The man who would be king roars into Arlington Stadium tomorrow night.

Come the end of the season and Jason Crump could be the holder of two gold medals after leading Australia to World Cup glory and being crowned world champion.

On the way there is the bread and butter stuff, like riding for Belle Vue against Eastbourne Eagles in the Elite League, a match which will spark another head to head with current title-holder Nicki Pedersen.

Eastbourne's Great Dane pipped Crump to the world championship in the final Grand Prix of last season, raising doubts over whether Crump really had the mettle to win the ultimate prize in speedway.

You see, Crump had been there, done it all before and got the T-shirt. On more than one occasion. It's now three years in a row as runner-up.

Yet the flamboyant, hard-riding Aussie, who was actually born in Bristol, the son of former star Phil Crump, keeps bouncing back, and he currently leads the world title race with five rounds down and four to go.

Crump raced ahead of the pack with victory in the Danish Grand Prix in Copenhagen to add to his earlier win in Prague, second place in Stockholm and fourth at Cardiff.

He now has a career record of ten Grand Prix victories and has reached the final 28 times in 54 starts, a phenomenal strike rate.

For the moment the Grand Prix season is on hold while the World Cup takes centre stage and Crump will be back at Arlington the week after next when Australia launch their bid to win the event for the fourth time in six years.

Crump was inspirational in Australia winning in 1999, 2001 and 2002. How they didn't win again last year is one of the sport's mysteries and had something to do with an upstart from Sweden named Peter Ljung.

With all this going on, you might think Crump would be forgiven for not being the brightest light on the Elite League scene, but that is one of his strengths and a reason to believe he deserves to be world champion one day.

Like Leigh Adams and Tony Rickardsson, Crump rarely fires blanks when it comes to the day-to-day grind of league racing. He has finished top of the averages for the last two years and his record at Arlington is up there with the best.

How he and Pedersen square off against each other will be interesting. Both are fiery personalities and Eastbourne fans will remember Crump almost caused a riot a few years back when he knocked off Alan Mogridge, leaving him and his machine in a heap on the pits bend.

There is also the small matter of what happened at Belle Vue on Wednesday night. Crump, four wins under his belt and odds on for a 15-point maximum, was sensationally outridden in the final heat by Pedersen and David Norris.

It turned the match on its head and Eagles scored a smash-and-grab 45-44 win.

With Kenneth Bjerre one of four riders, two from each team, involved in the world under-21 semi-finals, Belle Vue will be able to give Crump, and also new British champion Joe Screen, a minimum of six rides under the rider replacement rules.

Another rider with good Arlington form, Niels-Kristian Iversen, is a likely guest for the Aces, while former Eagle Brent Werner, who certainly knows his way around the Sussex circuit, is lurking at reserve.

Eastbourne boss Jon Cook said: "They look very strong on paper and potentially it's a tough meeting for us."

Eagles will have Roman Povazhny making his first Arlington appearance for three years in place of Joonas Kylmakorpi, who is out for a month with a broken collar-bone, and Davey Watt at reserve for Steen Jensen, whose damaged ankle could now have a hair-line fracture.

Adrian Miedzinski and Edward Kennett, as well as Bjerre and Belle Vue's Rory Schlein, are riding in the world under-21 meetings.