SPEEDWAY WORLD CHAMPIONS
Speedway - Long Track - Ice Racing
Ole Olsen & Ivan Mauger, - team-mates at Newcastle in 1967,
who together have taken 9 Speedway and 4 LongTrack individual World Championships.
FIM World Championship titles, the ultimate accolade for any rider in his sport, are well recorded in many journals and on numerous websites. They are included here for completeness and in recognition of the riders' achievement, and also to present the data on a single webpage. Before these however several other unofficial Speedway World Championship competitions took place, in the UK and elsewhere, that today create continued discussion and are thus worthy of mention.
THE FIRST SPEEDWAY WORLD CHAMPIONS, ( - pre-1936.)
Before the first ACU-organised World Championship, held at Wembley’s Empire Stadium in 1936 as “The Auto-Cycle Union Official Speedway Championship of the World” , (it was 1954 before the Wembley Finals came under FIM stewardship though its forerunner, the FCIM approved and recognised the ACU’s World title,) there were a number of other championship meetings where the title of World Champion, - Speedway, or its precursor, 'Dirt-Track' - , was raced for; see table below.
Paris 1934 Sydney 1933 Wembley 1930
In Paris at the Buffalo Velodrome a competition for the “Championnat du Monde” was an annual event from 1931 until one more year after the first ACU/FCIM Wembley World Final, each of which was dominated by top-name Dirt Track stars at the forefront of the British racing scene. Results of the first 4 years’ championships are known and are given above, but uncertainty exists as to the 1935 -’37 winners.
During the same period in the Southern hemisphere, with riders migrating from Europe’s winter not only to Australia but also for a few years to a new venture in Argentine and Uruguay, a ‘World Final’ sponsored by the National Tobacco Company was set up in Buenos Aires, but little detail is known.
In Australia a “World’s Championship Final” was held in March 1933 at Sydney’s Speedway Royal, the programme of which informs of it having had 5 qualifying rounds in Paris, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Billy Lamont and Bluey Wilkinson, who featured regularly amongst the Paris prize winners, were pipped for the title by the Englishman from Middlesbrough, Harry Whitfield, (winner also of the Scottish championship in 1930.)
In the UK two competitions existed which, at the time or since, have been termed or considered as World Championships. With 2-man match races between star riders often the highlight of any dirt-track race meeting, - the top stars were initially excluded from league race teams - , a match race competition for the ‘Individual World Championship’ was initiated in 1931 by the Promoters Association, the first nominated holder of which was Vic Huxley who beat a nominated challenger, Colin Watson. Huxley was then challenged by Jack Parker who beat the first champion to relieve him of the trophy and be declared Individual World Champion. However, after the event the Speedway Control Board refused to recognise the title: the competition subsequently became the ‘British Individual Championship’, the pre-war forerunner of the British Match Race Championship. Notwithstanding, Parker always maintained his World Champion status, for he had an inscribed trophy as proof !
The ‘Star’ Championship, held each year at Wembley other than in its inaugural year, was launched to identify the supreme speedway rider and is considered by many as the forerunner of the official World Final. As the format of the Star Championship developed, from knock-out match races through to ultimately a 16-rider 20-heat competition, it was supplanted in 1936 by the ACU Final, having exactly the same format, venue, calendar date, and similarly having qualifying rounds at each 1st Division track. Though each year saw a different champion it was 4 years before an Englishman was to see off the Aussie and American stars, who were segregated in the initial year of 1929, being considered too experienced for the English new-starts.
.JPG)
OFFICIAL SPEEDWAY WORLD CHAMPIONS, ( - 1936 onward.)
The above table of official Speedway World Championship winners and rostrum-placed riders is supplemented with the winners of the 'British Championship' of 1946 to '48, so designated because of post-war restrictions on fuel and travel, etc.
Whilst the dominance of New Zealand riders from the mid-fifties to the late 'seventies can be seen, - nationalities are colour-coded for easy analysis - , securing 12 official championships, in effect this was achieved by just 3 men, Moore, Briggs and Mauger. No other New Zealander has stood on the rostrum then or since. The 'eighties saw Denmark's riders to the fore, taking 7 world championships in 8 years and continued rostrum appearances through to date. Their total of 14 championships, the same as Sweden, puts these 2 Scandinavian countries at the top of the rankings.
Individually, Ivan Mauger and Tony Rickardsson of Sweden (left,) have taken the title on a record six occasions each whilst Ove Fundin (above,) and Jason Crump have each achieved rostrum placings for 10 consecutive years. Club-wise Belle Vue has seen one of its riders of the day crowned World Champ on a record 10 occasions, followed by Cradley Heath with 7 world titles.
1936 - '38 1949 - '57 1958 - '77 1979 - '94
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
LONG TRACK WORLD CHAMPIONS
The Long Track World Championship started life as the European 1000m Championship, being redesignated a World Championship in 1971. The sport has thrived in Germany, and understandably been dominated by German riders, who have been the most successful throughout the decades. (On the continent this title may be found termed as the 'Sandbahn' Championship as the racing surface may be grass, dirt or sand.)
British Grass-Track racers have participated with some success, but it was the Sunday afternoon forays first of Mauger followed by Olsen, etc. that led to UK-based speedway riders joining in the central-Europe based competition, as top flight riders awakened to the lucrative benefits available on the continent. For 22 of the last 25 years the Long Track World Champion has been British or German, with former England speedway captains Simon Wigg and Kelvin Tatum (above,) taking 7 titles in total, but Bavarian Gerd Riss, (below,) has dominated with 8 wins, his last 3 'on-the-trot', finally emulating the feats of his countrymen Hofmeister and Poschenreider 50 years earlier and making a total of 27 titles for Germany. The UK follows with 10 titles.
World Long Track final, Herxheim, Germany, 1996
Riss,(winner,) Gerhard, Berg, Brhel, Hurry.
1976 World Long Track Final, - winner Ivan Mauger 2010 LT.GP4, winner Andrew Appleton
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~