WORRALL LIKES CARDIFF HOME GROUND ADVANTAGE

FIM Speedway GP of Great Britain Cardiff wild card, Steve Worrall, believes being on home soil will even the playing field as he takes on the world’s best riders for the first time at Principality Stadium on September 2.

Worrall makes his Speedway GP debut after finishing second to triple SGP winner Dan Bewley in the British Championship Final in Manchester on August 14 to earn the wild card for Britain’s biggest indoor motorsport event.

The St Helens-born racer, who competes for Wolverhampton in the Sports Insure Premiership and Poole in the Cab Direct Championship, served as a track reserve in the 2016 Cardiff event, but did not get a ride.

Now he is guaranteed at least five heats against the best in the world alongside British Speedway GP stars Tai Woffinden, Robert Lambert and Dan Bewley on the 273-metre Principality Stadium track, which tests a rider’s skill and technique rather than their speed and power.

Worrall hopes this will level the playing field for the biggest meeting of his career to date and he can’t wait to take on the Speedway GP elite in the Welsh capital.

He said: “I get the opportunity to go to Cardiff. There are not many British riders who have that on their resume. What an opportunity, and it’s an absolute honour. It’s one of the best GPs on the calendar, if not the best, so to be going there as part of the whole event is a dream come true. There is no pressure on me. It is a one-off event. I’ll just have some fun and see where it takes me.

“My speedway career has been based around riding the small British tracks. One of my strong points is my gating and the way Cardiff is set up, it is a smallish track, and you need to make good starts. When I’m in front, I am just as fast as most people. You don’t really need the super-fast Polish engines that all the guys seem to have.

“There are things working in my favour. There are not really any expectations on me. It’s a one-off meeting.

“I will just go as far as I can. I don’t really want to put anything on it; I can’t come away disappointed either way. I am against 15 of the best riders in the world. I don’t race them on a regular basis and in reality, I don’t have access to some of the equipment that they have – like engines and whatever else. But Cardiff is a bit of a leveller. It makes things pretty even for everyone. Some of the guys don’t like the smaller indoor tracks, so we will see what happens.”