Speedway Champions

Germany
    The German national Long Track Championship has been dominated since 1988 by Gerd Riss with 10 wins, and Robert Barth with 6 successes. Prior to their time Karl Maier won the title 8 times and Egon Muller 6, pre-unification. All four riders have appeared in speedway World Finals and/or SGPs, (Barth only in SGPs,) with Muller emerging as speedway World Champion in 1983.
     Prior to unification an East German Championship was also held, and early champion Hans Zierk had the most successes with 7: he later gained wider fame as an engine tuner par excellence for many top international riders, both Long Track and speedway, from Briggo thru to Gerd Riss.

    Riss, from Bad Wurzach in Wurttemberg, also dominated the Southern German Long Track Championship with 12 wins between 1988 and '2009, but in the Northern equivalent competition it was Egon Muller that amassed the greatest number of championship wins, - 14 over a 22 year period. However Muller's accumulated total of 25 successes across all the above tabled championships (plus 'Grass Track' wins on the preceding page,) failed to approach those of Riss, with a staggering 46 titles. The Swabian finally retired aged 45 after sustaining extensive leg and body injuries which resulted from a crash in the French round of the 2010 LT Grand Prix series.

    In 2014 Erik Riss, younger son of Gerd, won the German National title: he also took the World Long Track Championship at his first attempt that year, the youngest ever winner at 19 years old. He repeated the World win in 2016, when he also won the ADAC Gold Helmet and the ADAC-Pfalz Silver Helmet, repeated in 2022.

             Father and son World Champions, Gerd and Erik Riss            Gold Helmet winner of 2016                    
                  (and in action, further down the page.)                                            Erik Riss
                                                
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Austria
    In 1936 Austria ran a 'Motorcycle Track Racing Championship' over 4 rounds concluding at the Krieau trotting track in Vienna, (a dirt course still in equestrian use today.) Other venues included both grass and dirt surfaces. Races for 250cc, 350cc and 500cc classes were staged, though only the 250 and 350 championships were given official status by the national authority, the Supreme National Sports Commission of Austrian Automobile Clubs. Perhaps because of political unrest the next known championships weren't until the early 1950s when Fritz Dirtl, 3-times national speedway champion and the 1949 winner of the Czech Golden Helmet, proceeded to add 3 consecutive Long Track championships to his score.  A number of championships were also staged in the 1960s.

                   Below, action from Vienna-Krieau;    a 1953 programme ;    Fritz Dirtl, LT Champion, 1952-'54

4 Wigg,  12 Schofield,  11 Maier,  8 Lausch,  3 Loram,  7 van Direk

ADAC Golden Helmet
   The German automobile association, ADAC, have annually since 1956, on a rotational basis at tracks in the North, South and central Germany, put up for Long Track competition a Golden Helmet trophy. (It also awards an equivalent ADAC Silver Helmet for Grass Track racing: see the Grass Track page.) The high status much respected competition can be considered an 'Open' national championship, the winners table populated with the names of revered German track stars such as Manfred Poschenreider (5 times,) Alois Wiesbock (4x,) Josef Hofmeister (3x,) and speedway World Champions Mauger, Knutsson, Lee and Muller. But once again it has been Gerd Riss that has been crowned the most times with 8 wins over a 20 year period. Other British winners include Simon Wigg, Kelvin Tatum and Andrew Appleton, the latter achieving the double with both the Gold and the Pfalz Silver Helmets in 2013.

Gerd Riss,  winning the ADAC Golden Helmet at Herxheim in 2009.
  

