Speedway Champions

       Durban 1956 

     1978 Southern, Rainbow 

      1995 Open, Corobrik 

The table below lists the winners of the two principle South African speedway titles since their inception,

      - the S.A. Championship, first held in 1935,              and 

      - the S.A. Open Championship, which commenced in 1955.

  The table is complete, up to and including the present time.

 (The last SA Open Championship was held in 1995.)

     It also gives the winners of other speedway championships held in South Africa over the same period, some being additional championships to either or both of the main two, others created in response to rider representation and/or to control body actions, - South Africa has had a history of authority changes and resultant conflicts which have had consequences reaching back to the UK, resulting in the banning of riders and track closure. These further championships include

    - SA Match Race Champions,

    - SA Handicap Champions,

    - SA Open Handicap Champions,

    - Southern Africa Open Champions.   

     This proliferation of championships has no doubt led to much of the confusion and errors that can be found in otherwise reputable press and websites listing SA national champions, whereby a winner of any one of these SA titles has understandably become cited as an "SA Champion".  It is for this reason, and to aid clarification, that known winners of the 'other' additional titles, along with venues, have been included on this web page.     

Alan Hunt with the

S.African Trophy, 1956

      The South African speedway scene, like many others has experienced its ups and downs. During the 1950s it enjoyed wide-ranging success, practically mirroring the UK scene with its league competition, match race championships, international test matches and National championships. Riders from the UK leagues, including Anzacs such as Briggs, Moore, Mardon, Redmond, world champs Williams, Craven, Fundin and others simply transferred  hemispheres to ride in SA. The ‘60s were a quiet time as a consequence of control body disputes and the Republic’s withdrawl from the Commonwealth but the international scene picked up again in the ‘70s as world class riders again wintered in SA.

      Buddy Fuller and Henry Long were the local king-pins in the ‘40s and ‘50s respectively, whilst English-born naturalised South African Dennis Newton dominated the 1960s and holds the SA record for having most Championship wins, - 5, plus an SA Open win. Equally deserving of mention is Denzil Kent, who, having been an earlier SA Junior champ, during the ‘80s went on to achieve 3 SA Championship wins, 3 SA.Opens, 1 SA.Open Handicap championship and 3 times end-of-season Match Race Championship holder, going through the card in 1985 to uniquely collect all 4 senior titles.

                 Buddy Fuller                                Roy Bester (2nd) & Henry Long (1952 SA Champ.)                    Denzil Kent

S.A. Match Race Championship.

   Given in the above table are the holders of the South African Match Race Championship title at the end of season. Details of the Match Races throughout the season have also been researched and are presented in the table below, together with format and result details, where known. While originally only a single leg competition for the Golden Helmet it was called the 'Wembley MRC': when Home & Away legs where introduced during the '53/'54 season it was redefined as the 'South African MRC'.  

 rt: Ronnie Moore receives the SA.MRC Golden Helmet
     from Fred Wills after his win at Wembley in 1953. 

n.b. At certain times Eliminators were additionally run to determine a Challenger. Regional as well as track MRC Golden Helmet competitions were also staged in the Union, so their existence should be borne in mind when reviewing any MRC/Golden Helmet data from South Africa: see 'SA Supplement' at foot of page for results of these competitions. Memorable amongst these was the January '53 match race at Boksburg between Ronnie Moore and Roy Bester which was won by the New Zealander 1-0 plus 2 dead-heats in their first and third races. 

      In the most active period of SA speedway, the early 1950s, local hero Henry Long (left) was well able to compete with visiting world class riders and World Champions like Moore, Williams  and Briggs. During the course of 6 seasons he won the MRC 19 times. Barry Briggs  twice concluded the racing season as Match Race Champion, the later in the same season but under a different authority (SA.SCB) to that operating Long's MRCs, (SA.SRA.) 

  20 years later Briggs returned to South Africa as part of the WCSS series but lost his crown to Ole Olsen at Johannesburg's Wembley stadium in November 1975.

  Following this revival the Match Race competition in the Republic of the 1970s and '80s was contended on a less frequent basis than originally, during which time Denzil Kent and UK visitor Dave Jessup dominated the MRC.  

Golden Helmet, 21^st Century.

James Bruins 1977                                   Neil Pettit 2010                      

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rhodesia - Northern & Southern

(n.b. Name changes to Zambia and Zimbabwe occured after the events below, i.e 1964 and 1980 resp'ly.) 

National Championships

    The limited number of national championships held in Northern Rhodesia and in Southern Rhodesia are as given in the main table of the National Champions page and, with the addition of venues, are repeated here for convenience. 

Golden Helmets

      In the 1950s and again in the '70s a number of Golden Helmet competitions were held, - predominantly Match Race Championships, though most of those of the '50s were individual 'second-half' competitions having heats and finals, and some being handicap events. (Held monthly, these results are incomplete at the present time.) Bev Bird was the only local rider able to compete evenly with the riders travelling up from S.A.

     In the '70s races were usually one-off single runs and Peter Prinsloo had more successes than did the European visitors. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

    Acknowledgement is given to David Austin of UK, Rhodesia and Western Cape in turn, for his significant contribution in sorting, verifying and collating information, in particular the SA. and Rhodesian MRC data. Also to Ken MacLeod and Christian Weber, sports journalists and reporters for the UK Speedway Star, past and present, for the research conducted by them into contemporaneous press reports, SS&N articles and race programmes of the day.

                For additional South African speedway information and programme covers see

 'Alan Hunt Memorial Trophy' (Memorial Trophy)   and   U21 and Youth Champions

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