British Riders On The Ice...

Ice speedway has long been the preserve of the Russians and the Scandanavians with occasional German and Dutch riders thrown into the mix, but there have been one or two notable attempts by British riders to make their mark on the ice too.

Bruce Semmens raced in the Swedish League between 1949 and 1952 becoming the top British Ice Racer of his era and Andy Ross made quite a name for himself in the World Championships during the late 60s, culminating with a joint 5th place finish in the 1970 World Final at Nassjo, Sweden. During the 1980s and early 90s, Great Britain also entered teams into the World Team Championships. They never scaled the heights of the all conquering Russians, but they were never disgraced in what is arguably the most dangerous motorcycle sport in the World.

Here's a few photographs of some of the riders who have worn the Union Jack on the ice speedway tracks in the past 30 years or so...

Team GB at the 1985 World Cup semi-final, Grenoble, France.

Paul Evitts, Bruce Cribb, John Walmsley and Neil Tuxworth.
Yes, that Neil Tuxworth! Former TT rider, road racer and the current Honda Road Racing manager.
(Copyright Photo Courtesy of John Hipkiss)

Paul Evitts from Dudley, West Midlands.
Paul was born near to the Cradley Heath speedway track and is still racing in veteran grass track events today
(Copyright Photo Courtesy of John Hipkiss) 

John Walmsley from Millom in Cumbria. John also raced conventional speedway for his local track in Barrow
(Copyright Photo Courtesy of John Hipkiss)

Martin Goodwin scored 8pts in the World Championship preliminary round at Frankfurt in January 1983.
(Photo - Klaus Goffelmeyer)

Bruce Cribb - "The Worlds fastest Maori"... and one of the most prolific "British" ice racers in recent history. Although he was originally from New Zealand, Cribby has lived in the West Midlands many years now and raced on the ice using a British licence. This photo was taken at Eindhoven in 1993 (Photo - Norbert Ockenga)

Graham Halsall - like Cribby, Graham never knew when to give up and raced on the ice for around 20 years.
(photo - Norbert Ockenga)

Finally, a mystery photo. Can anyone identify this British Ice Racer please?

Thanks to John Hipkiss for allowing me to reproduce some of his photographs on this post.

John Hipkiss Photography Ltd hippopix@blueyonder.co.uk Tel - 07836 386169 Fax - 0121 421 2237.