He’s No. 1 With a Bullet on World Speedway Chart

Speedway, which may be the purest form of motorcycle racing, showcases 500cc fuel-burning bikes that accelerate from zero to 60 in three seconds--with no clutch and no brakes. The races are short, usually no more than four laps on a tiny oval, which makes for nonstop handlebar-to-handlebar action.

The pulse of speedway beats strongest in Britain and the Northern European countries of Denmark, Poland and Sweden. The best riders in the world congregate there for eight months a year, racing two to five times a week in league competition, plus national and world championship events.

The champion is 26-year-old Billy Hamill, a baby-faced young man from Monrovia they call “Billy the Bullet” in Europe.

Hamill won the world championship in a dramatic final Grand Prix last September in Vogens, Denmark, home of four-time champion Hans Nielsen, a heavy favorite to win his fifth before Hamill upset the works.

Nielsen had a nine-point advantage going into the final round and all he needed was to qualify for the A final, even if Hamill won, to force a runoff. But Nielsen failed to qualify and had to settle for the B final, for fifth to eighth places.

“Hans thought he had it in the bag, and I think I was the only one there who didn’t think the same thing,” Hamill said recently before leaving for his second home in England.

When Nielsen won the B final, it meant that Hamill had to win the A final to become the fourth American to win speedway’s No. 1 prize--joining the late Jack Milne of Pasadena, who won in 1938 before 85,000 fans at London’s Wembley Stadium; Bruce Penhall, a Balboa beach boy who won in 1981 and repeated in 1982 before a home crowd in the Coliseum, and Sam Ermolenko of Cypress, the 1993 champion.

Before 1995, the world championship was decided on a single day, each rider racing each other rider once in a series of heats. Two years ago, the Federation de Motorcycliste created a Grand Prix series of six races in different countries, with the champion determined by points earned in all of the races.

“This way is much fairer,” Hamill said. “Before, one bad ride in one heat could cost you the title. This way, on different courses at different times, it is more likely to produce a true champion.”

The world championship series will open Saturday at Prague, in the Czech Republic, and will include races in Sweden, Germany, England, Poland and Denmark.

“Nielsen will be back, that’s for sure,” Hamill said with anticipation. “And Greg Hancock, my Team Exide teammate from Southern California, will be a strong contender.”

Hancock, who lives in Costa Mesa, finished third last year, giving the Americans their strongest showing since Milne’s championship season, when his brother, Cordy, finished third and Wilbur Lamoreaux of Glendale was second.

During the off-season, while Hamill was resting in Monrovia, Hancock was riding in Australia.

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Hamill laments the deteriorating condition of speedway racing in the U.S., specifically Southern California.

“In my opinion, speedway is one of the greatest spectator sports in the world,” he said. “It’s all right there in front of you, in a small arena with lots of action, and lots of events. It’s ideal for TV and that’s made for a resurgence in England.

“In Southern California, the promoters don’t do it justice. Since Harry Oxley just about retired, no one has come forward to really promote the sport. What it needs is a young promoter who can instill some new ideas. When I started out, there were three or four different tracks to ride on and Costa Mesa was the center of it all.”

This year, the Costa Mesa track, at the Orange County Fairgrounds, will have the only regularly scheduled weekly program on Saturday nights, a switch from 29 years of Friday night racing. It is the first year since 1972 that only one speedway track is operating.

The climax of the U.S. season is the national championship races at Costa Mesa, a single-night event Oct. 4 patterned after the old-style world championships. The first of four qualifying races for the nationals will be held Saturday night on the Orange County track. Three American riders from the British League will be seeded into the finals.

Hamill did not ride in last year’s nationals because of a rule banning his style of motorcycle.

“I would think it would be good promotion to have the world champion riding where he grew up,” he said, “but I think there is an attitude locally that they don’t want to see an American take the No. 1 plates and head for England. I can understand that, but I would love to ride in the nationals this year. If I’m invited, I’ll be back.”

The rule against Hamill’s cycle has been rescinded.

