N.Z’er aiming for ice-racing peak

Press, 1 December 1978, Page 20

N.Z’er aiming for ice-racing peak

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MURRAY OLDS

I For the last three years a quietly spoken Maori from: Palmerston North has been' doing On ice what Ivan Mau-: ger has been doing on a speedway track. Bruce Cribb’s three sea-! sons of racing a speedway-; I style motor-cycle on ice: reached a climax earlier this; year when he became the I first New Zealander to qua!- ! ' ify for the final of the world I ice-racing championships in: the Netherlands. It was not a particularly; auspicious debut in a world! final for Cribb: both of his specially prepared works i Jawa machines blew up dur-

ing practice before the main! [event and when the factory 'could not deliver the needed 'parts in time he had to compete on a foreign machine. He was not among the top j place-getters but the experience was enough to make him determined to qualify for the 1979 final . and improve on his placing ithis year. He will return to (Britain on December 14 for I the ice racing this northern 'winter. ! Cribb, aged 32, has just 'completed his thirteenth sea- : son Of conventional speedway racing in Britain since he left New Zealand in 1965'

after two years of riding in; this country. In those days there was! only one division in the! English competition and' Cribb joined the Poole club. Since then he has ridden successfully for Exeter and' Cradley Heath and halfway through last season rode for I Bristol. In the Netherlands, West!; Germany, and Scandanavia, j: meetings are held in ice-' skating rinks. In Russia, theli top ice-racing nation, con- j; ventional speedway tracks j are simply flooded andj allowed to freeze in winter, j 1 A Russian, Sergi Tera-'l

ibanko, won the world title ithis year. Cribb is the only ! rider in the British league to I ride on ice regularly, although Mauger and Barry Briggs have both done so. Next year, for the first time. Cribb has been given special permission to try to qualify for the world solo final in Britain. The usual practice for riders from the Southern Hemisphere is to qualify in the southern summer but because Cribb will be ice-racing in Britain international speedway officials will let him make his bid there to qualify.