SONS OF SPEED GO FAST. TURN LEFT!
Back Street Heroes|September 2020
BILLY LANE’S WELL KNOWN FOR HIS TV APPEARANCES ON THE LIKES OF BIKER BUILD OFF, AND MONSTER GARAGE, ON THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL, AS WELL AS THROUGH HIS OWN CUSTOM BIKE COMPANY, CHOPPERS INC, BASED IN MELBOURNE, FLORIDA.
JON BETTS
SONS OF SPEED GO FAST. TURN LEFT!

IN more recent times he’s hit the headlines with ‘Sons of Speed’ – his homage to the board-track racing that took place across America in the 1910s/’20s. Stripped-down bikes were raced on purpose-built banked tracks constructed with wooden planks and garnered massive crowds of spectators, but due to the Great Depression in the early 1930s, it slowly disappeared… until now. It’s now undergoing a resurgence in popularity, thanks to Billy and his eclectic band of vintage racers.

On a trip to Daytona last year, we went to see the latest round of the Sons of Speed Vintage Motorcycle Race, held at the New Smyrna Speedway race-track as part of Biketoberfest. The raceway dates back to 1964 when the half-mile banked track was first built, originally with a dirt surface, but then paved over in ’66. It’s currently a sanctioned NASCAR track, but a few times a year Billy stages his Sons of Speed event there, taking advantage of the 23-degree banked corners.

This story is from the September 2020 edition of Back Street Heroes.

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This story is from the September 2020 edition of Back Street Heroes.

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