Would you put your country first?

The 1982 Overseas Final. Watch and listen, it explains it perfectly. Did the Americans cheat? The fact that there are four Americans all in the same heat was purely coincidental.

Personally, I do not have a problem at all with it. If I was Penhall, I would do exactly the same thing. But would you?

For the record, Penhall won the World Championship this year, in the LA Memorial Coliseum, and then retired from the sport to be an actor. In my opinion, this was a contributory factor.

But, a penny for your thoughts. Tactics? Or cheating?

By the way, this is a bit of a cult video in Britain:

The interviewer is Nick Owen, who hosts "Midlands Today", the BBC News programme where I live in the Midlands.
Bruce Penhall is a legendary Cradley Heath Heathens rider.
The guy in the suit afterwards talking about it is Fred Dinenage from How 2! That is a random science programme on childrens TV over here.

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InterMatAll-American

847 days ago

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Interviewing for CHIPS!!!!! Dun, dun dah dah dah!

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

847 days ago

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He got the role too. He had a fairly successful acting career after his reign as Number 1 Speedway rider in the world. The gain of acting was a tragic loss for Speedway.

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IbeargRed-Shirting

847 days ago

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they had international motorcycle racing in 1982? who knew?

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

847 days ago

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They did have International Motorcycle racing in 1982. MotoGP (or as it then was, the Motorcycle World Championship) had been around since 1949. This however, is Speedway, on the dirt ovals. The first World Championship for Speedway was in the 1930s. You can see them all here, hopefully, if I've got the right link.

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

847 days ago

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It was the right link. :)

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