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hugely popular. The tracks were larger than in America and crowds of 60,000 were not uncommon. Jack and Cordy tried to get on the same team, but the ACU denied the request. Jack raced for New Cross, while Cordy was allocated to Hack- ney. Jack was amazed at how popular he became in British Speedway, as he was much loved by the Brits for his deter- mination. Not long after com- ing to race in England, he lost his left thumb in an accident when sportingly trying to avoid a downed rider. His picture was on John Player Tobacco trading cards that scores of British boys cherished. Jack said the money was good, but the demands were that of true professional ath- letes. "The London area alone had eight major tracks ranging from a 10th to a third of a mile," Milne recalled. "During the late 1930s, speedway was Britain's major spectator sport. We normally ran six-man teams and raced as much as five or six nights a week. It was a grueling sched- ule." On September 2, 1937, America had one of its proudest moments in motorcycle-racing history: In front of 85,000 cheering fans at Wembley Sta- dium, Milne won the Speedway World Championship. If that wasn't enough, Wilbur Lamor- eaux finished second and Cordy third, giving America the top three spots in what was arguably the most important motorcycle- racing championship of the era. Jack and Cordy lived and raced two more years in Eng- land. They were heroes, being photographed everywhere they went, but they were seemingly unaffected by their status. Jack narrowly missed defending his world title in 1938, but soon after, World War II put an end to the Milne's life in England. "The tracks went dark over- night," Jack said. "The whole country closed down when the war started. Cordy and I bummed around from port to port trying to book pas- sage back to the States. We finally boarded a ship that was lit up like a Christmas tree and covered with American flags in hopes that the Germans wouldn't sink a neutral ship." Back in Pasadena, the broth- ers took $4000 of their earnings and opened a bicycle shop that evolved into a motorcycle shop. Later they opened car dealer- ships and a thriving grandstand business. The seats people sat in at the Rose Bowl Parade and the Long Beach Grand Prix were the Milne's. They started in that business after buying the old grandstands from a track that closed down. Jack and Cordy continued racing speedway in California into the early 1950s, but Jack said the advent of television caused the crowds to dwindle and the sport eventually died off for nearly 20 years. It was Jack, along with Harry Oxley, who helped revive speed- way racing in the late 1960s bringing over speedway World Champions Ivan Mauger and Barry Briggs, both of New Zea- land, for a series of exhibitions that re-lit the spark in America. Jack lived long enough to see Bruce Penhall and Sam Ermo- lenko follow in his footsteps as American riders to win World Speedway Championships. The grand old champ died in December of 1995. He still owned the bike he won the World Championship on until his passing. He left a legacy in American Speedway that rever- berates yet today. CN This Archives edition is reprinted from the December 12, 2007, is- sue of Cycle News. CN has hun- dreds of past Archives editions in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones com- ing down the road. -Editor CN III ARCHIVES P116 Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives