Edward Kennett is a handful of races away from riding in a world championship final.

Put like that, it does not sound a lot. But the fact is the Eastbourne Eagles wonder kid has a mountain to climb in Slovenia this weekend.

No one expects Kennett, at 16 the youngest rider in the field, to upset the odds in the under-21 meeting at Ljubljana, but then no one gave him much of a chance of getting through the previous three rounds, either.

He said: "I'm looking forward to it, and I'm confident I can do well. I need to put it all together on the day and make some starts, but whatever happens it's a great experience for me."

Sunday's semi-final is a journey into the unknown for the youngster from Magham Down.

He has only ever ridden abroad a couple of times in Sweden and if he makes the top eight out of the 16 starters he will be going back there for the world final at Kumla in September.

"If someone had said to me at the start of the season I would be doing this, then I would have laughed and said 'no way', so getting this far has been beyond my wildest dreams."

Kennett will be up against riders from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden, as well as fellow Brits Jamie Smith and Oliver Allen, who both ride for Swindon.

Among his rivals will be a trio of highly-rated Poles, Rafal Szombierski, Miroslaw Jablonski and Lukasz Romanek, all of whom finished above him in the last round at Poole.

One of the favourites will be Slovenia's Jernej Kolenko, who rode in the World Cup meeting at Arlington last year, while the line-up also includes Kenneth Bjerre, of Denmark, Joonas Davidsson, of Sweden, and Eastbourne's Swedish reserve Peter Ljung.

Kennett knows it's a tough call. He won three races at Poole but still finished sixth with ten points.

Chris Harris, who won the meeting with 14, is already through to the final after winning the first semi-final at Abensberg in Germany after a run-off against Niels Kristian Iversen, the young Dane who impressed for Oxford at Arlington last week.

So is another Brit, David Howe, along with Poles Krzysztof Kasprzak and Jarek Hampel and America's Ryan Fisher, but three-times British under-21 champion Simon Stead is out.

Kennett was flying out today with dad Dave, a former Eastbourne favourite, mum Bridget and girlfriend Lauren. His two bikes are going by road.

"The track at Ljubljana is huge, so my engines will need to be stronger. They have been sent away to my tuner, Eddie Bull, at Tamworth, so hopefully that will do the trick."

Kennett won't know for sure until Sunday, when the official practice takes place on the track a few hours before the meeting. And then there are 15 other world-class youngsters aiming to go faster.

The fact he is in such exalted company at all is testimony to his remarkable progress after just half a season in full-time speedway.

Great Britain under-21 manager Graham Reeve said: "The way he approaches things is first class. Nothing fazes him. It speaks volumes for a lad of his age that he gets stuck in the way he does."

Kennett is currently top of the Conference League averages, having scored three 15-point maximums and incredibly dropped only one point in nine matches for Rye House.

And that was when he was brought in as a golden tactical substitute starting 15m behind the other riders and finished second!

Kennett is riding at No. 1 for the table-topping Raiders and also has a 7.65 average for Rye House Rockets in the Premier League. Yet he won't be 17 until the end of August.

Monday night's nil return for Eastbourne at Ipswich shows the gap he has to bridge to realise his ambition of riding regularly in the top flight for Eagles.

In the meantime, however, there are plenty of other targets for him to aim at. Starting with that mountain in Slovenia on Sunday.