Bruce Ovenden.                                    

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 Callender’s workshop. Dave Hicks was the guru welder, who could weld almost any metals. He patched up the broken crankcase 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 sidecar on it for 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.  He won aggregate points that year. He also rode passenger on a speedway sidecar 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, and 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 motorcycle sales and car wrecking and rental businesses.

While in the motorbike 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.

Sadly Bruce passed away in May 2023.

On left is Bruce at the Palmerston North Speedway 75th reunion.