Lionel Van Praag was born in 1908 in Sydney Australia. Fortunately, speedway was about to be invented, so he’d have something to do when he grew up.
Lionel’s first full season in the sport was riding for the Wembley Lions in 1931, helping them to become national champions.
In 1936, the first official World Speedway Championship was held at Wembley in London in front of a 25,000 strong crowd. Despite being unbeaten in the final, Bluey Wilkinson was not crowned Champion. Bonus points accumulated by Van Praag and Eric Langton in previous rounds took them to the top of the standings and into a run-off match.
Langton won the toss, took the inside position. As they lined up at the tapes, Langton broke them which would ordinarily lead to disqualification. However, Van Praag stated he did not want to win the title by default and insisted that a race should take place.
At the restart Langton made it to the first bend in front. Van Praag came inside, headed him up the far straight and took the lead out of the second bend. Eric drew level on the inside coming out of the seventh bend, and repeated the tactics out of the last turn. But Van Praag just had the legs of him and won the championship, and the first prize of £500, by three-quarters of a length
Afterwards, controversial allegations were made that the two riders had ‘fixed’ the match race, deciding between them that the first person to the first bend would win the race and the Championship and split the prize money; Langton led into the first bend but was overtaken by Van Praag. Lionel reportedly paid Langton £50 “conscience money” after the race for going back on the agreement.
