[2][3] 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.

[6] In 1979 Penhall won the Master of Speedway competition around Europe, as well as becoming the first American holder of the Golden Helmet match race championship.

By 1980 there were more cup victories, along with SWAPA Overseas Rider of the Year, American National Champion, a first World Final appearance (scoring nine points).

However, Gresham was left stranded at the Heathrow Airport in London (as was a hurried third replacement Ron Preston), Penhall was forced to ride the meeting with the reserve riders as teammates.

As a previous World Championship winner at Wembley, Milne was a special guest of the meeting and saw Penhall break America's 43-year drought.

Heat 19 of the event involved 4 riders from the USA (brothers Kelly and Shawn Moran, Penhall and his childhood friend Dennis Sigalos).

English commentator Dave Lanning called it a circus, but also noted that it wasn't an unprecedented happening, claiming that riders from other nations had previously done similar in order to help their countrymen qualify.

Carter protested, claiming that Penhall had hit him in the corner causing him to come off his bike and walked back to the start line in an effort to stop the re-run going ahead without him.

Although not shown in the television broadcast of the event, amateur video footage shot from the stands in turns 1 & 2 vindicated Kittlesen's decision.

Additionally, if Penhall had been excluded from Heat 14 and not Carter, Les Collins would likely have won the title as he had finished with 2 point lead over third placed Dennis Sigalos.

Penhall reprised his role as Bruce Nelson in the 1998 TNT television movie CHiPs '99 and has made guest appearances on shows such as Just Men!, The Facts of Life and Renegade.

Penhall's debut in CHiPs came in the season 6 episode "Speedway Fever", which mainly concentrated on his character Nelson winning the 1982 World Final at the LA Coliseum.

In 1985, Penhall travelled to Sydney, Australia to read the lesson at the funeral of rider Billy Sanders after the Australian champion died by suicide at his home in Ipswich, England.