About us
Backtrack, the bi-monthly retro speedway magazine, was launched in March 2004 and was aimed at everyone who attended and loved speedway during the sport's last golden period of the 1970s and 80s.

The glossy (A4 size) bi-monthly publication was the brainchild of Tony McDonald, an experienced sports journalist who edited the former weekly Speedway Mail newspaper from 1978 until he left to set up his own sports publishing company in the early 90s.

He returned to speedway in a journalistic capacity at the start of 2003, when he was appointed editor of the long-established Vintage Speedway Magazine. VSM had been published every quarter (initially by its previous co-publishers John Chaplin and Peter Lipscomb) since July 1993 and continued after Retro Speedway became the new owners of the title in the spring of 2005.

Producing VSM rekindled Tony Mac's enthusiasm for the sport he first saw as a boy at West Ham and Hackney in the late 60s and early 70s. In March 2004 he and Susie Muir, his long-term partner and wife, together at Retro Speedway, launched Backtrack.

Then, in June 2008, they took the bold decision to close VSM after 60 issues and introduce a brand new quarterly magazine to this niche market, called Classic Speedway. Produced in a larger format, increased pagination and with glossy, full colour covers, Classic put greater emphasis on the 60s and 50s.

After 18 years of publishing Backtrack and 14 years of Classic Speedway, both titles ceased publication in the latter part of 2022. The final editions were issue 111 of Backtrack and 57 of Classic Speedway, both of which are likely to become sought-after by collectors.