Nicol Dominates at Penhall Memorial

One of the premier events of the Speedway Season is the Connor Penhall Memorial Cup race. Connor was the son of 2-time World Champion Bruce Penhall, who brought the World Speedway Championship back to America 1n 1981 after a nearly five decade absence. Bruce repeated as World Champion in 1981, winning in his home country at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Connor was struck and killed by a drunk driver while working on a Los Angeles freeway for his family’s company. 

The Penhall Memorial Cup is the highest purse paying event in the American Speedway world, and probably one of the biggest purses in Speedway Racing world-wide.

This year, the Grand Marshall for the event was none other than four-time World Speedway Champion and Speedway Legend, New Zealand’s Barry “Briggo” Briggs MBE.

Multi-time Penhall Memorial Cup and California Speedway Champion “Mad” Max Ruml has taken the gorgeous Troy Lee designed Penhall Memorial Cup helmet awarded to the Champion more than a few times. On any given night, Max is the guy to watch, rarely losing. On the other hand, 2025 AMA National Speedway Champion Broc Nicol has been a “Bridesmaid” a few times, as far as the Penhall Memorial Cup is concerned, and the saying “Always a Bridesmaid, never a bride”, might have been true until Saturday night at the Industry Grand track, but no longer. 

Riders come from all over to try and grab the helmet, Multi-time California and National Champ Billy “The Kid” Janniro, Northern California’s Russel Green, Wilbur Hancock, son of 6-time world Champ Greg Hancock, “Fast” Eddie Castro, who refuses to act his age (67), previous Penhall Cup Winner Austin “on The Throttle” Novratil and the 15 year-old phenom Brady Landon, winner of the 2025 World SGP-4 Championship.

Although pretty much everyone was hyped – up and ready to go on Saturday night, it was obvious from the start that Broc Nicol was, to put it mildly, “On a Roll”. In a series of heats, Broc dominated, putting away Janniro, Brady Landon, “Mad Max ”Ruml, Wilbur Hancock, Austin Novratil and Russell Green, all in sequential order! 

In Speedway, each rider has 5 heats, and meets every other rider at least once in sort of a “Round-Robin” format. Scoring points on a 3-2-1-0 basis in each heat. A perfect score, for 5 wins gives you a maximum of 15 points going forward to the final.

With 5 straight heat wins and with a perfect 15 point “Maximum” score after the heats were finished, Nicol was flying! Only Roseville California’s “Youngster”, Brady Landon could even come close at 12 points. Following up at 11 points each, were Russell Green and Max Ruml. After the twenty heats, the top eight points scorers go to the two semi-final races, with two riders from each “Semi” advancing to the Final. Although the finish of the first Semi-Final was no big surprise, nevertheless, Nicol had probably his toughest race of the night with Russell green within a bike’s-length behind for the entire four 4 laps. The last Semi pitted “Mad” Max Ruml, who was having a rare “Off” night, scoring just two wins for the whole evening, against Brady Landon, Aaron Fox and Austin Novratil. Unfortunately, both Fox and Novratil managed to throw their bikes and their chances away, and causing re-starts. If you cause a crash 

in Speedway, you are generally excluded from the re-start. So, after after a couple re-starts, the final semi came down to a 2-man run-off between Landon and Ruml. Both would make the main, but the winner gets the choice of starting gate, which can be critical, so the gates went up again, with the kid (Landon) taking the win.

The Final came down to Nicol, Green, Landon and Ruml, and each of the riders selected their starting gate, and did the usual start line preparation to try and get the best traction at the start. And… it would have finished in that order, but for a last lap pass by Ruml, virtually at the finish line, to beat Landon by maybe…10 inches, if that! The crowd went nuts, and Nicol got the bucks $$, the trophy and the helmet! 

Nicol, not exactly a “Bride”, but a “Bridesmaid” no longer, and the Champaign exploded!  

Story and photos – Richard T. Haight