I heard the Demon Drome before I saw it: a shaking, roaring wooden structure pulsating to the rhythm of the riders who hurl their ancient Indian motorcycles to its walls. I approached with a boyish wonder to the sounds of the shrieking spectators inside and I knew that I had found something very wonderful.

Built in 1927 in the United States, it made its way to England. By the 1940s it was an established touring circus feature. The then owner, Elias Harris, rode the wall on a homemade car powered by an Indian Four engine. To see the scale of the wall and try and comprehend how a small car could cling onto its vertical sides like that takes a bit of imagination. To imagine how Elias used to do it with Rita, his pet lion, on the car with him is even harder! Towards the 1990s the wall fell upon harder times and finally got loaded into the back of a truck where it was left and near forgotten about. Dyna Mite Dave recounted to me with great pride the story of how he was telephoned and offered two classic Indian motorcycles with a rather decrepit wall of death thrown in for free! Mathew and the Duke then set about a three-year restoration project and saved the wall from becoming another of histories curiosities. They are now the proud owners of the world’s oldest wall of death and the show that they put on is surely the most hair-raising thing that structure has ever seen, even without the lion.

Neither Dave nor the Duke could really explain quite how they started riding motorbikes around the inside of a massive barrel. Nor could Dave’s daughter Alabama, who calmly sits on her dad’s handle bars as he burns it around at 45mph whilst pulling three Gs! She simply remarked that she didn’t talk about it much at school because people wouldn’t get it. I protested and attempted to explain that she has probably had the coolest summer holiday of any teenager in the country, but I think she quietly knew that already.
– Ted Dwane
Connect with Ted on his website. To learn more about the Demon Drome, click here. Get information on Goodwood Revival here.