The British Speedway Championship is an annual
motorcycle speedway
Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that use only ...
competition open to
British national speedway riders.
The winner of the event becomes the British Speedway Champion.
History
Inaugurated in 1961 as a qualifying round of the
Speedway World Championship
The World Championship of Speedway is an international competition between the highest-ranked motorcycle speedway riders of the world, run under the auspices of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM). The first official champions ...
it was open to riders from Britain and the British
dominions. It was initially dominated by riders from
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...
such as
Barry Briggs and
Ivan Mauger because of the British Final forming part of the World Speedway championship qualifying rounds. Briggs and Mauger were multiple world champions. It was not until 1975 that the final was restricted to British riders. Countries such as Australia and New Zealand then held their own World Individual Speedway championship qualifying rounds. In the first dozen finals, it was only won twice by a British born rider, both times by
Peter Craven
Peter Theodore Craven
, fansite biography by Jim Blanchard. (accessed 12 July 2006). (21 June 1934 – 2 ...
.
Australians
Rory Schlein
Rory Robert Schlein (born 1 September 1984) is an Australian speedway rider.
Career
Born in Darwin, Northern Territory, Schlein, lived in the southern Adelaide suburb of Hallett Cove and won the Australian Under-16 Championship at the Nort ...
and
Jason Crump
Jason Philip Crump (born 6 August 1975) is an Australian international motorcycle speedway rider. He is a three-time Speedway World Champion, a World Cup winner and a former World Under-21 Champion.
In a 21-year career in Speedway, Jason ...
rode under an
ACU (British) licence.
British Champions
Medals classification
See also
*
British Speedway Under 18 Championship
The British Under-19 Championship is an annual motorcycle speedway competition open to United Kingdom, British national speedway riders aged nineteen years and under at the start of each year. In 2011, it was replaced the British Under-18 Champions ...
*
British Speedway Under 21 Championship
*
Speedway in the United Kingdom
References
{{Speedway in the United Kingdom
Speedway competitions in the United Kingdom
*
British
National championships in the United Kingdom