Victorian rider, the late Ray Fisher won seven Australian Motocross Championships in the 1950-60s. He was one of Australia’s first international motocross pioneers.

He also created history twice in one day at the Australian Motocross Championships in Collie, Western Australia on 20 October 1968.

In the 125cc class, Fisher became the first rider to win a Australian Motocross Championship on a Japanese 2-stroke machine – bringing home Kawasaki’s first championship.

Then in the All Powers (Unlimited) class, Fisher became the last rider to win an Australian Championship on a British 4-stroke machine – winning on a 500cc Matchless Metisse.

In his first Championships in 1959 at the Royal Park circuit in South Australia, Fisher won the 500cc class on a BSA and finished second in the 350cc and Unlimited All Power classes.

In 1960 he set sail on a one way passage to England, and stayed five years making adventurous road trips to race across Europe. This included grass track races behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

In 1963 he won the famous Teterow International Grass Track in Germany in front of 100,000 spectators against a world class field.

Returning home in 1965, Fisher easily won the 500cc National Championship at Clarendon in South Australia. He was also on track to win the Unlimited class, until he had a gearbox fault on his Matchless Metisse.

Fisher retained his 500cc crown the following year at Christmas Hills in Victoria, then again at Mt Kembla in New South Wales in 1967, where he also won the Unlimited class.

That year a “hand-on-head clutch start” was introduced, which really suited Fisher. The torque of his Matchless Metisse allowed him to simply kick into gear without using the clutch at all.