Racing News, and the Boys with the Yellow Paint

The Hobart Motorcycle Club was confident enough to place this ad in the News ten days before the scheduled race although, according to the Gazette, its members were still working to get the new track ready — the "low places [were] being tiled and the grading [was] progressing."

Three days before the race, the News reported that the work was nearly done: all topsoil had been removed, the curves were banked properly, and the three-quarter-mile track would indeed be ready for the races on Decoration Day, 1920.

The town's memorial ceremony was scheduled for 1:30 p.m., so the races' 2:30 p.m. starting time would allow people to engage in solemn remembrance and then go have fun.

And indeed they did have fun. The racetrack's opening day was a great success.


(Click on image to enlarge)
It's not that I think you're interested in all the details of the race, Dear Reader; I just wanted an excuse to include that totally irrelevant story about the murderous farmhand.

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The News of May 20, 1920, which carried the ad shown above, also carried a small and mystifying item in its social column: "It is said that the boys with the yellow paint were at work again one night this week."

That the "boys" had no names and were working at night leads me to speculate that this was a case of vandalism, similar to the events of the autumn of 1918. But if this vandalism was likewise in protest — then in protest of what, I wonder? The war was over, and so were its gasless Sundays and rabid anti-German paranoia; thus there was no excuse, anymore, for denouncing "slackers" or persons of German origin. I wonder if perhaps this time the "boys" were trying to denounce Prohibition-flouters?


Sources:
♦ Advertisement. Hobart News 20 May 1920.
♦ "Hobart's New Speedway Will Be Opened Sunday Afternoon." Hobart News 27 May 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 20 May 1920.
♦ "Motorcycle Races Well Attended." Hobart Gazette 4 June 1920.
♦ "Motorcycle Races Will be Held at 2:30 Sunday, May 30." Hobart News 20 May 1920.
♦ "Motorcycle Races." Hobart Gazette 21 May 1920.
♦ "Nearly 5,000 See Motorcycle Races Sunday Afternoon." Hobart News 3 June 1920.