HOLDER FAMILY UNITED IN SPEEDWAY

FIM Speedway GP Media)

Aussie champion Jack Holder revealed 2012 Speedway GP world titleholder, brother Chris, is “prouder watching me doing my thing than I am of myself” after he raced to an unforgettable 2023 season.

Holder finished fourth in the Speedway GP World Championship, falling just two points short of winning the bronze medal – some feat considering he raced one round less than Slovakia’s Martin Vaculik, who pipped him to third.

Having finished second at the Speedway GP rounds in Warsaw and Cardiff and third in Prague, Teterow and Vojens, Holder has well and truly established himself as a world-class rider in his own right after years of comparisons with his elder sibling.

Jack always appeared in Chris’ Speedway GP pit corner as he raced in the series from 2010 until 2018, now it’s Chris’ turn to help out his younger brother on the sport’s biggest stage.

While some brothers are ultra-competitive, it’s clear the Holders and their oldest brother James, who used to race in Britain, love to see each other pile up the points on the track.

Jack has enjoyed having his brothers cheer him on throughout a stellar season, which also saw him win his first Australian Championship last January and play his part in league title wins for Polish club Lublin and British side Sheffield.

He said: “I have been there with Chris for so long and now the tables have turned. He’s probably prouder watching me doing my thing than I am of myself. 

“He was pretty excited about my Australian Championship win. He said he wished he could have helped me a little bit more by taking a few more points off everyone.

“Our eldest brother Jimbo is great too. Even though he is not here in the limelight, he’s back home cheering us both on, which is awesome.”

Both Jack and James had to handle the pressure of being compared to Chris, who won the 2010 FIM British Speedway GP in Cardiff just months after making his series debut, before going on to lift the sport’s biggest prize just two years later in 2012. 

Jack admits having a five-time Speedway GP-winning brother has its good and bad points as fans and media measured him against one of the sport’s biggest stars of the 2010s.

He said: “Chris was the first one to come over to Britain and ride and Jimbo followed in his footsteps. It wasn’t James Holder – it was ‘Chris’ brother’. Then it changed to me.

“There are two ways you can look at it. It’s tough at some points, but he has pretty much paved the way for me and told me what to do and what not to do. Now I have established myself as Jack, which is awesome – we have Jack, Chris and James.”

Chris appeared in Jack’s Speedway GP pit box as often as his racing commitments would allow, and the world number four was delighted to have the Poole legend’s experience to call on when available.

“I would love to have him at every Grand Prix,” Jack said. “But sometimes we are in different teams in Poland. We race on different days, and it can’t work out sometimes. But when he is there, it is a massive help for me.

“It’s always good to have another set of eyes to watch what everyone is doing and what the track is doing. It takes a little bit of strain off me and it’s something I don’t have to do. The GPs are a long day. We are there from 10am until 11pm. It’s always good if I can relax and have him running around for me!

“I have a very good group of people around me with my mechanics, my partner Jessica and my brother. There is no reason why we can’t get to the top, which is where we all want to be.”

Jack missed out on his first Speedway GP win at Warsaw’s PGE Narodowy on May 13, when he was leading the final, only for the race to be stopped when Jason Doyle crashed as he battled Bartosz Zmarzlik for third place.

Sweden’s Fredrik Lindgren won the re-run, denying Jack and Chris the chance to make history as the first brothers to both win a Speedway GP round.

While that maiden victory evaded him in 2023, he is hopeful of writing the Holder brothers’ names into the history books. 

He said: “I think we could do it. I’ve heard the statistic that we could be the first brothers to both win rounds and it only makes me hungrier to win one. Hopefully we can make history one day.”