Peter Edward Smith (born 12 March 1957) is a former

motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four clockwise, anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that ...

rider from England.

Career

Born in

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It is the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. The town's population was 71,422 in 2021, while the wider boroug ...

, Smith first rode at

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

in 1974 and was signed by

British League The British League was the main motorcycle speedway league in Britain from its formation in 1965 until 1995 when British speedway was restructured. It initially had a single division, with a British League Division Two, second division starting i ...

King's Lynn Stars the following year.Oakes, Peter & Mauger, Ivan (1976) ''Who's Who of World Speedway'', Studio Publications, , p. 101 He had one match for the Stars in 1975 but most of his racing was in the

National League National League often refers to: *National League (baseball), one of the two baseball leagues constituting Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada *National League (division), the fifth division of the English football (soccer) system ...

on loan to Teesside Teessiders, for whom he did most of his racing until 1978.Oakes, Peter (1980) ''1980 Speedway Yearbook'', Studio Publications, , p. 142-3 By 1979 he had established himself as a regular member of the King's Lynn team,

averaging In ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by how many nu ...

close to five points per match. In 1981 he transferred to Leicester Lions, where he again averaged close to five points, also riding in the National League with

Stoke Potters The Stoke Potters previously the Hanley Potters were a British speedway team. As Hanley Potters they raced at the Sun Street Stadium from 1929 to 1963 and as Stoke, the team raced at Loomer Road Stadium in Newcastle-under-Lyme from 1973 to ...

, where he established himself as a heat leader.Jones, Alan (2010) ''Speedway in Leicester: The Lions Roar'', Automedia, p. 177 Two seasons with Stoke followed before he returned to Middlesbrough in 1984, the Teessiders by now renamed Middlesbrough Tigers. He moved to Long Eaton Invaders in 1985, but by 1986 was only involved in a handful of matches. After a few outings for Stoke Potters in 1986 he retired from the sport for good.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Pete 1957 births Living people British speedway riders English motorcycle racers Sportspeople from Barnsley King's Lynn Stars riders Middlesbrough Bears riders Leicester Lions riders Stoke Potters riders Long Eaton Invaders riders 20th-century English sportsmen