Led by Americans and former World Champions Billy Hamill and Greg Hancock, Team USA gets serious about rebuilding its image on the world speedway stage by holding a Team USA World Cup Speedway training camp.
If it weren’t for Greg Hancock’s morale-boosting win in the FIM World Speedway Grand Prix Series two years ago, America might have continued to fade off the radar screen for world speedway racing. After enjoying two decades of success as one of the world superpowers in the slide-for-life sport overseas throughout the 1980s and 1990s, America’s presence in the FIM World Cup team events has been spotty at best. Hancock and fellow former World Cup Champion and FIM World Speedway Champion Billy Hamill are planning to change that.
Led by Hamill and fellow former Team Cup and World Individual Champion Greg Hancock, Team USA has been running a training camp for its 2014 Speedway World Cup effort at Perris Raceway in Southern California, during the past two months. Ten invited riders have taken part in the program, with team manager Hamill and team captain Greg Hancock spending time to coaching a green, young squad of future World Championship hopefuls.
For those not familiar with it, the World Cup is speedway’s version of the Motocross of Nations. The top nine countries in the world will compete in this year’s seven-day tournament, which runs July 26 through August 2, 2014. Top nations in the sport include England, Sweden and Poland.
Team USA wants to be recognized as a perennial contender again as well, and it earned a surprising fifth-place finish last year’s Speedway World Cup competition despite a small American rider pool. Finishing ahead of England, Sweden and Russia gained the team its best final result in a decade, and it means that for the first time since 2007, Team USA goes straight to the final stage of this 2014 World Cup and does not need to progress through a qualifying round. Thus, it is understandable why there is so much effort being placed into this year’s Team USA squad.
Joining Hancock at the Perris Raceway training camp were fellow 2013 World Cup team members Ricky Wells and Gino Manzares. Also in attendance were 25-year-old Aaron Fox, former motocross rider Tyson Burmeister, and up-and-coming teenagers Max Ruml, Rocco Scopellite, Dillon Ruml and Broc Nicol. Scopellite and Nicol are second-generation speedway riders. Their fathers, Denny Scopellite and Doug Nicol both raced in Southern California, with Doug Nicol also representing America in overseas competition.
Manzares and Fox have both landed contracts to race for British Premier League teams in the 2014 season with the Ipswich Witches and Edinburgh Monarchs teams, respectively. Along with Hancock, Wells and the British-based Ryan Fisher, Team USA has its largest rider pool racing in Europe in nearly a decade, though it is still a small number compared to its main rivals. In speedway terms, the European team competitions are very much the major leagues.
Hamill himself also put in laps while watching over the squad.
“We have 10 riders out here, and it was very promising for our first training sessions,” Hamill said. “We are perhaps the only country preparing like this so early and we have big plans and aspirations. We are getting Gino and Aaron ready for their first seasons in Europe, and this is a pretty exciting time for American speedway.”
Hancock, who enters a groundbreaking 26th straight season in Europe in 2014, said that last year’s World Cup effort was far more successful than he expected.
“It shows we are a nation that can still be a world leader,” Hancock said. “When we put the stars and stripes on our chest it’s everything. We are a proud country, and we want to show people.”
Team USA will name its nine-rider World Cup roster in June. It will include the American riders based in Europe, with remainder of the team expected to be the hungry young American-based lions who are desperate to get a spot on the roster.
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