  2017 ADAC Helmet winners: Bernt Diener (Gold)      Jannick de Jong (Silver)           

 ADAC-Pfalz Sandbahn Silver Helmet
    A prestigious Open International Long Track competition, the ADAC-Pfalz Silver Helmet, - "Silberhelm" - , has been held annually in Herxheim, Germany for over 50 years and has always attracted star speedway and Long/Grass Track riders for the much-coveted trophy. Periodically Herxheim is nominated to hold the annual ADAC Golden Helmet competition, (above,) when it substitutes the regional ADAC's silver headgear, the last occasion being 2015 and won by Jonas Kilmakorpi.
     Historically, Josef Hofmeister and Manfred Poschenreider each had 5 wins in the early years, until international participation in the form of Don Godden, UK, and Ole Olsen, Denmark, made its impact in the 1970s. Again Gerd Riss dominated another track competition with 11 wins from 1988 onward, interrupted only by Brit Kelvin Tatum in the early ‘00s with his 5 wins. Other successes were achieved by Simon Wigg and Marvyn Cox from GB, and Hans Nielsen of Denmark.
 Goldener Römer
    The Altrip club moved from running an annual MotorCross meeting to Long Track racing in the late 1950s with a 'Goldener Romer' award, (a traditional Rhine wine goblet, seen Rt.) Early winners were Egon Muller and Karl Maier, both with 4 successes. Brits Wigg and Tatum again appear amongst winners, as well as Peter Collins and, in more recent times, Glen Phillips, but 8x World Champion Gerd Riss excelled with 11 first places.
 Goldhelm des ADMV
    The Lubbenau club in Brandenburg present the ADMV Golden Helmet (below Rt,) to the winner of its May Day classic race meeting, first started in 1975. In the initial years up to 1990 the event was dominated by Czechoslovak riders, with only Dietmar Lieschke, a 6x winner, able to compete on a par with the DDR's Iron Curtain colleges. When East Germany opened to the West, riders from Switzerland, Sweden and Great Britain claimed the trophy before a 10-year hiatus saw Enrico Janoschka return with a hat-trick of wins at the turn of the decade. Jorg Tebbe and veteran Bernd Diener have been recent winners.
  


 Blue Band of Plattling
     The Plattling motorcycle club was established in 1928, staging racing on the local horse track, and its first status Long Track event, the Blue Band of Plattling, was held in 1937. A Silver Helmet trophy was also initiated that year, plus a Golden Ring trophy post-war. Big pre-war names like Sneeweis and Gunzenhauser - the later with 3 successes - , are to be seen amongst the winners, whilst Albin Siegl took 5 awards at the start of the 1950s and 18-year-old Josef Hofmeister won his first Blue Band in 1953. After a 10-year gap the competition was revived and he returned to win again in 1962. School-boy Hofmeister is seen below with an early Plattling victory wreath on a small (250cc class -?) machine circa 1947.
    Manfred Poschenreider was 3-time winner by '74, after which the club's prestigious event was revised, to become the “Große Preis der Stadt Plattling”, - the 'Grand Prize'. Alois Wiebock dominated the race in the early years with 6 wins, bettered only by Gerd Riss with one more over a 17 year period. Brits Simon Wigg and Kelvin Tatum had successes, whilst Don Godden had taken the Plattling Silver Helmet in 1972.


Plattling
    1936(m/c+horse races)            1971 Blue Band                  1973 GH                        2016 'GP of SP' 
    

 EASTERN EUROPE & USSR STATES

         - Czecho(slovakia)  -  USSR  - Russia
                  - Estonia   - Ukraine  - Turkmenistan 
                         - Romania   - Hungary

    Click thumbnail for full-size tables.
 

CZECHO(SLOVAKIA)
12-times Czech speedway champion Jiri Stancl added 6 national Long Track titles to his collection whilst in more recent times Zdenek Schneiderwind (photo rt,) also achieved 6 championship wins. The competition has been 'open' to non-nationals in latter years.

USSR / RUSSIA
Long Track championships for both the collective USSR states and for the state of Russia have been raced for annually, as they have for speedway championships. Both Tarabankov and Klytchkov have done the double, taking the Russian and the USSR LT championships in one season, and Vladimir Gordeev has won a speedway and an LT championship in the same year.

ESTONIA
As well as hosting the Soviet Union's LT championship the Hippodrome in Tallin also staged its own national Long Track Championship. Local boy Rene Aas, (photo rt,) runner-up in the U21 Speedway World Championship in 1990 (ahead of Tony Rickardsson in 3rd place,) took his country's LT title in the following 2 years and went on to join Sheffield Tigers in 1993. (He is now domiciled in the UK.)

EAST GERMANY
The former communist East Germany Long Track champions are listed above with West Germany + the unified state. Only once in the decade of the '50s did Hans Zierk (photo rt,) fail to win the East German LT title. He relocated to the West in 1960, taking NBM titles and subsequently became famed for engine tuning, including for Briggo, Wigg, Tatum and Riss.


ROMANIA  &  HUNGARY
Romanian Dirt Track championships were held in the early years of motorcycle sport at Baslov and Bucharest, including at the  ¾-mile track in the capital's velodrome. Nicolae Ionescu-Cristea (seen rt, #3,) was a 4-time winner.
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It is believed that Tivadar Zamecsnik won a similar Hungarian Track Championship in 1932, but information on racing in the Magyar state at this period in time is limited.


UKRAINE  &  TURKMENISTAN
Little is known about Long Track racing in these 2 former USSR states. One time Ukrainian Ice race champion Vladimir Forostyanya relocated to the central Asian country of Turkmenistan around 1980 and proceeded to take 6 national Long Track championships there in the subsequent years.

