Rochdale

Athletic Grounds, Milnrow Road, Rochdale was the home of the Rochdale Hornets RLFC. From 3rd May 1970, it was also home to BriSCA F1 Stock Cars!

Belle Vue Speedway Ltd had taken the decision to convert the existing dog track around the rugby pitch to a 440 yard shale track to run the Belle Vue Colts speedway team and F1 stock car racing. A sum of £25,000 was reported to have been spent on the works, which had been delayed by bad weather, so the anticipated opening for stock car racing saw a May opener, and a huge crowd welcomed the North West's newest track.

Belle Vue promoted their own meetings at Hyde Rd, plus the racing for the first three seasons at Rochdale. It was missing from the fixtures in 1973, Belle Vue deciding to concentrate their efforts at Hyde Rd on the Belle Vue Aces speedway team and the stock cars.

All was not lost however, as Mike Parker came to the rescue in 1974, and added Rochdale to his ever expanding list of tracks under the MPP banner. Saturday night meetings saw it usually clash with Coventry, Long Eaton or Leicester, whereas Sunday afternoon's saw it run against Northampton.

Rochdale staged the inaugural European Championship in 1978, run over two meetings across a weekend, with Long Eaton staging the first leg on the Saturday night. Three semi finals were also held at Rochdale, 1977, 1981 and 1984. Perhaps the most prestigious was the 1983 British Championship, which wasn't without controversy. Allegedly, race leader Len Wolfenden (190) was being rapidly caught by second place Stu Smith (1), when the lap boards went from 5 to go, to last lap in quick succession! A quick end to the race to meet the 5.30pm curfew is the best excuse given! Rochdale also staged three of MPP's in house Driver Of The Year Finals towards the end of the stadium's tenure.

Rochdale, perhaps unfairly, was always in the shadow of tracks like Belle Vue, White City, Odsal in terms of prestige, and in MPP terms, the likes of Nelson appear more fondly remembered, but it was a fairly well appointed stadium by today's standards, with a large covered seated grandstand and terrace running the length of the home straight, with a covered terrace on the far side. The famous Hornet's Nest Bar on turn one, where over the years, the letters were missing from the signage, and possibly the only track where you could buy black peas to go with your pie!! Or it could have just been the shale!!

Having been beset by complaints from local residents over noise for years, season 1984 was the last for F1s at the track. MPP went into liquidation soon after, having lost Blackburn also in 1984. However it wasn't quite the end of stock car racing at Rochdale, with Vince Moody's Trackstar promotions running some Sunday afternoons in 1986, featuring F2, mini stox and Hot Stox.

The stadium eventually closed in 1987, was demolished in 1988, the Rochdale Hornets moving to Spotland (now known as the Crown Oil Arena) to groundshare with Rochdale AFC. A Morrison's supermarket now stands where the F1 stock cars used to thunder and bounce around the undulating track. Some great footage on You Tube from Rochdale exists. The 1984 Driver of the Year final is on there (won by John Lund 53), plus a final win for Warren Jackson (104), and some footage of the September 1983 meeting won by Bert Finnikin (55).