Racing

How the sport got here

The history of the sport as documents support it, chapter by chapter. 13 chapters hold 71 sections, every one citing a row of one graded source table of 719 documents. 6 sections print two sides because the sources disagree, and 83 claims the research could not source are listed on the chapters that touch them as held back, so the holes are visible.

These chapters follow racing as organised competition: the bodies, the classes and the rules. For the craft themselves, model by model, read how the machines changed; the foot of this page lists all four of the site's histories.

New to the sport's past? The eras tells it in five short panels, each pointing back to the chapters below.

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Chapters

The four chapters on the trade, part by part: each box opens the section that covers it.

On the engine

• 2 Exhaust pipe , chapter 2
• 2 Wet and dry pipes , chapter 2
• 2 Heads and engine parts , chapter 2

In the water path

• 3 Intake grate , chapter 3
• 3 Impeller and pump , chapter 3
• 3 Ride plate , chapter 3

Under and on top

• 4 Hull , chapter 4
• 3 Deck mat , chapter 3

Around the parts

• 1 Shops and teams , chapter 1
• 4 What the rule books let in , chapter 4
• 3 Patents and trademarks , chapter 3
• 4 Closures , chapter 4

1. 1 Shops and their teams
2. 2 Pipes and engine parts
3. 3 Pumps, plates and registers
4. 4 Hulls, rules and closures

The source table

One table for every chapter and every Key Figures page, graded at entry: 341 of 719 are a sanctioning body's or a maker's own document. A row a chapter cites is linked from that section; the table is here so a reader can see what the whole history rests on before reading any of it.

Four histories on this site

• How the sport got here, this page: the sport as organised competition, from racing sources graded for reliability, with the claims nobody could source listed as held back.
• How the machines changed: the machines and the companies behind them, every section naming its source.
• Model timelines: which machines each company made, year by year, from one named publication per make.
• Where the sport came from: who built the first one, from milestones graded one by one, including the two the sources contest.