Auto Polo
76 points
2 days ago
| 11 comments
| en.wikipedia.org
| HN
etrautmann
3 minutes ago
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Fun to see this here. I had the good fortune of participating in the first match of motorcycle polo in Rwanda back in 2007. This continued on for a while and eventually got a writeup in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/sports/motorized-polo-gai...
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esperent
2 hours ago
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jshmrsn
1 hour ago
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Mad Max 1910
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fwgijcqywqeo
2 hours ago
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incredible indeed!
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arlobish
3 hours ago
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"The official inventor of auto polo...devised the sport as a publicity stunt in 1911 to sell Model T cars."

Amazing to see how little has changed in 100 years when it comes to competing for attention

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cheschire
1 hour ago
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I’m sure many of us are reminded immediately of the old Top Gear auto football matches:

https://youtu.be/SIeu7_-iwdw

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TomMasz
3 hours ago
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Unsurprisingly, it died out "mostly due to the high cost of replacing vehicles". Was it the inspiration for demolition derbies?
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prmph
18 minutes ago
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What an incredibly bad idea!

To hear it was "popular"...

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msuniverse2026
2 hours ago
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Australian Motorcycle Chariot Race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1avID4bJ3pw

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Oarch
2 hours ago
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These days I have to check the upload date to see if I'm being duped. At 8 years ago this one passes!
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rmoriz
1 hour ago
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Bike Polo is still alive https://youtu.be/CBZgC7u6ji8 and for example https://youtu.be/PxMms5Yh_gI
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merelysounds
3 hours ago
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I guess the modern day equivalent (technology that’s relatively new, unsafe and unregulated) would be electric scooter polo? I found no sign of a sport like this though.

I think kick scooter polo exists. And bike polo[1] is well known.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardcourt_Bike_Polo

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consumer451
3 hours ago
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My first thought was that Segways would be ideal for the nerdiest fun modern-ish recreation of polo. It turns out that it was a thing.

> The Segway polo world championship is the Woz Challenge Cup. It is named after Steve "Woz" Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Inc., and a player of Segway polo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway_polo

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swiftcoder
3 hours ago
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WhirlyBall[1], which is kind of like pelota + basketball in bumper cars, seems like a pretty good bet. There are only a handful of courts left, but I've done a few offsites at the Seattle one, and it's good fun.

The bumper cars are truly weird - they draw power from the conductive floor of the court, and have a one-handed control system that makes you trigger forward/reverse by turning the steering wheel a full rotation...

[1]: https://www.whirlyball.com

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dgellow
3 hours ago
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There is also unicycle hockey! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicycle_hockey

Makes me want to dust off mine

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vhcr
3 hours ago
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There's also e-wheel polo
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lstodd
3 hours ago
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sandworm101
3 hours ago
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Nope. The modern version uses motorcycles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoball

>>Motoball is played in a 5v5 format. There are four players on motorcycles, and one on their feet as the goalkeeper.

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tigerlily
1 hour ago
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I for one wish for mobile crane joust.
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xg15
1 hour ago
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> though deaths due to auto polo were rare.

Oh well, then...

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haunter
2 hours ago
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Was? Not with this attitude!
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