Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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When it wa••11 said .nd done, Bruce Penh.1I sat .top the winner's rostrum for the second time. He w •• fI.nked by Dennis 8i9.los (left) .nd Les Collins. World Individual Speedway Championship Two in a row forPenhal';Siga/os, Moran finish 3-4 By Dale Brown Photos by Dennis Greene , John Hipkiss, Gary Hoffman and Ken Kellogg LOS ANGELES, CA, AUG. 28 World Speedway Champion Bruce Penhall successfully defended h is title before a h igh ly partisan crowd at the Los Angeles Coliseu m , scoring 14 points to take the crown by one point over Englishman Les Collins. -Fel low Americans . S' I d K II M Dennis 19a os an e . y oran totaled 12 and II points, res- 6 pectively, to finish third and fourth. It was the best showing by a trio of U.S . riders since 1937; and Penhall became the first American to ever win ~eWo~ldIndividuaISpeedwayCham- plons~lp more than o."ce: . . WhIle Penhall was Jubilant 10 VICtory, he chose the occasion to an-no unce his retirement. " You' ve just seen me ride my last race," he told the crowd from atop the winner's rostrom,'Tm becoming an actor." Penhall has signed to play in the TV series CHiPs. The race featured a fair amount of controversy, and in the m iddle of it were two familiar protagonists, Pen hall and England's Kenny Carter. They were the two leading scorers when they met in the 14th of 20 fourlap heats. They rattled handlebars for two laps before Carter wound up pinned underneath the tum two safety fence. Carter cried "foul" but the referee - from Norway - ruled that Carter had fallen on his own and excluded him from the restart of the heat. Penhall went on to win that heatand his final ride, after having finished a close second to Les Collins in their first heat. Approximately 30,000 fans showed up to watch the first-ever World Final staged in the United States. The event was put on by World Class, Inc., a promoting group consisting of veteran U. S. speedway pro moter H arry Oxley and former World Speedway Champio ns Barry Briggs and Ivan Mauger. Six teen riders from 10 coun tries competed in the ' World Final, with . each rider facing every other rider once during five heats. Poin ts were awarded three for first, two for second and one for third. A perfect score would be 15 points. Penh all 's first ride came in heat four, where he met Collins, Fin land 's Kai Niemi and Denmark's Hans Nielsen. Collins, who admitted to getting a little advice from older brother Peter, who had ridden an earlier heat, bolted from the pole' to bea t Penhall to the first turn. Penhall stayed right with him, passing momentarily in tum two of the second lap, but the