Greg Hancock Wins 2014 Speedway World Championship

Troy Siahaan
by Troy Siahaan

Seven years after winning his first FIM Speedway World Championship, American legend Greg Hancock won his third World Championship this past weekend.

Hancock secured the title with a fifth-place finish at the final round in Torun, Poland, on Oct. 11. Poland’s Krzysztof Kasprzak finished second in the title chase with 132 points to Hancock’s 140.

The 44-year-old Hancock, from Whittier, Calif., also won the FIM Speedway World Championship in 2011 and 1997. He has competed in FIM Speedway since 1995.

The history of American Speedway competition dates to the mid-1920s. One of the sport’s early stars was America’s first world champion: AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Jack Milne, who won the 1937 Individual Speedway Championship in London.

Speedway is known for its fast action and tight racing. A meet features numerous heats of four riders each, power-sliding single-speed bikes with no brakes counter-clockwise around a dirt oval.

For more information about AMA-sanctioned speedway competition, see www.americanmotorcyclist.com/racing/speedway.

Troy Siahaan
Troy Siahaan

Troy's been riding motorcycles and writing about them since 2006, getting his start at Rider Magazine. From there, he moved to Sport Rider Magazine before finally landing at Motorcycle.com in 2011. A lifelong gearhead who didn't fully immerse himself in motorcycles until his teenage years, Troy's interests have always been in technology, performance, and going fast. Naturally, racing was the perfect avenue to combine all three. Troy has been racing nearly as long as he's been riding and has competed at the AMA national level. He's also won multiple club races throughout the country, culminating in a Utah Sport Bike Association championship in 2011. He has been invited as a guest instructor for the Yamaha Champions Riding School, and when he's not out riding, he's either wrenching on bikes or watching MotoGP.

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