Jason Doyle wins 2017 world speedway title!

Newcastle-born Jason Doyle has become just the sixth Australian to win the speedway world title, with the 32-year-old wrapping up the 2017 championship at Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium tonight.

In front of a partisan home crowd – a rare treat for the Aussie with the majority of his racing done in the UK and Continent – Doyle made the ascension to world champion in emphatic style, winning his first three heats to put the shutters up on the only rider who could have overtaken him in Melbourne – diminutive Polish firebrand Patryk Dudek.

To put icing on the cake, an emboldened Doyle then went onto win the final at Etihad Stadium ahead of Tai Woffinden, Bartosz Smarzlik and Dudek.

Doyle completed the 12-round championship on 161 points from Dudek (143), Woffinden (131), Maciej Janowski (122) and Smarzlik (121).

Doyle now joins Lionel van Praag, Bluey Wilkinson, Jack Young, Jason Crump and Chris Holder on the Australian world speedway honour board.

To an outpouring of emotion, Doyle became world champion in heat 10 after a superb victory over Piotr Pawlicki, British gun Woffinden and fellow Aussie Sam Masters.

Doyle admits he has been a tough man to live with over the past few weeks as he waited for his chance to seal gold, after falling just short of finishing the job in Torun three weeks ago. He said: “My wife Emily deserves this trophy as much as me because she has been to hell and back.

“The last two weeks I have been a human calculator, trying to work out what was going to happen if I got five points, six points.

“But today I just thought ‘win it or bin it’ – the same as I have done all year. I rode pretty hard and it worked in the first three rides and flowed from there. Once that monkey of the title came off my back, it just seemed to work.

“We have worked very hard. I have done a lot of work behind the scenes and so have the boys. It has finally come together and it’s just perfect. This was a perfect night and hopefully it sinks in one day because tonight, it still hasn’t at the moment.”

Doyle hailed his mechanics Dave and Sam Haynes, Johno Birks and Mark Seabright for their role in an historic season as they provided the ice to his fire. He said: “They have been through so many hard times with me. It has been a great couple of years, but having Dave and Johno, as well as Mark and Sam, has really helped me in my career.

“Dave is a very placid guy and I’ve got a bit of a temper. It’s nice to have that happy medium when you come to a race meeting.

“This is a special moment for me and the team. It’s not just all about me; it’s about how hard they have worked for the last five years. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.”

Doyle races two more meetings Down Under, before jetting back to Europe where he will undergo surgery to finally fix his broken foot.

“I have to go and get a bone graft when I go back to Poland in three weeks time,” he revealed. “Not many people knew I was riding with a shattered foot still. I just needed to carry on and get through the last couple of meetings.

“This is hopefully a simple fix. They’re going to do a bone graft on my foot to fix the last broken bone. There are still three bones that are broken in the foot, but once I get off the bike, it’s going to heal a lot better than while I’m riding all the time.

“We have done about 100 meetings this year, so it has been quite difficult. The pain is alright. I just can’t run and this is the biggest problem. I want to try and lose as much weight as possible.

“I guess the training side has really suffered, but when you get on a motorbike and you have all the adrenaline pumping, it just changes. You just need to focus on winning races, and it worked.”

This year’s broken foot has been far from Doyle’s only injury battle, with years of shoulder strife slowing his progress to the top of the sport. He said: “There has been many a time, when I’ve been left in hospital with the shoulder out. I had 11 dislocated shoulders – that was hard to swallow. I didn’t think it was ever going to be stable again.

“Having an operation in Barcelona last year is something I wish I’d done nine years ago. It stabilised my shoulder that well, I could ride a motorbike to the level I did tonight.

“Injuries are part and parcel of the sport, but you just don’t want to be having them every year. It seems like every year I am ending up in hospital.”

Doyle’s 2016 title dream was ended by a season ending crash in Torun, which left him with elbow, shoulder and lung damage and denied him the chance to claim gold at the Etihad Stadium 12 months ago.

Doyle went into the Etihad Stadium finale requiring only eight points to win the championship even if Dudek made a clean sweep of the program (seven wins from as many starts). However, after Dudek finished second in his opening heat and Doyle was at his front-running best, the Aussie's first chance of winning the title came in heat 10.

Doyle only required a third place to win the championship, but after slicing his way to the front just after the start he was untouchable and took the win – and was embraced by his family, team and opponents as he returned to the pits.

RESULTS HERE

It was all academic, but Doyle and Dudek met each other for the first time in heat 16 -- however both were bested by Zmarzlik. Doyle was second, one spot ahead of Dudek.

Zmarzlik won the opening semi-final from Doyle, Janowski and Matej Zagar, and Dudek won the second from Woffinden, Emil Sayfutdinov and Martin Vaculik.

Meanwhile, five other Aussies took to the purpose-built 346-metre Etihad Stadium track tonight, with Rohan Tungate the best of them with his two substitute-winning rides (six points), ahead of Brady Kurtz (three), Chris Holder (three), the retiring Davey Watt (three) and Sam Masters (two).

Doyle is joined in securing automatic qualification for the 2018 World Championship by Dudek, Woffinden, Janowski, Zmarzlik, Sayfutdinov, Zagar and Fredrik Lindgren. They will meet GP Challenge qualifiers Przemyslaw Pawlicki, Artem Laguta and Craig Cook. The final four places in the 2018 competition will be taken by four wild-card picks made by the SGP Commission.

FINAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS: 1 Jason Doyle 161, 2 Patryk Dudek 143, 3 Tai Woffinden 131, 4 Maciej Janowski 122, 5 Bartosz Zmarzlik 121, 6 Emil Sayfutdinov 117, 7 Matej Zagar 107, 8 Fredrik Lindgren 107, 9 Martin Vaculik 99, 10 Chris Holder 85, 11 Piotr Pawlicki 81, 12 Antonio Lindback 77, 13 Peter Kildemand 60, 14 Greg Hancock 45, 15 Niels-Kristian Iversen 44, 16 Vaclav Milik 31, 17 Martin Smolinski 25, 18 Max Fricke 11, 19 Pawel Przedpelski 10, 20 Nicki Pedersen 8, 21 Michael Jepsen Jensen 8, 22 Maksims Bogdanovs 8, 23 Kenneth Bjerre 7, 24 Krzysztof Kasprzak 6, 25 Rohan Tungate 6, 26 Kai Huckenbeck 4, 27 Jacob Thorssell 4, 28 Justin Sedgmen 4, 29 Przemyslaw Pawlicki 3, 30 Dave Watt 3, 31 Brady Kurtz 3, 32 Craig Cook 2, 33 Linus Sundstrom 2, 34 Sam Masters 2, 35 Kim Nilsson 2, 36 Josh Bates 2, 37 Nick Skorja 1.

QBE INSURANCE AUSTRALIAN SGP SCORES: 1 Jason Doyle 19, 2 Tai Woffinden 16, 3 Bartosz Zmarzlik 13, 4 Patryk Dudek 15, 5 Matej Zagar 10, 6 Martin Vaculik 9, 7 Maciej Janowski 9, 8 Emil Sayfutdinov 8, 9 Rohan Tungate 6, 10 Martin Smolinski 6, 11 Peter Kildemand 6, 12 Antonio Lindback 4, 13 Justin Sedgmen 4, 14 Brady Kurtz 3, 15 Chris Holder 3, 16 Dave Watt 3, 17 Sam Masters 2, 18 Piotr Pawlicki 2.