100 years old, still proud and strong !
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Motor racing on Sellicks Beach was first run in the early years of the 20th Century.
Several groups made use of the beach and the hills behind the beach, to race not just bikes, but cars as
well. All trying to set new speed records.
Established in 1922, The Levis Social Club organised social outings and simple trials for owners of the
Levis (pron. lev-iss) two-stroke motorcycle.
However, driven by the wishes of its’ members, the focus of the Club soon changed and from 1924 the Levis Social Club Speed Trials became an annual summer event at Sellicks Beach, generally on the Australia Day weekend.
Speed was new and exciting, there were records to be had in cars, on bikes, with aeroplanes and trains, any number of early year machines were trying to be the fastest.
When our great grandparents were looking for somewhere to go fast and break records, the beaches south of Adelaide, Sellicks and Silver Sands made the perfect track.
The beach with its pebble base and covering of sand made a hard, compact surface that was flattened and renewed at every tide change.
If you think back to those times, roads were not the paved highways that we have today. They were generally more like dirt tracks and the idea of road maintenance had yet to reach government consciousness.
For many families in the first half of the 20th Century, motorcycles were their main mode of transport. More affordable than a car, it was not unusual to see a family heading off to the shops, work, church, or the beach loaded on and in a motorcycle with sidecar.
There would be very few of us who do not have someone in the family tree who rode a motor bike.
Many of those early racers would ride their bikes to the beach, strip them down to the bare minimum, race for a couple of days, then put the bike back together and ride home. Those with a bit more money bought their racing bikes to the beach in their sidecar.
Because general travel was a lot slower, the 50 km drive to Sellicks Beach meant it became a weekend event.
Naturally, the “Levis Social Club” encouraged the social side of Motorcycle Racing (as it still does today).
With some time off during the Second World War, the Club ran the event through to 1957.
Apart from re-enactments in 1986 and 1992, there had been no competitive racing at Sellicks in 60 years.
Then in February 2017, we came back...
