alt.hn

4/28/2026 at 3:51:37 PM

Auto Polo

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

by canjobear

5/1/2026 at 10:58:41 AM

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

https://youtu.be/SIeu7_-iwdw

by cheschire

5/1/2026 at 12:35:31 PM

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...

by etrautmann

5/1/2026 at 6:19:38 PM

This is absolutely incredible!

by djsavvy

5/1/2026 at 9:30:40 AM

"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

by arlobish

5/1/2026 at 9:46:36 AM

Australian Motorcycle Chariot Race

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

by msuniverse2026

5/1/2026 at 10:29:22 AM

These days I have to check the upload date to see if I'm being duped. At 8 years ago this one passes!

by Oarch

5/1/2026 at 3:43:09 PM

Cool. How do they stop?

by fwipsy

5/1/2026 at 9:24:44 AM

Unsurprisingly, it died out "mostly due to the high cost of replacing vehicles". Was it the inspiration for demolition derbies?

by TomMasz

5/1/2026 at 8:50:06 AM

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

by merelysounds

5/1/2026 at 8:58:53 AM

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

by consumer451

5/1/2026 at 9:14:05 AM

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

by swiftcoder

5/1/2026 at 9:25:44 AM

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.

by sandworm101

5/1/2026 at 9:30:26 AM

There's also e-wheel polo

by vhcr

5/1/2026 at 10:53:00 AM

I for one wish for mobile crane joust.

by tigerlily

5/1/2026 at 10:47:20 AM

Bike Polo is still alive https://youtu.be/CBZgC7u6ji8 and for example https://youtu.be/PxMms5Yh_gI

by rmoriz

5/1/2026 at 2:33:19 PM

I clicked the first link, expecting something akin to cycleball [0], and was rather surprised by the fact that it was so different from that.

We really should have an ocho channel for sports like this (of course /r/theocho exists, but it's not the same).

0: https://youtu.be/1UdoumWFWz8

by fnordian_slip

5/1/2026 at 1:41:30 PM

Rocket League is basically the video game version of this.

by empath75

5/1/2026 at 4:38:37 PM

Vehicles ... dirt track ... large, wooden mallets ... no protective gear ... I see this as an absolute win!

by NoSalt

5/1/2026 at 10:03:23 AM

Was? Not with this attitude!

by haunter

5/1/2026 at 7:36:56 PM

Can someone add this as a new game mode in Rocket League?

by nticompass

5/1/2026 at 10:57:43 AM

> though deaths due to auto polo were rare.

Oh well, then...

by xg15

5/1/2026 at 12:21:03 PM

What an incredibly bad idea!

To hear it was "popular"...

by prmph