Monster Energy Interview | FIM Speedway GP Speedster Dan Bewley

Monster Energy’s Dan Bewley races a 500cc methanol motorcycle that accelerates comparable to an F1 race car. He reaches speeds of 70-80 mph in a few seconds, then pretty much has the bike pitched sideways the entire time around a dirt track – which is roughly the size of your high school’s 400 meter track. He runs in heats of four racers, for four laps – each heat lasting around a minute.

And the part of this that really flows with Monster Energy? He does it with no brakes.

The white hot sport of FIM Speedway Grand Prix (GP) regularly packs soccer stadiums throughout Europe and to Australia above the brim with its speedy, ‘microwave’ version of classic American oval dirt track racing. And the following for the wild form of motorsport is basically a carbon copy carryover from the wildness of European soccer matches. Hyper-loyal fans flock to back their country’s racers from the Great Britian, Sweden, Poland, Oz, Denmark – and even the U.S. – in the same feverous, and sometimes rabid, way they back their soccer teams.

Great Britian’s Bewley is a great story. He’s risen through the ranks of junior and club racing to the sport’s pinnacle – FIM Speedway GP. One of his country’s top ranked racer, Bewley not only has an incredible following throughout the UK, but also with the Premier League teams he competes with in other countries, namely Poland’s Sparta Wroclaw club and Dackarna Malilla in Sweden. So basically, no borders can contain Bewley’s sizable fan base around Europe.

As we get set to start the 30th annual FIM Speedway GP season in Croatia (April 27th), Monster Energy caught up with Bewley to get his take on the upcoming season, both Premier and FIM Speedway racing, and how things are looking.

Monster Energy: Dan! Hey, we’re just a little over a week away from the start of 2024 FIM Speedway Grand Prix season, with the gate dropping, er, ‘rising’ on April 27th at Donji Kraljevec’s Speedway Stadium Milenium, the Croatian Speedway GP.  for 2024, talk about your FIM Speedway GP program. Everything in order?

Dan Bewley: Yep, all good. Not many changes, really.

ME: Before we dive further into FIM Speedway GP, talk a bit about your team, the Belle Vue Aces, in the Premier League. Things are already rocking with that series for you. Get us caught up a bit there.

DB: I’ve got the same mechanics Karol (Sroka) and Kamil (Matuszak) and at the same teams in the (Premier) League racing, Belle Vue Aces (UK), Sparta Wrocław (Poland) and Dackarna Malilla (Sweden). Same engine tuner with both the Ashtech and Eso bikes. 

ME: To put the Belle Vue Aces in perspective, from a club standpoint, the Aces are like Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees in terms of Premier League championships (record 13) and unsurpassed race heritage. Was that a dream come true for you, as a countryman, being selected to race for the Aces’ development team – the Belle Vue Colts – and they being brought up to race for the Aces – a team you no doubt followed through your youth racing career? 

DB: I actually didn’t follow it very closely as a kid, so I didn’t really know much about all the different teams and how it all worked, really. I just had a few riders I liked and followed them. When I actually signed for Belle Vue their new stadium was only half built and I wouldn’t say I really knew what I was getting into. I was somewhat lucky that it turned out I signed with the best club in the UK. 

ME: Hahaha, great view! Staying on the same subject… in getting the Monster Army up to speed here across the pond, what ‘fringe’ fans of speedway would find interesting is the amount of racing, between club and FIM World Speedway GP, that you guys do. Explain that, how much you race during the season and what it takes – both physically and mentally – to run that impressive race schedule. 

DB: I should have around 70 meetings (races) from mid-March till the end of September, which works out to be racing 3 to 4 days a week and generally I’ll province a week two. Last season I did 90 race meetings. It’s a long season if you look at it as a whole, but I like to take it day by day. I try to do some other disciplines when I can, like motocross or mountain bikes, which I think gives me a little change and makes me enjoy racing even more when I get back on a speedway bike. 

ME: Mixing it up is always smart. Flashing back to something a bit painful, in 2018 you suffered a horrendous crash while racing for the Workington Comets, a British speedway club based in Workington, Cumbria (UK). Talk a bit about that wreck, the injuries you suffered, how you were, eventually, able to recover and, most importantly, how that wreck helped shape your pro speedway career. 

DB: I came worst off in a first corner crash resulting in a broken femur, shoulder and wrist. My leg was pretty bad, I’ve actually just had the metal work taken out this winter and it feels much better. I came back to racing eight months later, but my leg hadn’t healed fully. In hindsight I’d say I came back too early, but I’d also say that it made me focus on how I ride the bike because I didn’t want to crash. I think it also showed me that, despite that, it was still what I wanted to do! 

ME: In 2022 you had a memorable year in your first full season racing FIM Speedway GP – the pinnacle of professional speedway racing. There you won back-to-back in Cardiff (Wales) and Wroclaw (Poland) and placed 6th overall in the SGP standings. Highly impressive run for a rookie. But it didn’t stop there. You also won the ’22 British Speedway Championship. Rewind back to 2022 and how that helped you overcome your wicked accident in 2018. 

DB: I’d say it was something I’d almost forgot about at that point, but Mark Lemmon, my team manager at Belle Vue, told me after that there are only three riders that have broken their femur and went on to win a Speedway GP. Kenneth Bierre, Bartek Zmarzlik and now me. It’s probably something not many would care about, but something I’m proud of. 

ME: Last season, 2023, saw you team with Brady Kurtz and Jake Mulford to with the Premiership Pairs championship for Belle Vue. This took place in June, right smack dab in the middle of FIM Speedway GP season. Is that difficult? Being able to adjust race formats, stadiums/surfaces and such going from FIM Speedway GP to Premier League? 

DB: Not really for me. It’s actually quite nice to have a little change of format and we already ride quite a lot of different tracks. think it helps keep it fresh. 

ME: You were victorious at the Swedish Grand Prix round in July last summer, your lone win on the ’23 FIM Speedway GP tour. Other than winning in Cardiff, where the entire stadium was on your side, did you have support from the Swedish crowd based on your work with Malilla? 

DB: The crowd there isn’t as big as Cardiff, but it’s my home club in Sweden and there’s a lot of travelling fans there too. it was a cool atmosphere. I’d say they were pretty good! 

ME: Do you have August 17, in Cardiff, circled on the schedule? Discuss the Cardiff event, how big of a win that was for you in ’22, and what the race means to a kid from England. 

DB: It’s a cool week leading up to it, especially in England. There is a lot of excitement from everyone leading up to it. It was special to get my first win there. It’s the only FIM Speedway GP in the UK, and I think the second biggest crowd of the season. Seeing the stadium there full for a Speedway GP is pretty cool. 

ME: Dan, everyone at Monster Energy is pumped to see you get things rolling here on the FIM Speedway GP tour. We’ll, of course, be checking in on the Aces, but look forward to April 27th when the 30th season of the Speedway Grand Prix era gets underway.

DB: Looking forward to it. Thanks.

Up next…

The 30th annual FIM Speedway GP season opens on April 27th with the running of the Croatian Speedway GP at Donji Kraljevec’s Speedway Stadium Milenium. For further information, including the season race schedule, racer bios and timely results, link to: www.fimspeedway.com