Australia’s first BMX Racing Open Champion to be inducted into Hall of Fame

‘Magic’ Mick Wiltshire is old-school BMX. Growing up in western Sydney in the late 1970’s, Wiltshire was a trailblazer of the nascent BMX scene who would go on to become one of the powerhouse riders of the early days of BMX racing.

In 1980, Wiltshire won the first-ever Australian Open BMX Racing Championship in a tie with Wayne McIntosh, and later this year Wiltshire will take his place alongside McIntosh again, when he is inducted into the Australian BMX Hall of Fame.

Along with his three brothers, Wiltshire was raised on two wheels, riding Yamaha mini-bikes around Liverpool in the mid-to-late 1970’s. However, the competitive fire was stoked in Wiltshire at a mini-bike race meeting in Roselands as a pre-teen.

“I don't remember where I finished up, but my brothers were telling me, my older brother was telling me, ‘You nearly won it!’ I came like second to win a Yamaha motorbike, and this was up against 15, 16, 17-year-old guys … Yeah, so that's sort of where it happened.”

Shortly after, Wiltshire’s brother bought him a Quiksilver BMX and he never looked back, setting off on a dominant run of competitive racing from 1977 through the early 1980s.

Mick Wiltshire in action (#2 plate)

Riding predominantly at his home track of Metro West inside the old Liverpool Speedway, Mick soon earned the nickname ‘Magic’ because of his ability to win a race from virtually anywhere, and when speaking to AusCycling, Wiltshire recalls the emerging racing scene in Sydney at the time.

“The culture then at Ryde [BMX Club], it was like we were the yobbos from Liverpool. Like me, Glen Cox, Glen Dunley, Phil King… there was probably a pack of like 15 of us that come over. We were the yobbos,” he says laughingly.

“But we knew how to ride, and we would blow these guys away, like Alistair Johnson and Mark Bradley and Mark Schliemann and all the other guys that lived over that way.

“We did inter-state challenges with Queensland, with the Windsor track … and then Melbourne kicked off in late ‘79 I think it was.”

Away from the track, Wiltshire says the Metro West group rode wherever they could, from jumping off the stairs at Liverpool Library to freakishly long jumps at Lions Lookout, as well as memorable rides at night.

“We’d do training at night, with me, and Macca, Coxy and a few of the boys and that, and we’d go down to the high schools and ride around the high schools, and all of a sudden the police would be overhead in a helicopter!!”

With the distribution and availability of specialist BMX bikes and parts still developing, Wiltshire and his fellow riders also experimented with building their own frames and trailing new materials in construction, sometimes with mixed results.

“Colin [Spencer of Sunshine BMX] come up to me at Ryde, and I was riding a Quicksilver and he could see I had talent. And he basically said, ‘I want to make frames. I’ve got designs.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll come on’,” Wiltshire recalls.

“So, we designed basically a Mongoose, but made out of alloy. Super light, and we used a lot of track bike stuff on it, which I kept bending and breaking anyway. And then I built a Cro Moly frame and fork, which was more like today’s style bike. It was like, very futuristic.”

Wiltshire riding for Sunshine BMX.

At Sunshine BMX, Wiltshire joined up with Darren and Dean Crisp, who would later go on to form Crisp Brothers Racing – arguably the most iconic team in Australian BMX history – and feature in countless magazine articles in the 1980’s.

Wiltshire also remembers riders of his era partnering with companies like Milo and Pepsi that attached themselves to the sport as it gained a foothold in the public consciousness.

Aside from his 1980 Open title, Wiltshire cites the 1982 Open Championships as a career highlight, where he overcame a niggling knee injury to turn in a series of strong performances.

“I got the fastest time for a 20-inch on the new 2/4 Mongoose, won the cruiser, and come fourth in the 20-inch. But I started in the outside lane in the 20-inch and basically done alright,” he says modestly.

By 1982, the sport had well and truly arrived. The improved availability and affordability of quality frames and parts democratised the sport, and Wiltshire suggests “a hundred-odd Open riders” competed at the Championships that year.

Now residing in the village of Hiil Top in the NSW Southern Highlands, the 60-year-old rides mountain bike trails around the region and still attends larger BMX race meetings on occasion, although he admits he wouldn’t mind seeing a return to dirt tracks some of the time.

“They’re doing bloody 60, 70ks an hour. It’s exciting, don’t get me wrong, but I went to the new Macarthur track and one guy fell and he just stopped. He just stopped and then did like a quick roll, but he was in pain. I was just like, ‘Oh God…’ And I felt it, you know, like I was cringing.”

Along with his father, Wiltshire singles out Mike Raymond and Colin Spencer as people who helped him along the journey to being inducted into the Hall of Fame, and says he’s looking forward to catching up on the night with mates from the halcyon early days of BMX.

“Macca [Wayne McIntosh] was the first one to ring me when I got inducted … And he rings me up, and he’s, ‘Oh, were gonna get shattered that night. We’re gonna party!’ … It’s going to be a big night, don’t worry.”

The Australian BMX Hall of Fame Awards will take place at the Mercure Gold Coast Resort on Friday, 15 September. General admission tickets are sold out, but to be placed on the waiting list, head to: https://events.humanitix.com/2023-australian-bmx-hall-of-fame-awards

Main image: AusCycling. All other photos supplied by Mick Wiltshire.