Cycle Racing Association

The Cycle Racing Association was an organization incorporated in September 1898 to promote bicycle racing and host national competitions at their 1/8th-mile track at the Slag Pile Field at the western edge of Birmingham.

With the Southern League having folded the year bedore, the Birmingham Barons former field became available. The left-field bleachers were repurposed as a grandstand and a banked wooden track erected to specifications exceeding the existing race track in Nashville. The stretches were banked at 4 feet and the turns at 10 feet, 6 inches allowing for speeds of better than 1:40 per mile (36 mph).

The officers of the association were Ed Warren, president; Al Hood, vice-president; Guy Cooper, secretary; and M. T. Stradford, treasurer. John Hamner, formerly associated with Jack Prince who operated tracks in Atlanta and Nashville, came to Birmingham as an investor and manager. The association planned to open with a six-day course of races, and then to hold weekly events on Friday and Saturday evenings until cold weather arrived.

References

• "Bicycle Racing at Last a Reality" (September 17, 1898) The Birmingham Age-Herald, p. 5