Biking legends: Ivan Mauger - six-time speedway world champion who dominated the sport’s 1970s heyday

With six individual world championships (including three in a row in from 1968 to 1970), three world long track titles, two world pairs crowns and four world teams championships, not to mention numerous European and national titles, Ivan Gerald Mauger is the greatest speedway rider of all time.

Born in Woolston, New Zealand, also the hometown of future champions Ronnie Moore and Barry Briggs, and with a dad, Edwin, into drag racing and American muscle cars, young Ivan often found himself at Christchurch’s Aranui speedway track on a Saturday night.

There, inspired by hometown hero and 1954 world champion Ronnie Moore, and entranced by speedway’s noise, smell and speed, he decided to one day become world champion himself…