Speedway bikes are the very definition of purpose-built. They’re brakeless, single-gear machines with bizarre proportions, designed to do one thing—go around a dirt track at angles that defy physics. But, like all racing motorcycles, they’ve evolved over the years.
Early speedway racers would simply modify existing ‘regular’ bikes to perform as best they could. It was only by the late 1950s that legends like Alf Hagon had start fabricating speedway-specific chassis. And today’s race bikes sure don’t look like they did back then.
This particular example is a 1970s Godden GR500, immaculately restored and ever-so-slightly modded by Grzegorz Korczak, and his team at Unikat Motorworks in Poland. Back in 1969, Don Godden bagged the world long-track championship aboard a Hagon-framed bike with a JAP engine.…