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Hamill and Hancock, who formed Team Exide last year to capitalize on individual sponsorship, are with different teams in Britain this year. Cradley Heath, which was also Penhall’s team when he was world champion, has suspended operations because its stadium has been earmarked for a housing project.

Although Cradley Heath retains its contracts in hopes of returning next year, Hamill will ride on loan to Belle Vue and Hancock with Coventry.

“We’ll still wear our Team Exide colors [blue, red and yellow] and carry the name on our bikes, sort of the way NASCAR drivers have individual sponsors in addition to their team,” Hamill said.

Speedway racing is not a big-money sport, so top riders belong to three or four teams in different countries. Hamill will also ride for the GKM team in Poland and Smederna in Sweden.

“An average year, I ride more than 100 races in eight months,” he said. “Then I come home to Monrovia and freshen up for the next year.”

In a typical week, Hamill will ride Friday and Saturday in the British Elite League, Sunday in Poland, then travel to Sweden on Monday for a race Tuesday.

“I keep two bikes at each place and have one mechanic in Poland and one in Sweden,” he said. “At my home base in Dudley, which is near Birmingham, I have a 2,000-square foot shop called Bullet Enterprises, where I keep four mechanics busy. It’s about 30 minutes from where we live in Tamworth.

“We’re there eight months out of 12, but we still call Monrovia home. My wife, Christina, is from Monrovia, too, and when we’re here, we stay with her folks in their guest house. Our daughter, Margaret, was born in England, though.”

IRL

The race to fill the 33-car field for the May 25 Indianapolis 500 will resume Saturday and continue Sunday. Ten positions remain open. Among the candidates is Greg Ray, who was averaging 215 mph after three laps last Sunday but ran out of fuel before he could finish the final lap. Had he qualified, he would have won $25,000 as the day’s fastest qualifier. Instead, the money went to Steve Kinser at 210.793.

NASCAR

Qualifying for Saturday night’s Winston all-star race includes a mandatory two-tire pit stop as well as three laps around Charlotte’s 1.5-mile high banked speedway. The unique race for winners of Winston Cup races is run in two 30-lap segments, followed by a 10-lap shootout with $200,000 to the winner.

When Mark Martin averaged 188.354 mph in the caution-less Winston 500 at Talladega last Saturday, it was the second-fastest for a 500-mile race in any division. The record is held by Al Unser Jr., who won the Indy-car Michigan 500 in 1990 with an average speed of 189.727.

NHRA

Cruz Pedregon, driver of Joe Gibbs’ Pontiac Firebird funny car, received the Premio De Oro award Tuesday night in New York in recognition of his excellence as a Latino athlete.

Previous winners include baseball’s Juan Marichal, Alex Rodriguez and the Dodgers’ Raul Mondesi and welterweight boxing champion Felix Trinidad.

After losing in the funny car finals to Chuck Etchells in Richmond, Va., last week, Pedregon and the NHRA drag racing circus will be in Englishtown, N.J., this weekend for the Mopar Parts Nationals.

LAST LAPS

Jeff Emig, fresh from a victory in the AMA motocross national last Sunday at Glen Helen Raceway, needs only to finish ninth or better in the Supercross season finale Saturday night in Las Vegas to end the reign of four-time champion Jeremy McGrath. . . . Bob and Gary Bahre, operators of New Hampshire International Speedway, have been named to manage the year-old Las Vegas Motor Speedway complex that includes a 102,000-seat superspeedway.

The Sprint Car Racing Assn. will make its only stop of the season at Ventura Raceway on Saturday night, with Rip Williams going for his third consecutive SCRA victory. . . . Larry Ragland, three-time Baja 1000 winner, is in Morocco trying a different kind of off-road racing. He is driving one of Ivan Stewart’s Chevrolet Protrucks in the Savane Atlas Rally, Round 3 of the Rally World Cup. The event ends Sunday in Marrakech. Ragland will return in time to run in the SCORE Tecate Baja 500 on June 8.