Leipzig E.Gy, 1952                 Gornja Radgona,            Marianske Lazne, CZ            Mar.Lazne CZ, 1983   
   World LT Chmpshp          Yugoslavia, 1977, 1983               World LT ¼F                  Czech LT Chmpshp     

 SCANDINAVIA
                       -  Finland,   - Norway,    - Sweden,    - Denmark,     - 'Nordic'

    Click thumbnail for full-size tables.

FINLAND
    Long Track racing in Finland and a corresponding national LT championship was established well before a speedway national championship, - 1936 v/v 1955 - , and the championship has been held every year without fail since '36 other than the war years. (Results of the 1975 final were declared void because of a rule infringement.)

    Jari Kortelainen has been the most successful rider with 7 titles gained between 1988 and 2001; Timo Laine (photo rt,) took 6 titles between 1962 and '72.

NORWAY
    Here also Long Track racing has prominence, the Norwegian LT championship having been established in 1932, the same year as a speedway championship. There was a lull in the '90s but in the present century the championship has been upheld. Jon Odegaard in the '60s & '70s had 6 national successes but the record of Leif 'Basse' Hveem (photo rt,) is unsurpassed. He dominated the post-war scene and took 8 national Long Track titles plus 8 'Nordic LT Championship' wins (in addition to 9 speedway nationals,) between 1946 and 1957.

DENMARK
    The Danish Long Track championship was initiated shortly after their Northern neighbours but has fallen from the sporting calendar over the last decade, primarily because of the closure of Long Tracks such as Charlottenburg and Korskro, - Danish club SM Gandrup holds its DMU-status Long Track meetings across the border at Jübek in Germany: see p.GH5 for Gold Bar and Gold Bear LTs - , and because of the pre-eminence of speedway following the nation's international successes on the shorter tracks. Former Cradley and Belle Vue rider Kristian Praestbro was a 5x LT winner in the 1970s but outstanding amongst Scandinavian title holders is Kurt W.Pedersen (photo rt,) who dominated the regional scene from 1959 to 1969, i.e. after Hveem's retirement, with 11 consecutive championship wins. KWP had rides with Norwich in 1961 but was unable to show the same form on The Firs relatively smaller 425 yard circuit that he was capable of at home, even though he was also the contemporaneous Danish speedway champ.
        After a 23 year hiatus a Danish Long Track national championship was reinstated in 2019, and 4 of the 5 following years championships were won by Kenneth Kruse Hansen on a newly rebuilt track at Skovby.
   Above left: 1953 Long Track Chmpshp, Aarhus Trotting track.

SWEDEN
   Sweden's Long Track involvement at national level has been more spasmodic: there were national championships staged pre-war, whilst the 1981 final was stated to be the first official event and the competition in the two preceding years at least having 'unoffical' status. Former Monarch and Heathen Bernt Persson (photo rt,) won that first post-war official, with the last in 1995 an 'open' event won by Norwegian Gjermund Aas, (making him a unique triple winner across the region by taking the Long Track championships of Norway, Finland and Sweden in turn, plus the combined Nordic title.)

NORDIC CHAMPIONSHIP
   First raced for as early as 1926, data on this event does show the early superiority of Engstrom (DK) and Hveem (NY) pre- and post-war, and the Finnish and Norwegian predominance over the last decade through a number of various riders. In recent times  Aki-Pekka Mustonen has been a 4x Nordic champion, and younger brother Jesse Mustonen the last staged winner in 2019.

 AUSTRALASIA

Australia and New Zealand Long Track championships
                    & LT Grand Prix,  (incl'g 5-mile Chmpshps.)

   Click thumbnail for full-size tables.

    With Australia being acknowledged by most as the birthplace of speedway many of the showground tracks that ran speedway would, by size at least, constitute being 'Long Tracks', i.e. greater than 440yds or 425m. As early as the mid- 1920s "5-Mile Dirt Track Championships", national and state, were being contested, - 5 laps of a 1 mile circuit, in various classes - , in which Billy Conoulty on his Douglas (below left,) had many successes.

 
                             Billy Conoulty  1925                                                          Chris Watson  1995

    However the first modern day Long Track Championships were staged post-war at the 1-mile Port Pirie track in the state of South Australia, (designated 'Australian 5ml. Motorcycle Speed Championships', and with an 'Unlimited' top class which often featured 1000cc bikes alongside JAPs and ESOs,) where UK-based Provincial Lge riders like Geof Mudge, Ivan Mauger and 3x-winner Jack Scott were successful champs.

