Team USA World Cup Team Announced USA Team Boss Billy Hamill has made a stunning team choice by giving 17 year old rookie Max Ruml a spot on the starting line up for the World Cup Semi Final at Kings Lynn on July 26th. The move came after the news that Ryan Fisher would be ruled out of the competition and likely the rest of the 2014 season after discovering he needed surgery on a shoulder injury. Hamill paid tribute to Fisher. Ryan is devastated with the timing of this. He has been a pleasure to work with the past two seasons. His contributions, especially in 2013 in the Hungary Qualifier and the Race Off in Prague, where he also captained the team, have been a huge part in our story book resurgance. He will be on hand with the team during the competition and his contributions so far have helped make what we have so far become. On the selection of teenager Ruml, Max has been phenomenal on the US domestic scene this year, winning Main Events and being a clear 2nd place in the AMA National Championship Series. He rode exceptionally on the big Ventura track last month. He is fast, he listens and he learns. He was with us for the whole of last years SWC, practiced at Kings Lynn and impressed me with his pace. Of course throwing him into the World Cup itself is a whole different ball game, but he is up for the challenge and taking it all in very well. There is no pressure on him, like Gino Manzares last year, he is there to sweep up a few points where he can.. Max is going to be a long term member of this team and however it plays out, he will be better for the experience. It was not an easy decision - we looked at various options. Billy Janniro had logistical issues that were hard to sort out given the short time frame of the team change. Aaron Fox meantime is going to be our reserve rider at Kings Lynn. He has my admiration for coming to the UK this year knowing the first three months were just a learning experience, and his improvement from March is there for all to see. This year will be his first experience with the Speedway World Cup and we will use him at reserve for Kings Lynn to get him acclimated to this kind of competition. He will practice with his team mates and be on hand for the event, and in Poland. Assuming we make the race off, we will be looking at Max’s performance and how Aaron does in practice and will choose a team accordingly. Aaron is part of the long term Team USA plans. I have every faith he is going to be an established league rider and team member for many years.” Ruml, when asked about his dream call up said “I am honored to be called up by Billy Hamill to represent the Stars and Stripes. I will do the very best I can and learn as much as possible during the tournament. It’s a dream come true for me to be on this team.” Hamill still believes his team can qualify for the race off despite the loss of Fisher, but knows it wont be easy, Weve had a couple of epic battles with the Italians in the past and they have our respect. With Ryan healthy we felt we could have pushed and even beat GB, but our goal now is to get to Bydgoszcz. We are very optimistic in our approach and Ryans injury was not good news, especially with such a small rider pool. That said, since 2012 we have always been the under dog, the cinderella story and weve turning negatives into positives, like winning without Greg in Hungary last year. That win made others step up and ultimately made us stronger. Putting a 17 year old rookie on our World Cup team is perhaps the next section of a story we plan to be adding many new chapters to over the next decade. Ruml & Fox will be joined at Kings Lynn by British GP winner Greg Hancock, Ricky Wells and Gino Manzares.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 17:06:01 +0000