| February 7, 2023
Although the USA has produced eight World Champions since the revival of Speedway Racing in America in the late 1960s, starting with Bruce Penhall in 1981 and 1982, “The World” has not come here often. We’ve sent many riders to Europe, from Bruce Penhall to four-time World Champion Greg Hancock in 2016, but the rest of the world has not ventured here since the last time in 1988 at Long Beach’s Veteran’s Stadium.
By Richard Haight
That ended last weekend at Kern County Raceway Park in a “USA-vs.-The World” match-up, pitting just about every name in USA Speedway racing against the cream of the crop from the rest of the world. The World was led by 2022 British Champion Dan Bewley of the Bell Vue Aces, teaming up with fellow Brit and British League Champion Tom Brennan. The rest of The World was Denmark’s National Champion Rasmus Jensen, Sweden’s Jacob Thorsall, France’s 2022 FIM Oceana Champ, Adam Ellis and five-time Canadian Champ Kyle Legault. Pitching in to fill in the team was Wilbur Hancock, son of four-time World Champ Greg Hancock, the 2020 AMA 250 National champ.
It was a two-stage event, with both team and individual match-ups on offer for the day.
The event started off with a barnburner of a heat with Britain’s Tom Brennan taking the win over Team USA’s Captain Luke Becker in second and Broc Nicol in third.
As the afternoon progressed, it was a battle with some serious surprises on both sides. Eleven-time National Champ Billy Janniro, generally considered a force at any event, was left behind in his first heat, finishing last behind Sweden’s Jacob Thorsall.
As the afternoon progressed, it was a back-and-forth battle, with American riders who are normally dominant here at home, often taking a back seat to the visitors. It took until the fifth heat before Team USA pulled into a small 16-14-point lead. But consistency wins the day. World Team Captain Dan Bewley finished first, last, third and second over four heats, while Team USA won some but scored more consistently and almost never in last place.
In the end, it ended up a near tie at 44-41 for Team USA with Team Captain Luke Becker and Gino Manzares tying at nine points apiece to lead Team USA to a narrow victory over The World.
The second half of the program was a four-race set of qualifiers—followed by two semi-finals and four Last Man Out single lap shoot-offs to set the four-man finale to the afternoon. Riders had to finish in second in at least one heat to qualify for the individual championship heats. Surprisingly enough, none of the victorious members of Team USA made the Finale!
After all was said and done, the Finale ended up with four of The World Team having all the fun. Well, not all fun, as World Team Captain Den Bewley leapt out to a huge lead, for exactly 2/3 of a lap. As Bewley entered the third turn, he went high, slid out, but had to watch as his bike did a quadruple pirouette down the track. That earned him an exclusion for the restart, so he had to watch as Adam Ellis used the same wide line to run away with the three-man final. The all-Europe final ended up with Adam Ellis of the Sheffield Tigers first with Rasmus Jensen second and Sweden’s Jacob Thorsell in third.