Roger Wright (born 8 January 1945) is a New Zealand 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. He earned 8 caps for the New Zealand national speedway team.

Career

Wright began riding in 1963 at the age of 19 at the Templeton track in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

. His first success was winning the South Island Championship during the 1966-1967 season. In 1969 he went to the UK to ride for the

Rayleigh Rockets The Rayleigh Rockets were a Motorcycle speedway, Speedway team which operated from 1949 until their closure in 1973 from the Rayleigh Weir Stadium in Rayleigh, Essex, Rayleigh, Essex . History Origins and 1940s In June 1948, the Speedway ...

in the

British League Division Two The British League Division Two was created in 1968 and was the second tier of motorcycle speedway, speedway racing in the United Kingdom until the restructuring of British speedway in 1995. It was renamed the New National League in 1975 and the Na ...

. He had a good debut season but returned home and stayed in Christchurch for the next two years. In 1972 after winning the South Island Championship again and finishing second in the New Zealand Speedway Championship he was offered a place in the Hackney Hawks division one team. He lost his place in this team early in the season but was loaned out to the second division side the Teesside Tigers where he established himself as one of the team's top scorers. For the next decade, he was based in the north of England and had spells with Teesside, Workington and Berwick in the second division. He continued to return home to New Zealand during the UK off season, and rode in 15 New Zealand Championships. The last was in 1985 where, at the age of 40, he finished third.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Roger 1945 births New Zealand speedway riders Living people Berwick Bandits riders New Zealand expatriate speedway riders in England Hackney Hawks riders Middlesbrough Bears riders Rayleigh Rockets riders Workington Comets riders Motorcycle racers from Christchurch