Speedway Champions

Background
    In 2006 FIM created the Women in Motorcycling Commission, since when Women's World Championships have been established in Motocross, Enduro and Trials, with a Circuit Racing Championship inaugurated in 2024. This same year also saw FIM's recognition of female participation in speedway with an inaugural Gold Trophy competition, "The FIM Women's Speedway Gold Trophy" which it is intended will lead to the establishment of a Women's World Championship.
    Note: an FIM Gold Trophy event is the initial forerunner, - followed by a Gold Cup competition - , to an FIM World Championship classification in many international motorcycle racing classes, the declared objective of this newest speedway competition.

Academies
    To this end, a 'Women's Speedway Academy' (WSA) was first held at Diedenbergen, N-R Westphalia, Germany, in 2022, when a squad of 6 female riders, 3 from the home country and one each from UK, Netherlands and Australia, undertook training and tuition for 2 days, concluding with a competition, a forerunner to the Gold Trophy, the 'Ladies Cup', which was won by Celine Liebmann. UK's Katie Gordon was fifth.

    The following year the Academy was held at the National Speedway Stadium, Manchester with former triple World Champion Jason Crump and FIM director Phil Morris on hand. 15 riders enrolled, 9 British, 3 German and one each from Australia, Ireland and Netherlands. Classroom theory as well as practical on-track instruction was included. (There was no 'Ladies Cup' competition staged.)

    In 2024 the WSA was hosted by the MC Bergring club, Teterow, in M-W Pomerania, Germany in the days preceding the Gold Trophy competition. Tuition to the 14 members, - 7 local nationals, 2 Brits, 2 Dutch, one each from France, Australia and Argentina, (for 250cc, 12 year olds upward : for 500cc, 15yrs upward.) - , was given by 4x World Champ Greg Hancock and by Long Track Silver medallist and race director Glen Phillips.

    After two days of the third Academy the inaugural FIM Women's Speedway Gold Trophy was staged at the Bergring Arena. The winner was 23 year old Celine Liebmann of Germany: UK representatives Rachel Hellowell and Katie Gordon were 5th and 7th respectively amongst an 11-strong field.

  



Gold Trophy

    The 11 adult riders of the 2024 Academy in Diedenbergen entered the Gold Trophy event, (for 16yrs upwards and 500cc machines.) The four top-scoring riders after 12 heats met in the WSGT Grand Final, which progressed no further than the first bend as Nynke Sijbesma (NL) and Anika Loftus (AUS) crashed and were hospitalised. Being unable to take part in a rerun, medal placings were thus declared from the points ranking, where Workington Comets rider Celina Liebmann (photo Rt,) had been unbeaten. Mothers of the injured two riders joined her on the podium to receive the silver and bronze awards.
    Further detail, results, and background are given below.

Early Days

    As early as 1928, though just a handful in number, female speedway riders were active in the new sport. Most notable, with successes against top level male counterparts were Fay Taylour and Eva Askquith. The former travelled widely, being possibly the first European rider, (of any sex,) as a freelancer, to follow the new Australian racers returning home for the '28/'29 season down-under, and on return was feted by the likes of Wembley promoter Johnnie Hoskins and became the winner of Wembley's 'Cinders Trophy' for the one lap flying start track record, which with time and her other exploits gave her the sobriquet 'Queen of the Cinders'.  She appeared regularly at Crystal Palace and many Southern tracks.
    Yorkshire-born Askquith meanwhile had been prolific in the North, and following a stint in Denmark, with each woman being a big draw, they were brought together at the start of the Empire Stadium's 1929 season for Match Races, which Askquith won 2-0, (below).
    Female riders were not permitted to race in team matches, only match races, timed speed and track record attempts, and similar demonstration events.  But in 1930, following an injury to another female rider who fell during an opening parade, the promoting authorities declared the sport to be too dangerous for women and placed a ban on ladies participating in speedway, which was not officially rescinded until 1988.

         
               Fay Taylour biography                                   FayTaylour & Eva Askquith at  Wembley, 1929

