Sunday 24th April 1921

The first motorcycle races were held on the 1.25-mile board track at Beverly Hills, California. Jim Davis won the main event on a Harley-Davidson.

The speedway was located where many residents of the Beverly Hills Southwest Homeowners Association live, in an area once called Beverly Drive West. It was “bordered” by the future Lasky and South Beverly drives, with Wilshire Boulevard to the north and Country Club Drive to the south. (Country Club Drive was later renamed Olympic Boulevard by the City of Los Angeles just before the 1934 L.A. Olympics.) The entry to the track, just off of Wilshire Boulevard, was called Speedway. It was eventually reconfigured and renamed El Camino.

Acting industry investors known as “The Beverly Hills Speedway Syndicate” purchased land for the project from a bean farmer for $1,000 an acre. The wood-board track was built on 275 acres. At a cost of $500,000, it was completed and ready for inauguration on Feb. 28, 1920. Photographs show a track that had to support heavy cars, a 70,000-seat grandstand and timing towers. Some race enthusiasts watched from the interior field.

From 1920-24, the speedway was home to racing automobiles, like the famous Model T, and motorcycles that circled the 60-degree banked track. Some historic experts even say that small airplanes landed on the track. Because of rapidly increasing real estate values, the Speedway became an uneconomical use of property. The track was torn down and the Association moved its racing operation a few miles away to Culver City, California in 1924.