Australia Crump who gained the nicknames Crumpy and the Mildura Marvel, started racing speedway in his late teens at his local Mildura track
Olympic Park Speedway. He won his first
Australian Solo Championship in 1975 at the
Sydney Showground Speedway and would go on to win another three national championships in 1979 and 1984 at Olympic Park and in 1988, at the
Riverview Speedway in
Murray Bridge. He would also finish second on five occasions (1976, 1977, 1980, 1981 and 1985) while he would finish third in the championship in 1983. The
1983 championship at Adelaide's
Speedway Park and had easily won his first three races, including setting a new 3 lap track record along the way. In his fourth race he came against three-time defending champion
Billy Sanders who was also undefeated but had looked less convincing after only narrowly defeating
Gary Guglielmi in his first race (Guglielmi had led for the first 2¾ laps before Sanders passed him in the final turn). The most anticipated race of the night ended early as the pair clashed in turn 2 of the first lap with Sanders going down. In a very unpopular decision with the almost 8,000 strong crowd, meeting referee Sam Bass excluded Crump and Sanders went on to win the re-run race (beating Crump's new track record by 5/100 of a second) and subsequently the championship after also winning his final ride. As a result of finishing 3rd in the championship, Crump missed a place in the Overseas Final. Crump finished 2nd to reigning
World Champion Ole Olsen of Denmark in the 1976 Australian title after the Dane was a controversial inclusion in the Final at the
Liverpool International Speedway in Sydney, despite protests from other riders about his non-Australian eligibility. However, knowing Olsen's drawing power, Liverpool management Mike Raymond and Frank Oliveri successfully pushed for his inclusion in the meeting. Crump had a stranglehold on the
Victorian State Championship winning 13 titles between 1972 and 1988, winning every year except 1976, 1978, 1983 and 1987. He also took out the
NSW State Championship in 1976 at the Sydney Showwground.
England The Crump family had a home in
Bristol while Phil was racing in the British League, which he started doing in 1971 with the
Crewe Kings. He also rode for the
Newport Wasps,
King's Lynn Stars,
Bristol Bulldogs and
Swindon Robins during his British career. In addition, he was instrumental in helping Crewe win the league and cup double. In 1974, Crump won the "Westernapolis" meeting at Exeter and later won the meeting for a second time in 1978 and again in 1984. He also won the inaugural Yorkshire Television Trophy meeting at
The Boulevard in Hull in 1974. Crump left Bristol Bulldogs, when signed by Swindon Robin's promoter
Wally Mawdsley, for the 1979 season and after a transfer battle between Reading Racers and Swindon. After retiring from British League riding in 1986, Crump, who had continued riding in Australia including winning the national championship in 1988, made a comeback for a single season with Swindon in 1990 joining his young
protégé from Mildura
Leigh Adams.
International career Early in Crump's international career, New Zealand's four time World Champion
Barry Briggs predicted that he would be a future World Champion. Phil Crump rode in three World Finals during his career. His first appearance in a World Final was at the famous
Wembley Stadium in
1975 where he scored 10 points to finish in 6th place. He achieved his best placing at the
Silesian Stadium in
Katowice, Poland in
1976 when he finished in third place on 12 points behind English pair
Peter Collins and
Malcolm Simmons. Crump's final World Final appearance was in
1982 when he finished in a disappointing 14th place at the
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He scored 4 points in his five rides on the night, all third-place finishes in his first four races. Crump rode in the controversial Heat 14 which saw the clash between defending champion
Bruce Penhall of the United States, and Englishman
Kenny Carter. Crump won his only World Championship when he was a member of the
Australian team that won the
1976 Speedway World Team Cup at the
White City Stadium in London alongside team captain
John Boulger,
Billy Sanders,
Phil Herne, and reserve
Garry Middleton. Australia scored 31 points in the final, with Crump the top scorer with 11. His only loss was to
Sweden's 1974 World Champion
Anders Michanek in Heat 9. Teaming with
South Australian champion Boulger, Crump would finish in second place in the
1974 Speedway World Pairs Championship held at the
Hyde Road Speedway in
Manchester. In
1975 they teamed again to finish in fifth place in
Wrocław, Poland. Crump would team with Billy Sanders to finish in fourth place in
1976 in
Eskilstuna, Sweden, and seventh in
1977 in Manchester. He teamed with
Queensland's
John Titman to again finish fourth in
Vojens, Denmark in
1979, and another Qld rider in
Steve Regeling to finish sixth in
1985 in
Rybnik, Poland, and ninth in
1986 in the
West German city of
Pocking. The 1986 World Pairs Championship was Phil Crump's last appearance in a World Final as a rider. == World Final Appearances ==