Growing up on a lifestyle block meant that Ricky McGough had a
traditional rural kiwi upbringing of riding motorbikes, driving
boats, tractors, small trucks, basically anything that had an
engine! Then at age 12 he turned a cheap car into a rally car
with his father Stuart and Ricky started co-driving in rally
sprints and dirt track events. By age 13 he hit the big time
by becoming the driver at the dirt tracks at Meremere and Waikaraka
Park as well as rally sprints in the Maiora forest with the Waiuku
Dirt Track Club. At just 15 he won the junior class and
repeated the feat the following year also winning the junior driver
of the year award and finished 3rd outright in the club on points.
At age 17 he moved up to the 1600cc class and once again won the
season points. He also competed in many car club events including
rally sprints, motorkanas and circuit events. In his spare time, he
competed in the Drag war's series at Meremere Drag Strip where he
finished 6th out of 122 competitors in the DYO class.
At age 18 he moved up to the open 4-cylinder class but still used
the same 1600cc Honda. Once again, he took out the season
trophy beating the high horsepower, high tech race cars.
Looking to take his racing further, he sold the raIn the later part
of the year he bought an F2 Speedway midget and spent the tail end
of the speedway season doing some testing but otherwise crewing for
his father who raced an F2 midget at Western Springs and finished
2nd in the class for their first speedway season (The only team to
gain podium finishes in every Feature race they started). For
the 2009/10 season Stuart stepped down and Ricky took over as
number one driver under the team banner of Ricky McGough
Racing.
In his first season running out of Huntly speedway he had his
share of ups and downs including two spectacular crashes both in
front of the cameras. Hard on the ego but great for publicity.
Ricky McGough hit the news in many speedway magazines and web sites
complete with photos and commentary. High lights for the season
were some great placing's including First placing's at western
springs, Ferndene and in a heat race at the NZ Nationals at
Stratford. Then to top it off he gained third place overall in the
Huntly Speedway season points. Not bad for his first speedway
season competing against top "A grade" midgets with twice the
horsepower of his car. Even got coverage on TV a couple of
times. The next season the team upgraded the horsepower in
the midget by fitting a factory built Gaerte A grade race engine
with around 370hp. That meant that this season would be spent
running with the big boys! The season didn't quite go to plan
when the older running gear started breaking and needed
replacement, which meant that the car spent more time on the
infield then on the track. In saying that the team still made
every race meeting and learnt a lot about chassis setup and car
maintenance. And the team also managed to impress all new
sponsors to come on board with a brand new car for the next race
season! With a brand-new car rolling out of the factory and
some new sponsors on board the team started the race season very
successfully. This was a learning year with all emphasis on
learning as much as possible about the new midget to make an
all-out assault for the next season. An all new package meant
a whole lot of new learning for everyone involved, and although
this was a big learning year the team was still running with the
very best. Rebuilt and ready for the following season the
team was still learning about the whole package, but still received
very good results including 4NZ at the CTRA New Zealand
Champs. Towards the end of the season the package was really
coming together, and the team very rapidly started performing
better and better.
The next season the team was selected to represent New Zealand
as part of the team sent to compete in the International POWRi
Series in Australia, and although running the lower powered spare
engine, still managed some good results. The results were
good enough for Ricky to be offered a drive in an Australian team
for the following year, the only New Zealander to be offered an
Australian drive. Ricky competed in the International Powri
Series the following year for the Australian team before the team
owner sold the equipment to his son in law, who also had Ricky come
race his midget in Australia for him. Back in New Zealand
Ricky continued to make great progress and achieved podium finishes
in title events, which lead the team to take a good look at our
midget and upgrade both the chassis and the motor. What
rolled out of the workshop was indeed a great machine and Ricky
proved this by achieving more podium finishes including becoming
the new Taranaki Champ. With the COVID-19 pandemic making
travel between countries very difficult, Ricky will be focusing on
his racing in New Zealand for the foreseeable future.