    Approaching the Millenium, on shorter alternating venues, - Port Pirie became a ½ml. track from 1967 onward - , Long Track championship meetings were again staged, pulling in international LT riders from Europe including World Champions such as Simon Wigg, Kelvin Tatum and Gerd Riss, most frequently for promotions of national Championships and Grand Prix run by former champion Ivan Mauger, and coupled with similar events in New Zealand.

    The most successful Anzac over this period has been Aussie Chris Watson, (above rt,) who has taken 6 Oz Championships and GPs as well as 3 New Zealand titles over a 20 year period between his first in '89/90 and his latest in NZ in Nov. 2010. (See also the Australasia page.)

                                             
  Australian Long Track Championships,     Port Pirie 1991                           Bathurst 1995

      Aust LT Grand Prix,
            Canberra 1995             Tamworth (NSW) 1998          Shepparton (Vic) 1999.      NZ Lg.Trk GP Ch'ch 1996

 AMERICA:

GREAT BRITAIN     - Long Track Racing
                                          - Sand Racing Championship
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  - LONG TRACK RACING
     No Long Track national championships have ever been established in UK. Several Long Track ventures were initiated in the UK in the 'seventies following initial stagings in North Wales and Kent, - listed below - , though none were British championships as, despite claims in some publications, such a title was never established.

    Promoted as Long Track meetings as opposed to grass track racing, (though Astra MCC used the term 'Speed Track' for the Lydden meetings), most were run by, or in junction with, local motorcycle clubs, with surfaces varying from grass, sand, shale, or crushed limestone, and were held to attract both the top speedway riders and, hopefully, the travelling speedway supporters: other clubs continued their meetings as Grass Track competitions but with the added participation of world class speedway stars and continental grass/long track riders, e.g. at Ludlow and Driffield, where Ivan Mauger had successes in 1975 and '80. (These are not included here: Grass Track champions are listed elsewhere. n.b. Hereford, in '76 ran the "Grass Track GP", in '77 the "Long Track GP", in '78 the (official) "European Grass Track Championship".)

 (Lt: Ole Olsen at Prestatyn,1969; note hub brake and 3 levers.)
    In more recent times, since the LT World Championship became a GP series in 1997, the UK has staged rounds at the grass circuits of Abingdon(2x) and Collier St. Tonbridge(2x) between '98 and '03, but it is the 1000m Skegness 'Lincolnshire Poacher' course that claims the fastest UK circuit, and which hosted the 2011 European Grass Track Championship.

   

Prestatyn 1969             Motherwell 1972             Chasewater 1977               Hereford 1977               Haldon 1979
 

Chris Pusey   &   Peter Collins,  at Kendal 1972

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 - BRITISH SAND RACING CHAMPIONSHIP
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     Click thumbnail for full-size tables. 

Background
    Bike racers in the U.K. have often taken the opportunity to practice on wide open beaches, - Ainsdale Sands in Lancashire gave many Liverpool and Belle Vue novices including the Craven brothers, their first opportunity - , but in the Channel Islands a beach is the only venue for any off-road track racing. Sand Racing had been held on Guernsey beaches since before World War 2, organised by the Guernsey Motorcycle & Car Club who today stage the ACU British Sand Racing Championship for solo and sidecar machines. Local Guernsey boy Hugh Saunders was one of only a few Channel Islanders to have made it into speedway, having practiced sliding on sand at the end of the '60s, before establishing himself at Hackney and Rye house throughout the 1970s. In the '80s Marcus Bisson from Jersey rode speedway for Weymouth and for Poole before winning Sand Championship races in both the 250cc and 500cc classes in 1988.

    When motor racing on public roads was banned in the UK in the 1920s enthusiasts on 2 and 4 wheels turned to sand beaches where flat straights of sufficient length were to be found and speed record attempts and competitive racing of cars and motorcycles became very popular, the latter embracing sprints, trials and circuit events. Both stripped-down road bikes and purpose-built off-road machines competed in club-organised Sand Races on the foreshores of resorts, - where spectator number often reached 5 figures - , as well as in more remote locations, a phenomenon that continued well after WWII.
     A formal British Sand Racing Championship was inaugurated in the 1970s following an unofficial try-out and the competition continued until 1998 with a full range of solo classes, from 125cc to 1000cc/Unlimited, plus sidecars. In this era multiple rounds were staged principally in the North-East at Wallasey and Southport, the North-West at Redcar and Filey, and the Channel Isles of Jersey and Guernsey. Other clubs, both ACU and AMCA, in Port Talbot, in Lincolnshire, and on the Isle of Man, also staged successful Sand Race meetings. The Mablethorpe Motor Cycle Sand Racing Club, which unusually runs a winter season of race meetings, is now in its 48th year.

