How the famous Harley Scramble began

history of HARLEY SCRAMBLE - chapter 1: HOW THE FAMOUS EVENT BEGAN

Photos: [Left] Aubrey Melrose – who co-founded the Harley Scramble in 1928 with Roy Charman after returning from racing in the Isle of Man and other events in England; like in the famous road racing event, the riders started the Harley Scramble in pairs; [Top right] Melrose (21) and Charman (24) with J Kieley (23) at the 1935 Harley Scramble (The Western Mail); and [ Bottom right] The 1939 Harley Scramble report, featuring winner Aubrey Melrose (The Sunday Times).

Harley Scramble - An instant hit for its creators Melrose and Charman

Two of Australia’s earliest Isle of Man contestants who also raced scrambles in England in came up with the concept in 1928 on return to Perth.

The very first Harley Scramble was held on Sunday, 17 June 1928 adjacent to the WA Rope Works Factory near Buckland Hill at Mosman Park, near Perth in Western Australia – just four years after the sport was invented.

Aubrey Melrose and Roy Charman – two of Australia’s earliest Isle of Man contestants who also competed in the Scott Trial and International Six Day Trial and an emerging new sport called ‘scrambles’ during their stay in England in 1927 and 1928 -came up with the concept for an event with aspects of these events and sold the idea to the Harley Davidson Motor Cycle Club.

On one Sunday afternoon, shortly after returning to Perth from overseas, Aubrey and Gavin Casey rode their motorcycles to Mosman Park (with Casey’s girlfriend and future wife Dorothy Wulff on the back) and mapped out a circuit.

The route started along the main road from Perth to Fremantle on University of Western Australia land close to Cottesloe Beach and ended on the banks of the Swan River. They called the circuit the “Rope Works Course” after the nearby rope factory.

Compared to motocross circuits today, the original course was more like an enduro, covering over 200 kilometres, with the first course crossing the peninsula between the Indian Ocean and Swan River to Billy Goat Farm for a lunch stop, before looping back to Buckland Hill in the afternoon.

Photos: [Top] Aubrey Melrose – Winner of the 1929, 1931 and 1935 Harley Scramble winner and event co-founder (Isle of Man TT Profile); and [Bottom] The original cicuit was in a 20 square kilometer area between the Indian Ocean and Swan River in Mosman Park.

Inaugural course shortened to 4km so racing was visible from one vantage point

But when the first official Harley Scramble race was conducted in 1928, the length of circuit was shortened to around 4 kilometers so the majority of racing was visible from one vantage point. Marked by arrows, the total distance was reduced to 10 miles (16km) with the regulations stating that the “winner would be the rider who gets to the finish line the quickest without missing any of the course”.

The very first event was called the “1928 TT Scramble” as it incorporated the Isle of Man road racing starting method and new off-road sport scrambles. But as this title meant little to the reporter at The West Australian newspaper, he coined it “The Harley Scramble”(after the hosting club) a name which stuck for a race that was an immediate success and went on to become the blue-riband event of Western Australian motorcycling for almost four decades!

Thousands of people lined the sandstone cliffs in Mosman Park to witness one of the first off-road motorcycle endurance races to be held in Australia. Riders took off two at a time at one minute intervals (this was gradually reduced to 10 seconds in the future) with the fastest riders at the rear of the field – aiming to complete a single five-mile (8km) lap in the morning and second in the afternoon. Although there were only three finishes, both competitors and spectators considered proceedings a great success.

The immediate level of interest in this new branch of the sport was similar to when Supercross was introduced to Australia in the early 1980s.

Photos: [Top] Ken Vincent, winner of the very first Harley Scramble at the Rope Works in Mosman Park in 1928 aboard a V-Twin Harley Davidson 4-stroke; and [Bottom] just like when Supercross was first introduced to Australia in the 1980s, the event was a brand new form of motorsport attracting thousands.