secessions. To do this, the rider who had just been resting
would drop down the track while accelerating up close to the speed
of the pack and the other rider would push or "sling" the rested
rider into the racing pack with either a seat or wrist sling.
Until relatively recently, most riders used the seat sling almost
all of the time.
To do the seat sling, they sewed a cotton "jamming tool" into the
rear top of the cycling pants on the rider's lower back, the racing
rider would grab on the just rested rider's jamming tool in his
shorts and push or sling the rested rider into the pack or race
accelerating the rested rider up to race speed while slowing the
just relieved rider. Then the just relieved rider waited for
the rest of the pack to pass and then moved up track to rest for one
or more laps. They really didn't get much rest.
Just imagine riding 18 hours per day on a short, steep track
pulling hard G forces with at least 6 to 8 of those hours spent in
intense sprint secessions for cash and points every night for 7
nights plus 6 matinee jam secessions.
European Pro Six Day Racing
Today's European six day races are six evenings of from a minimum
of 4 to over 6 hours of jam secessions with a maximum of 11 hours
per day. Most of today's races are only for 4 to 6 hours per
day. During those six jam secessions, they run what track
racing calls omnium racing. Omnium racing is an evening of a
series of events from which points are earned to determine an over
all omnium winner. Not only does the racing not continue non
stop during these omniums, but many of the events are either
individual such as individual time trials or two rider events such
as match sprinting which permit the rest of the riders to get plenty
of rest between events. During the night, they will always
have a Madison race which is a very shortened version of the
American six day race.
The Madison race is named after Madison Square Gardens because
today's Madison Square Gardens is the third such Garden or sports
arena built. The first two Madison Square Gardens were built
specifically for American six day racing. Because of this, the
American six day stile of two man team points racing became known as
Madison racing. Today, the Madison race is usually two hours
or shorter but with the same basic format that was used by American
six day racing where the winner is determined by the number of laps
won with points being the tie breaker.
It is during this shorter, nightly Madison that the European
riders can gain laps on each other but points are earned for all the
omnium events. Also, the Europeans have changed the format for
the Madison so that laps are traded for points so that the winner is
determined by total points instead of being determined by laps with
points as the tie breaker.
It doesn't take much to see that today's European six day racing
is barely even like the American six day racing and definitely not
as difficult.
Popularity
The American six day race was the most popular sport in the US
during its more than 100 years. At the time Babe Ruth was
being paid a whopping $17,000 per year as the highest paid pro
baseball player in the US, a good, not great, but only good pro six
day racer could make more than $1,000 in one night's jam secession
with 7 jam secessions per event and could easily ride more than a
dozen six day races per year for an annual income of at least
$85,000 per year with the best riders making much more. That
was a huge amount of money because the average weekly income in the
US at that time was only about $15 per week or about $780 per year.
I have seen plenty of pictures of the velodromes during American
six day races taken in the 1920's and 1930's in which the stadiums
were packed solid with no empty seats, even for the intermediate
nights of jam secessions.
Today's European six day races are so much less popular that, if
you see pictures of the stadiums during their jam secessions, there
are entire sections of empty seats. To try and remedy this,
the promoters have turned to using beer, elite dinners in the
infields, and other forms of entertainment to draw in larger crows
such as bands playing and even having carrousels in the infield like
a carnival. Yet, with all of this, even for the bigger events,
you see entire sections of seats empty.
Obviously, omnium racing isn't working that well, if the
promoters have to use other forms of entertainment to get the crowds
large enough to make their events profitable.
Demise of the American Six Day Race
So, what happened to the American six day race, if it was
popular?
The answer is WWII and the US Congress. After the Japanese
attacked Pearl Harbor, certain powerful Senators decided we needed
to stop all professional sports except professional baseball because
we needed those professional athletes to fight for America.
Unfortunately, the people bought it.
You see, this was pure opportunity and corruption. It was
very common and popular for the more powerful US Senators to own
professional baseball teams and baseball wasn't even close to being
the most popular sport in the US prior to WWII. By eliminating
all other professional sports, the Senators turned professional
baseball into the most popular professional sport in the US and "the
all American sport" by default.
You have to understand that, not only was bicycle six day racing
much more popular than professional baseball but so were other
sports such as basketball and football. I knew a pro
basketball player we called Pop who played for the Celtics at the
time Babe Ruth was the highest paid pro baseball player making
$17,000 per year and Pop was making $33,000 per year as the best
paid pro basketball player in the US. Baseball was maybe top 5
but, after all the other pro sports were eliminated and baseball was
the only pro sport left (because "American needed one pro sport for
moral"), of course, baseball became the top pro sport in the US and
can you guess who got rich because of their pro teams becoming the
top US pro sport? Yeah, the US Senators who owned those pro
baseball teams.
Mean while, all those athletes in the other pro sports were
either killed in the war or returned home crippled or very much
older and out of shape so they couldn't return to and rebuild their
sports quickly. With American pro six day racing being so
extremely difficult and requiring such a high level of fitness, few
of those old pro six day racers who were left could even think of
returning to six day racing and the sport never recovered.
Many of those pro six day racers turned to car racing which
didn't even begin to require the fitness level of six day racing and
did very well. One such six day rider turned car racer was
Andy Granatelli. Most people don't know he was a professional
six day racer before the war.
You also need to know that, when pro six day racing died in the
US, American amateur track racing took over track racing and they
were big on but not very successful with omnium racing. This
change plus the Europeans changing six day racing into omnium racing
caused people today to think that it was omnium racing which made
track racing the number one sport in the US when it was really pack
racing which made the sport so popular. Omnium racing has
never been very popular in the US.
Summary
Why did I explain all of this?
Because, with most people in cycling knowing that American pro
six day racing was the most popular sport in the US and thinking
that American pro six day racing was like today's European pro six
day racing, which really isn't doing as well, they tend to think
that it was omnium racing that made bike racing the most popular
sport in the US during the golden years of six day racing.
American pro six day racing wasn't even close to being omnium
racing, it was really non-stop team points pack racing.
Knowing that American six day racing wasn't omnium racing but
pack racing and that European pro six day racing isn't doing even
nearly as well as American six day racing did, it becomes much more
obvious that omnium racing isn't the answer for promoting track
racing in the US but it is pack racing on the tracks which be much
more successful. Therefore, you know that you must use pack
racing as your bread and butter events to promote track racing and
not omnium racing.
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