    The 1929 opening speedway season of Wembley's Empire Stadium included several meetings involving female riders Taylour and Askquith. Both were involved in the two meetings in the first week of June, Wembley's 5th and 6th meetings, occasions which went down in speedway history.
    On Tuesday evening the opening highlight Match Races were ladies races, the event won 2-0 by Eva Askquith. In the following Handicap event, as the only female, she won her heat and came second in the Final. Two days later the opener was the Cinders Trophy competition for attempting to break the 1-lap track record. Future World Champion Harry Whitfield was unsuccessful, registering 22.0 seconds for the flying start. Fay Taylour followed, and with a time of 20.8s set a new TR (track record.) In the following Match Race event she won her heat against Whitfield but lost the MR Final to the other heat winner Drew McQueen. Taylour bombed in her Handicap heat, then fell in her heat of the Scratch Races.
    At the end of June the programme opener was the 'Ladies Special Match Races', bringing back together Taylour and Askquith. A rerun of Ht.1 was won by Askquith after both had fallen initially, but Taylour then took the second heat and the decider, with the best time of 87.6s. and a 2-1 result. Askquith was then put up in the Cinders event but neither herself (at 21.2s), Buster Frogley nor Alf Chick were successful in bettering Fay Taylour's TR.
    The Northern lass was given another attempt at the track record on 18th July, when though again unsuccessful, a new TR was set by Max Grosskreuz, at 20.4s. In the Match Races Askquith was beaten by Bert Fairweather, and she came second in Ht.2 of the Handicaps behind Joe Ormston. In August, after a Match Race and a Handicap ride she again clocked 21.8s as before. That was to be the last female attempt at the Flying Start 1-lap record, and later in the month it was twice reset, - at 20.2s, (by Stan Carlett,) and then 20.0s (by Jack Ormston. )
    There was however one more Wembley female appearance, a 'Ladies Match Race', when Eva Askquith beat Sunny Somerset in a single MR. on August 29th.

    The 1930 ban on female speedway riders, (who had never been allowed to participate in team matches) meant that the sole programmed female race in Wembley's second year of racing, a 'Ladies Match Race' between Miss Billie Smith and Miss Sunny Somerset on May15th was cancelled !
    Notwithstanding, in 1931 Fay Taylour did appear once more, in October of that year, for a novelty “track record attempt” on her own record set 6/6/1929, (being unsuccessful at 22.2s), v/v a “Motor Car Cinders” timed lap, the Fraser-Nash 'Terror', driven by the eminent RGJ 'Dick' Nash, which also achieved 22.2s.

post script:
   Beside the two female riders covered here and their fuller biographies given under PROFILES below, the following lady riders are known to have raced speedway in the early pioneering days before a ban was imposed:
    Dot Dawson (nee Cowley),   Miss "Sunny Somerset" (Vera Hole,)
    Jessie Hole,      Gladys Thornhill,    Marjorie Cottle,    Edyth Foley,   "Babs" Neild.

    As one event in a composite programme of team matches, match races, handicap and scratch races, rolling and flying starts, over 1, 2, 3 and 4 laps, two or three riders would successively take to the track to set a time for a one lap flying start, attempting to better the established TR (track record), set initially by American Ray Tauser at 21.0 seconds, (which bettered the times of Buster Frogley, 21.2s, and Alf Chick, 22.8s.)
 The occasion of Fay Taylour's successful attempt was during Wembley's 6th. meeting.  Harry Whitfield, future 1933 World Dirt Track Champion, clocked an unsuccessful 22.0s after which Miss Taylour set a new TR of 20.8s.  Scheduled approximately monthly, - race meetings were held twice weekly, Tues. and Thurs. during 1929 - , it was mid-July, after 5 unsuccessful attempts, that Max Grosskreutz, the first World Champion of 1931 produced a new TR of 20.4 seconds.
   Cinders Trophy TR attempts were programmed on 11 occasions during 1929, and a new track record established 4 times, and equalled 5 times, closing the season at 20.0s.
   Cinders Trophy 1-lap flying start record attempts were scheduled each subsequent year: at the 1939 war-time closure it stood at 17.4s. with names like Ormston, Atkinson, Greenwood, Frogley, Lamont, Watson and Van Pragg as intermittant trophy holders during the decade.
    Post-war, there were fewer TR attempts staged. In 1948, with Wembley stadium lost to the Olympics until September, only one staging of the Cinders Trophy was possible, which then was to become the annual frequency in subsequent years. By 1950 the best post-war time was 17.6s set by Tommy Price, but still not bettering the pre-war TR. In June of 1952,19-year old Ronnie Moore clocked 17.2s to become Trophy holder, a figure he repeated in a rare second staging in October, only to lose to Freddie Williams's 17.0s the same night. Williams repeated the time in the 1953 staging, which stood as the TR until the stadium closure of 1956, (as stated in the programme of the 1954 staging, 1/7/54.) Further later attempts, including by Williams, Price, and by Crutcher, Briggs and Hussey were unsuccessful.
    In the Wembley Lions re-emergence year of 1970, 1-lap Flying Starts targeting the 17.0s. track record set by Freddie Williams back in 1952 were run. Attempts by Bert Harkins, (n/k), Reidar Eide (17.3s), Eric Boocock, (n.s, - e.t ?), Ronnie Moore (17.6s) and Ole Olsen (17.3s) all failed to meet or break the record.                                       1970

     Fay Taylour was the first person to be given the accolade 'Queen of the Cinders', but as Wembley was reduced to no more than a World Final venue, at another London speedway track in 1964 a different woman rider was hailed as the new 'Queen of the Cinders'. At Hackney Wick's Waterden Rd Stadium historic female rider Match Races were staged, the first for over 30 years, as the Provincial League tracks such as Hackney were operating 'black', outside the ACU's national authority where females were banned.

