Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

·WHERE 'ARE THE Y·NOW? BrucePenhall and Dennis S igalos wi ll be fiddling wit h thi s or with th at. We probab ly won' t even be in the wa ter unti l around noo n." As I shu ffle between the sem i and the garage door, I see the boat for the first time, and it's not at all like I expected it to be . Rather than occu pying ce n te r stage, the pri stin e, 37-foot Ocean Sp ray Offs hore Sca rab is uncerem onious ly wedged betw een two othe r boats in the garage a rea . At le a st three men a re By Scott Rousseau Photos by Joe Bonnello ... After forging his speedway skills in the tight , aggressive confines of the Am erican speedway arenas for three years, Penhall journeyed to Europe in 1978 on a quest to fu lfill the promise that he would one day bring home the World Championship. Upon his debut for the Cradely Heath Heathens in the world-class British Speedway League the young surfer from Huntington Beach, California, quickly made a name for himself. His incredibly agile and aggressive riding style -, THURSDAY, MAY 4, 1995 9:15 a.m, : I'm go ing to be late. That' s all I keep thi nking as I speed up the 405 freeway en rou te to my d estination . Not work mind you; somethin g far better. I've bee n offered a rid e in an offsho re p ow erboat. And not just any offshore powerboat either. This particular craft hap p ens to b e the re ignin g American Powe r Bo at Associa tio n Champion in class D. Normall y, I' d be exci te d to experience such a thrill anyway, because I love going fa s t, w het her it b e o n a 600cc sportbike, in a car, an airplane, a boa t, wha teve r. Hell, I'd eve n like go ing fast in a shopping kart if I cou ld find a steep enough hill. But this particular in vi tation ha s ad ded sig nifica nce because it w as extended by tw o of m y absolute heroes, a pa ir of Southern California b oys who h ave made going fa st th eir way of life for many years and have the cha m p io ns hi p records to prove it. I' m going for a spin with fo rm er World Speedway Cham p io ns Bruce Penhall and Dennis Sigalos aboard their Ocean Spray Offshore Racin g Scarab. What are two ex -s peedway racers doing fo o li ng around in an offs ho re powerboat? They're winning. It's something they've been doing for years. 24 Perhaps championship desire is something that Bruce Penhall was born with, having grown up watching his father race powerboats and airplanes. Or maybe it was borne out of adversity, as the blondCaliforn- ian was just 18 years old when bolh of his parents were lost in a tragic airplane crash on New Year's Day, 1975; to say that the event changed his life would be understating the obvious. But in every adversity lies an equivalent opportunity to benefit if you look for it, and for Penhall that opportunity came aboard a methanol burning speedway motorcycle. Penhall started racing speedway only as a hobby in 1975. But after that horrible day in January, Penhall made a vow that speedway would be his life, and he would not give up unt il he was squarely at the summit of the sport. 9:30 a.m, : I arrive at Great American Concep ts in Hu n tington Beach , w here th e team ha s brought th e boat to perform so me last-minute servici ng before the test session. Fortunat ely, the Sigalos ZPen hal l O ff s h ore Ra cin g Tea m transporter is still visib le in the dri vewa y. I' ve con tracted photographer Joe Bonnello to handle all the photos for the day fro m the chase p lane that Penha ll has leased for the occasio n, and I notice that Bonnello' s van is nowhere to be found . I' m not su rprised . Pe nha ll has "told me that we would be on our way to Sunset Aquatics in Sunse t Be a ch to launch the boat by 10 a.m . and that all th e testin g would be d one by noon. I too k that as gospel, but Bonnell o had counseled me otherwise. " Do n ' t w orry ab out it Sc o tt, " I remember him s aying in th e t one of som eone who ha s been throu gh th is type of assignment a th ousand times before. "We' ll get there, and those gu ys scrambling around on the deck with va riou s tool s in hand. The fou r bucket seats - one of which I'm su pposed to be stra pped in to in 45 minutes - are strewn abou t on th e catwalk beside th e boat. Hmm. Bonnell o was right. But as the d ay progress ed, I don't think that he knew how righ t he'd actually be. 9:36 a.m. : Penhall himself emerges fr om th e keel area , drill in hand . He s po ts m e wa n der in g around on the floor, hails me up to the catw alk, and we shake hands. It's not the first lime we've m et. I' v e followed hi s career s in ce before he won his firs t World Championship. Countless speedway fans have. combined with his good looks, long blonde hair and eve r- prese nt sm ile quickly endeared him to the European fans and the media as he barnstonned his way to success by racing in th e USA , England , Europe, Au st ralia and N ew Zealand. Penhall's win nin g created a fervor around the globe, and his name quickly became a household word to all manner of motor racing fans. " We were all kind of laughed at when we first came to England," Penhall said. "The riders thought, 'Here's just a bunch of long-haired surfers who want to try and race with the big bays. They won't last.' In fact , I remember when I first went over there, the captain on my team was a guy named Bruce Cribb. We had a test to run and my bikes weren't running well . He - my own teammate wouldn't loan me his spare bike, because he said it was 'toofast' for me. "But our supporters latched onto us from the get-go, they wanted the best for us," Penhall remembered. "We - and by we I mean all the Am ericans: Shawn Moran, Kelly Moran, Bobby Schwartz, Scott Autry, Dennis and myself - we really changed the color of the sport with our leathers and our wheelies and the way we rode around the outside. Nobody had really ever done that before, but that was the only way we knew how to ride f rom learn ing on the small tracks. They used to say that I wouldn't live to be 19 because of the way that I 'rode around the board s," But in his World Final debut at Gothemburg, Sweden , in 1980, Penhal1's hopes were

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