Bruce Ovenden.
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Bruce Ovenden.
Home.
Bruce was born in New Plymouth, New Zealand. His first road bike was a hand
change James 2 stroke and he crewed for Gary Waldie in 1955/6 at Waiwakaiho
Speedway. He decided to ride himself in 1956/57 and used a road AJS with a
JAP motor he rescued from parts out of the rubbish bins in Johnny Callenders
workshop. Dave Hicks was the guru welder, who could weld almost any metals. He
patched up the broken crank case halves and others helped put this "bitza"
motor together.
He used this bike on speedway, scrambling
(motor cross--with no front brake) and even with a side car on it for a street
racing. He enjoyed many tussles with Ash King, Russ Miscall, Howard Goble, Dave Moorehead, Des Carter, Dave Gardner and John Furze. One achievement was 2nd in
the NZ grass track championship at Wanganui. Around 1960 he purchased a proper
speedway solo bike and did most of his riding at Palmerston North and Napier until New
Plymouth started solo bikes as well in 62/63. Won aggregate points that year. He
also rode passenger on a speedway side car outfit and had a brief spin in a
midget.
In December 1963 he went to England with fellow
speedway rider Joe Hicks. They were possibly the first Taranaki speedway riders
to go to UK. Bruce arrived broke and cold and flatted with other Kiwi's
including Ginger Molloy.
He went
to Glasgow and got a ride in with Ian Hoskins at the Glasgow
Tigers
(see photo
right) where he
rode for the whole time he was in UK. He rode Provincial league in 1964 and then
when the "Black listing" was over, in the combined British League in 1965.
He reached the semi final of the world champs in
1965. Moved to Manchester to live because he thought the parties would be better then he
moved later to Southampton to spend the winter where he worked in a chalk
factory for a while.
During his period in Scotland Bruce rode in test
matches for Scotland (that was because his name is Bruce!), against England and
for "Overseas" against Scotland.
Bruce came home to New Zealand in 1966 and rode
speedway for a while then retired in 1967 and went scuba diving, scrambling,
deep sea fishing, flying, powerboat racing and between times ran various motor
cycle sales and car wrecking and rental business's. While in the motor bike
business, and noting that scrambling was almost dead, he was instrumental in
starting farm bike scrambling which helped to save the sport that is now called
motocross.
On left is Bruce at the Palmerston North Speedway 75th reunion