French Red Devil, Julien Raoul: An Update

Julien Raoul, you may remember, was a racer on the Six Day and track racing circuit in the United States and Europe, including events in Los Angeles during the 1930s. If you don't remember the story, or never saw it to begin with, you can refresh your memory, or become acquainted with his story, by reading the post French Red Devil: Julien Raoul. [By the way, Blogger's search mechanism completely sucks - entering Julien Raoul and French Red Devil, either singly or combined, returned zero results, while a Google search brought the post up first. Lesson? Don't rely on that Blogger search box on the home page.]

What you see below is the contract between Mr. Raoul and race promoter William Spencer for the April 1937 Six Day Race held at the Pan Pacific Auditorium. Assuming that Raoul would finish the race, he would receive the sum of $150.00. Equally interesting are the various conditions for fulfilling the contract, and reasons for disqualification and withholding of payment, either partly or in full. We've all seen the photos during races, photos of the victories, seen the results, but you don't really see things like this in history accounts, so I found it to be especially interesting. It adds an extra dimension to the photos, a different layer to the story.

Needless to say, since I am both a history nerd and a bike nerd, the combination of the two, as represented in this document (contract), has been especially fascinating for me, and I want to, again, give much thanks to Julien's son Marcel for continuing to forward information about his father, and through him, providing a rare glimpse into the track racing scene during its peak years.