Engine Punk

The "engraved" side of the commemorative medallion (Photo : Wikimedia) Regular readers of this irregular web log may remember the thunderous silence surrounding revelations over the world’s first motor race. It wasn’t when you first thought it was! Unless you read about here of course. Or here . In short, its was a race between two steam engines in 1867 when the Red Flag Act was in force. That slight legal technicality may have resulted in it being conducted covertly and no-one would have heard about it had not The Engineer magazine published a short paragraph about it after it had occurred. I tried to stir things up in 2017 as the 150th anniversary approached but interest from anyone in the Old Trafford area of Manchester amounted to a big fat zero. They seem to have no interest in historic sporting events whatsoever, even - or especially - if the first ever motor race finished on their doorstep. Steam car builder and researcher Karl A. Petersen was who first put m...

The winning vehicular contrivance as built as a rail motor I blogged about it before as When was the first motor race held? and am doing this little update because it is still not widely known that the first ever motor race took place on 26th August 1867. This means that this Saturday will be the 150th anniversary. I think one of the reasons it is not well-known is that it was an outlaw race and the motors in question were steam motors. Each steam engine should've had a man in front with a red flag but they were hurtling along at speeds in excess of 15 mph. The only reason we know about it is snippet in the Engineer magazine. Check ouy original blog post for more info. I just think this should be celebrated more widely. Partayyy!