Atlantic City

A syndicate led by Charles M. Schwab announced plans to build a new board track speedway in the woodland between Philadelphia and Atlantic City in 1925. An abandoned World War I munitions factory at Amatol, New Jersey was chosen and the Jack Prince Company of Oakland, California commissioned to build “the fastest [track] in the world with speeds up to 160mph.” It was 50ft wide, banked at 45-degrees and overlooked by a 40,000 seat grandstand. A fifth of the US population lived within 150 miles of the new facility and the American Automobile Association guaranteed that no other such track would be sanctioned in the area. It opened on May 1 1926 and an estimated 80,000 filled the grandstand and adjacent grounds to see Harry Hartz win the inaugural National Championship race that day. However, board tracks were in decline in the late-1920s and the speedway closed after just two years and was demolished in 1933.