Portsmouth Greyhound Stadium was built in 1930 as a bigger and better alternative to the existing greyhound stadium. Local newspaper reports from the 1950s give the location as Tipnor, although today the area is called Tipner.
Speedway was staged intermittently between 1935 and 1937, with stock car racing was introduced in 1955 by speedway promoter JG Southouse. The stock car events were taken over by local driver Dan Spence after the 9th July meeting was cancelled due to lack of cars. However, Spence's first meeting on 16th July had only 10 of the 37 booked in drivers turn up.
While crowds of 5,000 were reported for the opening meetings, interest from both drivers and paying fans waned, possibly due to bad organisation (the 23rd April meeting was cut to just 3 races due to time) and poor track conditions (the 21st May meeting was cancelled due because the track was waterlogged, and later newspaper reports mention large holes in it).
Eight meetings were staged in 1955, and this would be the venue's only season as a stock car track, although greyhound racing continued until 2010. The stadium was demolished in 2012.
Date | Final Winner | Cars |
||
---|---|---|---|---|
1. | Saturday 23rd April 1955 Sat 23 Apr 1955 |
Stu Gregory | ||
2. | Saturday 7th May 1955 Sat 7 May 1955 |
46 Norman Brown | ||
Saturday 21st May 1955 Sat 21 May 1955 |
Meeting Cancelled | |||
3. | Saturday 4th June 1955 Sat 4 Jun 1955 |
15 Arthur Haines | ||
4. | Saturday 18th June 1955 Sat 18 Jun 1955 |
52 Norman Brown | ||
5. | Saturday 25th June 1955 Sat 25 Jun 1955 |
20 Arthur Haines | ||
6. | Saturday 16th July 1955 Sat 16 Jul 1955 |
Unknown | 10 | |
7. | Monday 5th September 1955 Mon 5 Sep 1955 |
52 Norman Brown | 36 | |
8. | Monday 19th September 1955 Mon 19 Sep 1955 |
Unknown |