Clive Baxter

Inducted 2021

Clive Baxter became the first wheelchair-bound competitor to win an Australian speedway championship when he took out the national Formula 500 title at Swan Hill in Victoria in 1989.

A paraplegic since a Motocross accident in 1982, he still had the desire to compete despite his limitations and returned to the track in a hand-controlled Formula 500 in 1983. Almost overnight he became a star on the national F500 scene, and by 1987 he had won major races in every state except Tasmania.

Becoming the first F500 competitor to land a major corporate sponsorship deal through an association with Ampol Petroleum, he was a popular winner of the national title before switching to Speedcars and then 360 Sprintcars.

After a spell in karting he contested Darwin’s major off-road motorcycle race on a Quad bike in 2005 and finished an amazing ninth outright, also being an inaugural inductee into the Northern Territory Sporting Hall of Fame in 2006.