Dick Barrie's
Speedway Website

My Top Ten Speedway World Stars

In preface, I should explain I have restricted this listing to riders I have actually seen in action. Thus, not having been born in their racing days, I must exclude the pre-war World Champions (although I did meet Van Praag and Jack Milne later in life) and begin my Top Ten as I began my own time watching speedway - in 1949…

1. VIC DUGGAN I saw him only once, in some kind of open meeting. Devastatingly fast. Even then, they reckoned he'd slowed up a bit from his 1947 peak! Had there been World Championships between 1946 and '48, Vic would have been as cast-iron a favourite as you could wish for. His career was curtailed by the death on track of his younger brother Ray, which happening understandably lessened his interest in racing. But he was as quick as anyone before or since. A true world-beater of his day.

2. RONNIE MOORE The first true teenage sensation. Only 17 when he arrived from New Zealand (although born in Tasmania, of all places), he went straight into the Wimbledon (his only club) team, and straight to the top of the tree. The son of an expert motorcyclist (father Les was a wall-of-death artiste) he seemed as relaxed and casual on his bike as in the pits. A double World Champion who could, and should have won more titles, had he been as driven as (say) a Fundin, Mauger or Nielsen. Speedway was so easy - maybe too easy -- for Ronnie at times, and he gave up large chunks of his glittering career to disinterested retirement! Still good enough to be in World Finals nearly quarter-of-a-century after his debut, his career was ended suddenly by a life-threatening track accident in Australia while touring with Ivan Mauger's troupe. Now restored to health, he lives quietly near Christchurch, on the South Island of his adopted homeland.

3. BARRY BRIGGS Maybe the best-known speedway name in the world, even now, two full decades after his last official outing. Briggo followed Ronnie Moore to Britain, to teenage stardom and to World Championship glory in the most gloriously-haphazard fashion! Never less than full-throttle in his racing, he reigned supreme in the original National League and on into the BL years with nary a stutter. Thirty years of racing all over the world made Barry a million friends (including, I hope, myself!) and even today he is responsible for promoting (and riding in!) his "Golden Greats" series of nostalgia-soaked meetings.meeting.

4. OVE FUNDIN The first truly great Scandanavian, and - in his earliest days - one of the hungriest title-chasers of all time. Hard as nails on track - and in his dealings with promoters, too! His duels with Barry Briggs are the stuff of legend (between them, they took NINE of the twelve World Titles available between 1956 and '67!) Rarely passed an opponent on the outside, but owned the sharpest elbows in the game when diving under anyone bold enough to attempt to try and hold the white line ahead of him! I met Ove when he returned to British racing for Trevor Redmond's Lions at Wembley in 1970 - and marvelled at some of the magic moments he could still produce, when the occasion arose.

5. IVAN MAUGER Simply the best - in terms of titles, on- and off- track success and a logical attitude to speedway - I have ever known. A comparative failure at Wimbledon at the age of 16 in 1957 (in fact, his only "failure" was in not being another instant World Champion in the style of Moore or Briggs) he returned a star to Mike Parker's Newcastle in the Provincial League of the early 'sixties. Trailing around the PL tracks with wife Raye (they must be ready for what, their 45th anniversary, about now?) and three kids in a beat-up Ford, Ivan had no easy road to the top at that time - but didn't he get there in style? Six World Titles, and the sport's top earner during the great days, he was by far the biggest drawcard world speedway could boast during the 'seventies. The great thing about Ivan - and Raye, too - is that their success, and deserved wealth, has not changed them one bit - they're still nice people to know!

6. PETER COLLINS Why pick the second "PC" from Belle Vue in this Top Ten ahead of Peter Craven? Well, I can only go by what I saw. Craven was very, very quick - they still talk about his balance, but that goes for nothing if you ain't fast with it -- but I never saw him achieve a fraction of the overtaking manoeuvres that Collins has come up with in his time. The best of British at a time we had more than a few good 'uns around. His 1976 World Title was achieved with all the excitement and panache we came to expect of the man, who remained friendly, quiet and likeable to those of us in the pits throughout his career. After he finished racing, he was singularly instrumental in saving speedway for Manchester at the time of the sale of the legendary Hyde Road, and was very harshly treated by those who took over the Aces' promotion after his hard work in the winter of 1987/8.

7. BRUCE PENHALL The golden boy - white teeth, blond hair and wealthy enough not to have to ride speedway - yet one of the most-successful US riders of all time. A truly-deserving World Champion in "the greatest Wembley Final ever" of 1981, he was perhaps more fortunate to repeat the feat in '82. By that I mean through Les Collins' failure to come up with a win in his "easy" third ride and not because of the Carter incident (when the best Bruce could have hoped for had that infamous race gone four laps was second-place, well behind PC). He then retired at the top to enter the Hollywood Best Pairs with Erik Estrada. From the beginning, when he arrived on the UK scene, Brucie was special - it is a pity, in retrospect, he stopped racing when he did - he could have done a lot more for the sport worldwide than was achieved by CHiPS!

8. HANS NIELSEN Mean, moody and magnificent. I first met Hans when he was at Birmingham in the late '70's, and we bumped into one another from time to time after that. Reserved and polite, but so, so hard on track! It was during my time at Belle Vue I had cause to suggest he was the "Main Dane" - one name that deservedly stuck, that's for sure! As he got older, he got better and won more and more titles - but never let his status prevent him turning out as a star attraction on lower-league circuits. In my time we had him do meetings at both Berrington Lough and Shawfield, to major financial benefit of both Hans and the staging promotion! When the Grand Prix system came in, I reckoned it was made for his studied approach to such things, and so it was proved. A top man, who deserved his off-track success - because he never, ever, gave an inch to anyone, once the tapes were up!

9. PER JONSSON A surprise inclusion? I was awfully impressed when I saw Per first get among the big boys (at a Jan Andersson Testimonial event at Reading in 1988) and observed then that he could go all the way. Later, once he had done so, his World Title didn't prevent him flying up to make a personal appearance before TV cameras at an otherwise-deserted Berwick circuit one grey Tuesday morning at the tail-end of 1990, when more than a few others might have found an excuse or two to get out of the event. His accident, and subsequent incapacity, has perhaps allowed too many to forget his achievements - but the only speedway photo I have on my office wall is of Per, at Berrington Lough that cold autumnal Tuesday. I remember, pal……

10. MARK LORAM He took a long time coming, didn't he? I first saw Mark as a decent enough NL heat-leader with Hackney around 1988, but for the next ten seasons he seemed to ooze upwards so gently and gradually - and maybe I was waiting to see him level out just short of the very top as so many British stars have managed to do, over so many years. One of our last get-togethers was at Berwick a couple of years ago, when he failed to let a mere downpour prevent his reeling off a stupendous last-ride win from the back to take the 1999 Bordernapolis. After that, I suppose I would have agreed Mark was capable of virtually anything! Which as the year 2000 proved, he most certainly was! Only Britain's 7th World Champion in the 65 years since the event began - who else should top out my personal Top Ten of the very best of all time?

Not easy, picking out only ten! CRAVEN, OLSEN, ERMOLENKO, RICKARDSSON - all worthy of getting in, but I have to call it as I saw it, and these are the men I saw do it best, over fifty long years and more.

DICK BARRIE - 23.2.01