Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Costa Mesa, one of the proliferation of tracks operating around the Los Angeles area in the 1980s, and knew immediately that he wanted to be a speedway rider. As soon as he was old enough, he started riding in junior events on 250cc bikes. It was not an auspicious start. The young Hamill had a few difficultiesturning left, which resulted in him wiping off no fewer than eight footrests on the safety fence in his first season. This sort of wild behavior did not impress the rest of the paddock, and Hamill was banned for a while after th.e mothers of his potential victims got up a petition. It wasn't that Hamill was a rough kid, it's just that he didn't really know what he was doing. His parents thought he was just going through a phase and used to give him a liit to the tracks, but that was about it. The opposition, however, was often extremely professional, notably Greg Hancock, a protege of double World Champion Bruce Penhall, who is now Hamill's teammate in the British League. It wasn't always so. Hancock represented one side of the paddock - custom leathers, trick'paint job on the bike, loads of spares, a stack of sprockets. Hamill went to the races with a gas can and a wire brush for cleaning the rear tire. He can remember going over to comfort Greg after he'd had a bad night and been bawled out by his dad and being looked at like he was from another planet. Looking back, it's astounding that the young Hamill's enthusiasm survived the junior years. "The bike was a piece of junk," Hamill remembers. "We asked the guy we bought it off about gearing - there weren't any spare sprockets - and he said stick it in first for Costa Mesa and second for San Bernardino. We really didn't know what we were doing." That all changed when Billy turned 16, joined the senior ranks and got to race a full-sized 500cc speedway bike for the first time. "Everything clicked, it all seemed so easy," Hamill recalls. Back in the mid-'80s, speedway was big in Southern California. Myriad tight tracks in stadiums designed as rodeo arenas meant you could race nearly every night of the week, and it was very, very competitive. Racing was always an individual event, not team-based as it is in Europe, with a program of heats qualifying for the main event. If you failed to make the main event, you wouldn't get a ride for the next two weeks. This was the background that sent a steady supply of world-class riders over the Atlantic, starting with Scott Autrey in the mid'70s through World Champions Penhall and "Sudden" Sam Ermolenko to the current top men like Hamill, and Hancock - who has won a Grand Prix and finished third in the World this year. British speedway clubs have long regarded the Southern California scene as a useful production line for new talent, and Hamill, along with Hancock and the likes of Ronnie Correy and Mike Faria, have all been drafted from the States. Like Penhall before him, Harnill signed for the Cradley Heath club in the industrial West Midlands, but was billeted on ex-World Champ and exCradley rider Erik Gundersen and his wife Helle at their rented farm house. Gundersen, who was in the early stages of rehabilitation following a race crash that all but killed him, showed his new charge the routine of earning a living in the British League. His racing went well enough from British League match at home; Thursday - day off] Friday, away to Belle Vue in Manchester; Saturday, travel to Poland ready for the match on Sunday. And that's a week picked at random from Hamill's diary; the rule, not an exception. He reckons to fly at least 80,000 air miles per year on top of the van travel in the United Kingdom in a season that lasts from March to October. The foreign travel is absolutely necessary. British speedway, much like th.e Cal.ifornia scene, is in the doldrums. The best money is in Poland, where speedway is massive, especially since the fall of The Wall as the country's best soccer players are now mainly playing abroad. Crowds of 30,000 are not uncommon for club matches. Yet there is a touch of the old Wild West about post-communist Poland. One rider - not Hamill recently had his van and bike stolen in Poland; he only found out when the thieves rang his hotel and told him it would cost 7,000 Deutschmarks to get them back. Hamill usually tries to fly in and out of Poland on match days, which has involved some hairy motorway journeys. The one he remembers best involved a brand-new 840 BMW crewed by two heavies in black leather jackets " (Above) In the paddock, Hamill prepares for another round of competition for the Cradely Heath Heathens. He has been with the team for seven years. (Right) Hamill's shop Is tiny, yet efficient. His trio of Immaculately prepared GM machines sit at the ready. the start, but Hamill had never been out of the States before, and he missed his friends and family badly. It was a tough apprenticeship in a tough sport. It took nearly five years before he started to make a major impact on the world scene, and along the way he's had crashes that have broken a wrist and shoulder (1992), and a collarbone and ribs (1993) before he was talked about as a potential winner at world level. If you ask Hamill why he never got diverted into road racing or - much more likely - motocross, he has to think before answering, but comes up with the simple explanation that he was "focused" in on speedway. That overused word applies perfectly to Hamill's approach to the sport - right from that first sight of speedway as a spectator, all he's wanted to do was be a speedway rider. His wife Christina says that when they first met, all Hamill talked about was how he was going to go to Europe to be a professional speedway rider. But he was never more focused than during and after that final race of the 1996 World Championship. "Usually," Hamill says, "when you see the last-lap flag it registers, and you think, 'Great, only one more lap:" He doesn't even remember seeing the flag in that A final. He isn't always so organized. At the start of his European career, unfamiliarity with the way the British tax system works meant Hamill wrote a check every time an assesment dropped through his letter box without bothering to get an accountant to look at it. He also bought his house very early on in his career in Britain - another measure of his commitment - so it took a long time before financial stability was achieved. There were times when Hamill and Christina were counting pennies before going to the shops. Nowadays things are different. Hamill makes what he describes as a "good living," but it's nowhere near what a World Champion in a road racing or motocross series would make, and he has to work for it. Try this for a schedule: Saturday, Polish Grand Prix; Sunday, Pol.ish League match; Monday, travel to Sweden; Tuesday, Swedish League match; Wedesday, who picked him up at Warsaw airport. The driver casually put his sawed-off shotgun in the trunk with Hamill's luggage before driving at warp speed until a puncture halted progress. Only Hamill knew how to change the wheel. Then a radiator hose broke. The driver ignored the temperature gauge and kept his foot on the floorboards, effectively ruining the motor. Next week, the driver's photo was in the local paper; he'd been arrested and charged with being a top man in one of the country's biggest car theft rings. Although things can get "kinda gnarly" in Poland, it's not all bad news. When Hamill went back for his first league match for GKM Grudziadza after winning the world title, the club had organized a reception for him in the local 3,OOO-seat theater. It was a sellout, and Hamill was genuinely touched. He must like the place, as he has fe-signed for the '97 season. Swedish speedway doesn't get massive crowds like Poland, but the sport is well covered by the press and TV so there are plenty of willing sponsors. Britain is the sick man of European

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