Bruce Lee Penhall is born in Balboa, California. Soon teenage girls everywhere would be pasting his picture on their walls and inside their locker door.
Bruce Penhall was well known for his role as Cadet/Officer/stud Bruce Nelson riding alongside his partner Ponch, a role immortalized by Eric Estrada, in the final season of the television series CHiPs.
But, before he was Ponch's stable-mate he was a World Speedway Champion racer riding for the successful Cradley Heath Heathens speedway team in the United Kingdom from 1978-1982.
The 1981 Speedway season proved to be Penhall's all conquering year. Racing at the World Final at London's Wembley Stadium, 92,479 people witnessed Bruce Penhall come from behind to beat both former World Champion Ole Olsen of Denmark and later another Dane Tommy Knudsen on the finish line. Also in 1981 Penhall partnered fellow American Bobby Schwartz to win the World Pairs Championship in Poland and alongside fellow World Finalist Erik Gundersen of Denmark led Cradley all the way to their first ever league title victory, topping the individual league averages on the way. On top of a clean sweep of all the SWAPA personality awards was a special citation from US President Ronald Reagan. *Seriously. I couldn't make this shit up.
He retired from speedway racing the night he won his second World Championship in 1982 in front of his home crowd at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. See * above.
Bruce was not only Bruce Nelson, but Bruce Christian in the 1989 film Savage Beach and five of the movie's sequels as Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce and Bruce. Bruce then reprised his role as Officer Bruce in the 1998 television movie CHiPs '99. There's a Monty Python sketch here somewhere.
In 1999, Penhall was inducted into the A.M.A. Motorcycle Hall of Fame.
