Claremont Speedway

Barriers and fences were improved over time to prevent out of control vehicles from entering the spectator areas. During its 72-year operation the speedway hosted numerous Western Australian championships as well as national championships including the Australian Sprintcar Championship, the Australian Speedcar Championship, the Australian Super Sedan Championship, the Australian Solo Championship, and the Australian Sidecar Championship.^[1] The speedway also hosted various rounds of the World Series Sprintcars. Claremont hosted the first ever round of the inaugural World Series Sprintcars on 1 December 1987.

The Speedway was 586 metres (641 yards) in length. This made it the largest continually used speedway in an Australian state capital with the next biggest being the 509-metre (557-yard) Sydney Showground Speedway which closed for regular meetings in 1980 (the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds track was 610 metres (670 yards) long but it was only used infrequently, hosting at best one meeting per season). In its early days, the Claremont track was in fact larger than what it ended up as – approximately 650 metres (710 yards). However, the track was taken over to include seating in the spectator areas and was relaid to its 586-metre length.^{[2][full citation needed]}

Soon after the development of the circuit records were set.^[3]

In 1987, Claremont Speedway held the first, and to date only, Sprintcar World Championship. The three-day meeting featured the top drivers from Australia, New Zealand, as well as drivers from America's famed World of Outlaws series, and the youngest driver in the event, 15-year-old Jeff Gordon. The event was won by legendary Australian driver Garry Rush from local Perth driver Alf Barbagallo, with American driver Danny Lasoski finishing third.^{[4][full citation needed]}

After 72 years of operation, the Speedway closed after the 1999/2000 season and the sport moved to a new, 500-metre (550-yard) venue at the Quit Motorplex, near Kwinana which opened in 2000. While the new Motorplex generally caters to car racing, it does contain a 400-metre (440-yard) motorcycle speedway track inside the main track, and even though it hosted rounds of the WA Solo Championship in 2001, 2002 and 2005, solos and sidecars generally raced out of the Bibra Lake Speedway located in the southern Perth suburbs until its closure in 2004, before moving to the new, bike-only 142-metre (155-yard) Pinjar Park Speedway at Wanneroo in northern Perth which opened in 2005, bike racing made comeback at Perth Motorplex during the 2018/19 season. The departure of the speedway at Claremont allowed the main showground arena to be redeveloped into a more open area, suitable for large music events such as the Big Day Out and other festivals as well as for sports such as Australian rules football and cricket.

Through its history, Claremont was home to a number of Australia's best speedway riders and drivers, including Sig Schlam, Chum Taylor, Glyn Taylor, David Cheshire and Glenn Doyle (Solo's), Keith Mann, Johnny Fenton, Neville Lance, Tom Watson Sr and Michael Figliomeni (Speedcars), Dennis Nash, Ed Blakeney Sr, Rod Lang and Russell Mitchell (Sidecars), Noel Bradford, Alf Barbagallo and Bunbury's Ron Krikke (Sprintcars), and Allan Blake, Ben Ludlow, John Singleton, Bert Vosbergen and Craig Vosbergen (Sedans), Johnny Andersson, Bill Broadwood, Vince Chapman, George Higgs, Ken Nielson, Bryan Mullings (Formula 500, TQ's)

In the 1970s and 1980s, the speedway took the name of various sponsoring business, most notably from cigarette brand Winfield^[5]