    In July '1964 Rosita Mattingley, (29), wife of Glasgow Tigers' Maury Mattingley, was matched against diminutive 21year old local Mary Mansfield from Hackney, (photo L & R). Mary won the race, to be pronounced Speedway Queen of the Cinders.
    In September Walthamstow born Beryl Swain, the only female at that point to ride in the Isle of Man TT races, (and whose presence there in 1962, in echoes of 1930 in speedway, gave rise to a hastily enacted female TT ban not rescinded until 1978), was pitted against 'Queen of the Cinders' holder Mary Mansfield. On the night 28 year old Beryl won the toss and chose the inside gate, but given only 2 weeks practice on shale, the challenger was passed on the first bend and came home half a lap behind.

    Come 2019 and signed by Weymouth Wildcats for her first season in league racing after being spotted riding at Poole, Cesca, as she became known, was one of only 2 women competing in the Midland & Southern Development League (MSDL) the other being Rachel Hellowell of Birmingham Bulls. History was set to have been made in May 2019, - and again in August - , as two female team racers were to line-up in opposition for the first time in the sport's 90-plus year existence, (photo Rt.) Unfortunately the record remains to be established, as first curfew and then rain prevented the staging of the Perry Barr team match. (See also Hellowell profile, re female teammates.)
    Cesca was an Eastbourne Seagulls signing in 2020: she rode for Weymouth again in 2024 at Smallmead, IoW.
    In everyday life FKP, with an Honours degree in Politics and German, is a public affairs manager. She has worked with MPs, membership organisations and charities and was a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Speedway.

Photo below, July 2013: George English, Mark Pawsey MP, Alex Harkess, Nick Brown MP, Michael Addison, Francesca Kirtley-Paine, (staff of Mr Pawsey and an amateur speedway rider)
         

   As a teenage cycle-speedway rider Jessica Lamb had reached international status with a Womens European Championship bronze medal in 1995. Born Poole 5.2.1977, Jessica started powered speedway in 2001 at the age of 24, rode for Somerset Giants in 2002, and was signed by Trelawny in 2003, but a compound arm break put her out of action for 2 years..
   On her return she had second halves at Wimbledon, and rides for Poole's second team. When Plymouth Devils reopened in 2006 after 4 barren decades Jessica was signed up and was the only senior lady rider in Britain at that point, (Photo Rt on bike.)
     At the same time still racing cycle-speedway, she missed out on a medal in the first national womens cycle-speedway championship after a 3-way run-off but took gold to become Cycle-Speedway National Womens Champion in the following year, 2007.
  

Nanae Okamoto (JP)
    Nanae Okamoto began speedway riding in 1957 at the Hamamatsu Speedway near Tokyo and won her first race in Japan. Rising to the top of the sport she soon conceded starts of up to 100 yards to many male opponents. She was not the only female competitor then, but most preferred to compete on the tarred ovals known as Auto Race, where one competition class catered exclusively for females. Of more than 60 lady racers competing in the 1960s in Japan, Nanae was the only one to regularly compete on the dirt ovals, which were all gone by the time the next decade rolled around.
     In her late twenties Nanae Okamoto arrived in Sydney for the 1963/64 season and raced at the Royale. The promotion had a major battle to get permission for Nanae to race as the Speedway Control Board frowned on women competing, especially in the Solo class.They had to assure the board that the women had raced with success overseas and were skilled enough to appear against men rivals.
   Nanae brought with her a Japanese-built Kyokuto 350cc machine (meaning ‘Sunrise”) built by the Honda family (no relation to Soichiro Honda). Unlike the rest of the field, the chain-driven overhead camshaft Kyokuto engine ran on petrol rather than methanol. At the Royale she worked her way back to the 40 yard mark in the popular handicap races. During her first season in Australia, Okamoto competed at Claremont in Perth, the Brisbane Exhibition Ground, and Rowley Park in Adelaide. She returned to Sydney for a second season, - see programme Rt.
    Okamoto retired from racing in 1967, sadly she died from an accident after her return to Japan. No new female racers have appeared in Japan until 2010, when a special training school was set up there