Don was inducted into the NZ Speedway Hall of Fame in 2022. (Click on info card to expand) 
Don’s involvement in speedway began during the early 1960’s at New Plymouth’s Waiwakaiho Speedway where he was a swinger (passenger) on sidecars. He also raced in the Stock motorbike class winning the Taranaki title in the last season of speedway at the Waiwakaiho track.
His involvement didn’t end there, as it was on to TQ Midgets during the late 1970’s early 1980’s at Stratford, where he built and raced several cars, cumulating in winning the New Zealand Championship in 1985 at Meeanee Speedway in Hawkes Bay. His involvement continued after his retirement from driving as he continued to support many other competitors racing efforts.
Due to his involvement of over 20 years with Speedway as a competitor, senior steward in scrambling etc he was appointed to the ACU Board for a couple of years but found the ACU were very controlling and dictatorial.
Don was on the Board of the SCB in the late 70’s but there were issues between the cars and the bikes with the ACU, that was causing friction between the two groups.
In the early 80’s after retiring from the ACU Don started working on an independent body to run speedway in NZ. He found out that in England the UK Government had ruled that speedway should not run under a conflicting organisation such as the ACU, but when he approached the NZ ACU about this, they denied all knowledge of that.
Don then re-wrote the common rules and constitution and registered the name “Speedway Association of NZ INC” and got all the tracks on Board. This was duly approved on June 29th 1983.
At a 1984 Conference the motion was passed and the SCB was formed with Don being made the first Secretary, a position he held for 4 years. He set up the first Office in New Plymouth and single handed, re-wrote the constitution and rules to suit the modern day, and did this without any income as they received none of the money that the ACU had collected from all the competitors. Don was soon made the CEO and had made huge system improvements by fully computerising the membership lists, rules and class details. He sent these out to all NZ tracks along with the full list of elected officials and stewards. They had never seen such efficiency before, so were very happy with the new organisation.
Upon his retirement from Speedway as a very capable administrator he was awarded Life membership of the now renamed Speedway New Zealand, and at the AGM of SNZ held in Wellington on June 19th 2010 he was voted in, as its first Patron.
Don has been heavily involved in the revival of motorcycle speedway in NZ and had designed and built a number of Suzuki 125cc powered Junior solo bikes for promoting the youth classes. Most of these were given to the Motorcycle Speedway tracks at no charge so they each had a “club” bike to encourage youth competitors to the sport.
Don has remained very supportive to speedway and is presently the Patron of the Taranaki Historic Speedway Association. Don was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2020 New Year Honors, for his services to motorsport.