Todd Wiltshire

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Todd Wiltshire
Rybnik
2000-2003Bydgoszcz
Sweden
1991Skepparna
Individual honours
1987, 1988ACT State Champion
1989
Intercontinental Champion
Team honours
1990British League winner
1990British League Knockout Cup winner
1991Australian Best Pairs Champion
1999Speedway World Team Cup
2001, 2002Speedway World Cup

Todd Wiltshire (born 26 September 1968 in

Australian Champion, winning in 1999 and 2001.[2][3][4]

Career

Australia

Despite being born in

Lake Macquarie
Mini-Cycle Club, giving his older sister Fiona the credit for getting him started in racing saying she was his inspiration through her own involvement in dirt track racing. Wiltshire won numerous junior titles before capturing the Australian 500cc championship in his first senior year in 1986.

Seeking a new challenge Wiltshire turned to Speedway in late 1986 and won the

1990 Intercontinental Final. Wiltshire finished 11th in Vojens in Denmark to be the only Australian and final qualifier for the World Final in Bradford[5]

Wiltshire finished a surprise 3rd at the

Arunga Park Speedway in Alice Springs
, though he paired with Boyce (who won the individual title) to win the Australian Pairs Championship a night earlier.

His 1990/91 Australian season did include success in some of the bigger meetings. On 8 December he captained NSW to a win over the touring

Wayville Showgrounds
.

Wiltshire headed back to the United Kingdom but failed to re-capture his previous seasons form and the World #3 failed to make the World Final in

Nepean Speedway, Wiltshire was seeded to ride in the 1992 Australian Championship to be held at the North Arm Speedway in Adelaide. During his first ride of the meeting (Heat 3), and after leading three-quarters of the race, he was passed on the inside of the back straight by Jason Lyons. Going into turn 3 Wiltshire fell while attempting to re-pass Lyons on the outside and slid into the safety fence, suffering terrible back injuries and multiple fractures of the Pelvis which forced him to spend a number of days recovering in the Royal Adelaide Hospital
. Thankfully his Spinal Cord was not damaged in the crash, however the injuries were bad enough that the 23-year-old Wiltshire decided to retire from racing.

After making a comeback to racing in Germany during 1997, Wiltshire won his first Australian Solo Championship in 1999 at the

Riverview Speedway in Murray Bridge in 2001.[6] After finishing 4th at Wayville in 2002, Wiltshire returned to the podium in 2003, finishing second to Leigh Adams in Gosford. He would finish 3rd in 2004 (the first year the Australian Championship was run as a series rather than in the traditional single meeting format), before finishing second again in 2006 (again to Leigh Adams). Following his second placing in 2006, Wiltshire announced his retirement from racing.[7]

In 2011, the

Cowra and Max Fricke from Victoria rounded out the podium places with Wiltshire himself on hand to award the winners trophy's.[8]

England

Starting in 1988, Todd Wiltshire rode for the Wimbledon Dons in the National League, helping the Dons to finish runners-up in the Knock-Out Cup in 1988 and second in the league in 1989.[9] Wiltshire also won the Scottish Open Championship in 1989.

Wiltshire moved up to the first division in 1990 with Reading Racers[10] where he was voted British speedway rider of the year after finishing third in the World Final at Bradford. While with Reading where he was teammate to Per Jonsson, Wiltshire would win both the British League and British League Knockout Cup in 1990.[11]

He had three spells with the Oxford Cheetahs from 1998 to 2001 where he was part of the Elite League title winning team in 2001.[12] After not racing for Oxford in the 2002 season, due to a rule capping the number of Grand Prix riders in Elite League teams, he returned to the team in 2003 and he also made a short-lived but successful comeback in 2006 for the Cheetahs before retiring for the last time.[13][14]

Germany

Following his crash at the 1992 Australian Championships which had forced his retirement, Wiltshire made a comeback in 1997, riding in Germany in a bid to gain a place in the Speedway Grand Prix after being denied a licence to race in the United Kingdom. Though he won the German Individual Championship in both 1997 and 1998, he failed to qualify for the SGP until 2000.

International

Wiltshire first made his mark on the international scene when he was a surprise qualifier for the

Intercontinental Final. He would surprise further by winning his first two races in the World Final before eventually finishing 3rd, only 1 point behind Reading teammate Per Jonsson who defeated Shawn Moran in a runoff after both finished on 13 points (Moran was later stripped of 2nd place after failing a drug test at the Overseas Final 3 months prior to the World Final). Despite Moran's disqualification, the FIM
did not upgrade placings and Wiltshire remains in 3rd place in the record books with no second place medal awarded.

Wiltshire followed up his 3rd placing in the Individual Final with 2nd in the

Ellermühle Stadium in Landshut, Germany, paired with fellow Aussie Leigh Adams. Wiltshire and Adams finished 2 points behind defending champions Jan O. Pedersen and Hans Nielsen
. With 25 points, Wiltshire was the meetings top scorer with 3 wins, a second and two third placings from his six rides.

Following his win in the Australian Championship in 1999, Wiltshire was given a birth in the Overseas Final. He finished 4th to easily qualify for the Intercontinental Final. He won the 1999 IC Final which gave him an automatic berth in the 2000 Speedway Grand Prix. He would ride in the SGP from 2000 until 2003 though he never managed to achieve higher than second place in a Grand Prix event.

Wiltshire was also part of the Australian team which won the 1999 Speedway World Team Cup, the first time since 1976 that Australia had won the title, as well as representing Australia in numerous test matches around the world. He repeated the success in both 2001 and 2002 (the Speedway World Team Cup was replaced after 2000 with the Speedway World Cup).

World Final Appearances

Individual World Championship

World Pairs Championship

World Team Cup

World Cup

Speedway Grand Prix results

Year Position Points Best finish Notes
2000 8th 63 3rd Third in Swedish Grand Prix
2001 8th 56 6th
2002 15th 63 2nd Second in British Grand Prix
2003 19th 30 14th

References

  1. ISBN 0-7524-2402-5
  2. ISBN 0-316-72645-1
    .
  3. ^ "Australian Speedway Championship Results". Australian Speedway Championship. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  4. ^ "ULTIMATE RIDER INDEX, 1929-2022" (PDF). British Speedway. Retrieved 22 June 2023.
  5. ^ "Speedway World Championship History - 1990". Speedway.org. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  6. ^ "Individual Australian Championship". Historia Sportu Zuzlowego. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  7. ^ The Australian Solo Championship
  8. ^ ":: Welcome to the NSW Speedway Riders Assoc ::". Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
  9. ^ "Welcome back Wimbledon". Speedway Plus. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  10. ^ "2008 Rider index" (PDF). British Speedway. Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  11. ^ "Looking back at the glory years of speedway in Reading". Reading Chronicle. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  12. ^ "Vote for your dream team". Speedway Star. Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  13. ^ "Aussie Ace to join Oxford". Oxford Mail. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  14. ^ "Greensheet averages". Britiah Speedway. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
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