   In 1987 the ACU sanctioned a British Sand Race Grand Prix, staged at Bel Royal beach, Millbrook on the isle of Jersey. A 30-plus solo field, (- saloon and racing car heats supplemented the programme,) saw mainland speedway and grass track visitors joined by local Channel Island riders from Guernsey, Jersey and Sark in 4 4-lap heats plus 2 5-lap semi-finals from which the top 10 met in a 7-lap Final. After 2 second places, (to Martyn Cox and Simon Cross,) Kings Lynn's Andy Campbell took his one chequered flag of the evening when it mattered, to head home local boy Dennis Le Breton (on a KTM scrambler !) with Mitch Shirra in third place.
 
    At the Guernsey MC&CC meetings modified road machines were used originally but in the prestigious Condor Ferries 'SandAce' competition introduced in 2006, specialised 500cc GM and Jawa 'slider' machines, i.e. in Grass/Long Track frames, were the norm, solo bikes being supplemented in the last five years with 1000cc sidecars at the re-establishment of a 21st century British Championship. (Monthly club meetings in addition feature MX, Junior and Cadet classes and a range of 4-wheel categories.)
    In its earlier incarnation, winners of the British Championship included John Whalley and Mike Clarke from Guernsey, Honda-mounted Mike Baybutt, Wayne Holland and Andy Daniels from the NW, but Stockport's Declan Eccles, also on Honda, excelled with wins in all classes throughout the '80s decade and onward.

    For the one-day International SandAce British Championship and for their club meetings on Guernsey a track of approx. 800 metres is laid out by cones, mindful of tidal condition for the day. The field comprising around 24 solo participants, plus 16 sidecar crews and included many top UK national and international grass track and long track riders as well as local racers from Guernsey and Jersey. Each takes part in four heats with the highest scoring 8 solos and 6 sidecars qualifying for their respective “sudden death” finals. The finishing positions in the finals determined the overall result.

    Grass-tracker Mitch Godden (right) took all but one of the SandAce titles before moving over to 3 wheels, while south-coast speedway and grass racer Danny Warwick became a 3x ACU champ. In 2013 it was necessary to decide the outcome by ballot with only half of the race programme completed. Warwick, Rodney McDonald and Andrew Appleton were all level, with a perfect score from their two heats when disaster struck and two major accidents on the extremely wet and windy circuit forced the meeting to be abandoned.

    In 2018, as a consequence of ferry vessel changes and the expected limited availability of mainland British riders, the 2018 Vazon Beach championship lost its ACU British Championship status. Nonetheless visiting riders took the 500cc and, - except for Clint Blondel - , the sidecar podium positions. Paul Cooper repeated his win of the previous year, his third consecutive time on the solo podium.
   For 2019 the competition reverted to an ACU British Championship, Cooper again excelling, but Covid caused cancellation the following year, after which the Guernsey club relinquished the event.

     With the pandemic over, 2022 saw the Cheshire Grasstrack Club resurrect the ACU British Sand Racing Championship as the 'British Sand Masters', over a 714m. Lytham St. Annes beach course on the Fylde coast of Lancashire. In its first staging the effect of high winds on the tide caused many machine failures from excessive spray including Paul Cooper's - he finished in just one qualifying race and was awarded a second abandoned heat. Scraping into the final Cooper's beach experence told, the Yorkshire man (photo left) taking a fourth title ahead of Powell and Chanel Islander Jordan Noel. Cooper had an easier route to the 2023 final to take pride-of-place for the fifth consecutive time.

Club Championships
    The Guernsey club also awards annually a seasons' points championship for all race classes. Raced normally over 9 rounds throughout the summer season, in the 500cc 'Slider' class Anthony Bougourd has been successful a record 8 times, achieved over a 13 year period during the present century.
    Similarly at Jersey, though the bike field is lesser in numbers, the club makes an annual end-of-season award, the Ambassador Trophy, for the top biker, where Jordan Noel has, this decade, emulated his father Ian Noel's hat-trick in the first days of the competition in the mid-'80s. 

n.b: At places like Weston-Super-mare, Weymouth and Skegness an annual event of a different form of foreshore racing, more often termed 'Beach Racing' or 'BeachX', an off-shoot of Enduro and MX, incorporates jumps and dunes, natural or man-made, lasting up to 3 hours in duration with fields of several hundred riders. These competitions are not addressed here.