Wembley and Beyond: My Incredible Journey

It started on a cold, frosty morning in 1951 in Christchurch, New Zealand, with a seventeen-year-old-boy, a crate of sheeps’ kidneys and a dream.

The boss of the city’s Belfast meatworks, had arrived an hour early to set up for the day, when he noticed one of his workers packing up a crate on the countertop. The young lad was battling to move it so the boss went over to help. When asked what time he’d started, the boy replied ’Five o’clock this morning’. Stunned, and amused, the boss told him he’d be earning a good bonus at the end of the week, and wondered aloud what he’d spend it on. But the boy knew, and immediately replied,

’I’m going to race speedway in England.’

And he did.

That boy was Barry Briggs, and it was just the start of his great adventure. Little did he know he was soon to become the legendary speedway racer more commonly known as Briggo, and later as Barry Briggs MBE. From dangerous encounters in the jungles of Liberia to teaching Steve McQueen to slide a speedway bike, Briggo’s incredible story is one of strength, determination and a life lived firmly in the fast lane.

Barry Briggs was born in New Zealand in 1934. He won the World Individual Speedway Championship four times and appeared in a record 18 in all. He’s also a six-time winner of the British Championship, dominating the 60s by winning in 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1969.
His life has been a stream of adventures - not just in the world of speedway. Through diamond mining in Liberia, the agony of losing his wife to cancer, looking down the barrel of an AK-47 and even teaching Steve McQueen to slide a speedway bike, Barry Briggs has always lived life in the fast lane.