Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

- (Above) American Bobby Schwartz leads top point scorer. Denmark's Tommy Knudsen. (Below) The Danish team, consisting of Tommy Knudsen, Erik .Gundersen, Hans Nielsen. Preben Eriksen and Bo Petersen. ' World Team Cu~ Cham~ionshi~ Danes'defeat Americans by two points By Scott Daloisio LONG BEACH , CA, AUG. 10 " We are right, we are right, we are Danish Dynamite. H ey; Hey, Hey ." That was the chant of a group of boisterous -Danish fans after Den mark defeated the USA 37-35 to win th e World T eam Cup Championship for the third consecutive seas o n before a sell o u t cro wd of ·22,000 fans at Long 6 Beach Vetera ns Stad ium Sa tu rday ni ght. Tom my Knudsen led th e Danish charge on th e track by scoring a perfect 12 points while multi-time World Champion Ole Ol sen man aged th em off th e track. The Danish squad was dynamite on th e tra ck while in ac tio n but their dem eanor was a lso dyn amite wh en th ey were o ff th eir machines. They struc k th e fir st p sychological blow a bout a half hour before the first race even began . While th e rid ers were cha nging in to th eir leathers Bru ce Penhall , th e Amer ican Tea m Man ager, was bein g interviewed by th e USA T elevision netw ork. Wh en the riders were retu rn in g fro m their p its th ey were asked by a member o f th e USA-TV sta ff to pl ease walk behind th e ca mera ma n . T h e Ameri can s, Swedes and Englishmen d id. The Danes sim p ly pushed th e sta ff member ou t of the way a nd walked directly in front of th e camera. On th e scoreshee t th e Dan es should have received th eir first point for th e man euver. After allowing ex tra tim e for several thousand fans to get into th e sta dium , it was time for event o ne ..The USA was represented by Lance King but he got a poor ga te and was behind T ommy Nil sson o f Sweden -: Den mark 's Bo Petersen a nd Phil Collins (Eng la nd). King immedi ately went to work a nd went to the in sid e to ge t some passing don e. H e was cha lle nging Petersen for seco nd when th ey clashed com ing off tum two . Petersen ' went down and the red flag was displayed. Petersen was excl uded causing Ol sen to fly into a rage at Field Operations Officer Barry Briggs. " T ha t' s ajoke," Olsen shot at Briggs. " he hit him. " While strolling by, American captain Bobby Schwam heard Olsen and sim p ly looked directly at th e Dan e a nd said, "Tha t' s speedwa y." The field returned to th e line with only three riders and it wa s time for th e meeting to get underway again. Wrong. This time Phil Collins of England broke the tapes prompting teammate John Davis to scream in disbel ief. " T he f------ tapes aren 't working." That sp u rred someone else to say, "That's right, because your man broke th em ." To say th e least, there was a lot of psychological warfare going on. Th e race restarted with only two riders and Nil sson raced ah ead of King. H e held the flashy American ba ck until turn two on the second ci rcu it wh en King shot by on th e in side a nd rod e o ff with the allimportant first three points o f th e n ight . The r iders for even t two moved o ut o nto the track a nd th e warfar e qu ickl y turn ed to hand -to-hand co m ba t. As Dan ish rid er T ommy Knudsen was push in g o ff, he was to ld by Pit Steward Phil Moon to wai t. Wh en Knudsen di d n' t listen .Moon gra bbed h is handlebar. but was pushed ou t o f the wa y by a Danish mech anic. Knudsen finally d id stop farther u p th e track but he agai n sta rted o ff too ea rly. Th is tim e he was accos ted by T echnical In spector Irwin Mo on. Knudsen sho ved Moon wh ile sti ll o n his bik e a nd th en di smounted a nd sta rted for Moon. At the same tim e a rather overfed Danish mech anic thumped Moon o n th e ches t. knocking him to th e ground and start ed a minor scu ffle. That little ep isode was finall y broken up .and th ey were read y to return to racing. The race got o ff a nd it was a war as the pack entered th e first corner. Knudsen , John Cook and England's J erem y Doncaster bla sted into th e bend. Knudsen emerged in the lead whi le Cook a nd Doncaster battled for second. It was quickly ap parent that barring mech anical failure Denmark had their first win of th e night on th e track. Knudsen ran way from th e pack and Doncaster took h is Ipswi ch teammate Cook for seco nd . The USA now had a o ne -point lead. ~ Race three featured a strong showing by American Shawn Moran as he led number two in the world Hans Nielsen home by so me six lengths a nd th e USA had a 7-5 lead . Coming int o th e meeting some ins ide rs qu esti oned th e 'cho ice o f Bobby Sch wa rtz being a regular on th e Am erican side . Schwa rtz, who was celebra ting his 29 birthday that n ight, qu ickl y silenced a ll o f his critics in ra ce four wh en he led wire-towire over cu rre nt World Champion Erik Gundersen of Denmark. It was a classic duel as Gundersen was all o ver Schwartz all th e way and he ga m bled and went to th e far outside on th e fin al lap bu t Schwartz gave the crowd what th ey wanted with a spectacular performance. Event five saw Knudsen pick up his seco nd win of th e night at th e expe nse of Moran . It was obvious to sec th at Knudsen was th e faste st man at th e meeting. It was also obvious that England and Sweden had dropped by th e wayside and were out of contention. In fact the British charges only had two points af ter five races. H eat six was very reminicent of heat 14 at the 1982 World Speedway Final. As the pack entered turn one, Schwartz gave England's Kelvin Tatum a tap. That sent Tatum into Denmark's, reserve rider Preben Eriksen. Eriksen went down and like Kenny Carter in 1982, slid under the fence and out of view. On th e restart. which featured all four riders. Sch wartz burst into the lead over Tatum and Eriksen. who jockeyed for the position until turn two when Tatum got the drive on the inside and shot under Eriksen and was poised to challenge Schwartz. He momentarily shoved a wheel past the American but that is as far as it was going to go as Schwartz forced back ahead much to the delight of the crowd. Eriksen got past Tatum and watched as Schwartz motored awa y from th e pack for his second consecutive win. Eriksen held on for second just ahead of the determined challenges of Tatum. Event seven saw World Champion Gundersen at his finest as he defeated King by half a straightaway while King was forced to hold off the determined efforts of Doncast er for second. The USA still had a two-point lead but th en ca me th e fateful event eigh t. Event eig h t seemed to turn the meeting tow ards th e Dane' s favor. Swedish number o ne J an Andersson raced into th e lead from th e gate, chased by Ni elsen , Cook a nd Collins. Nielsen swep t by o n th e back ch u te for th e lead wh ile Co ok moved up to cha llenge And ersson for second. Cook moved to the o utside in tum o ne and lost tra ction in th e cus hio n. H e slid o u t a nd down, with hi s foot caugh t in th e rea r fen der. Cook was excluded a nd Niel sen easi ly won the rerun over Andersson and Collins and the Danes went into intermission with a o ne point lead. At th e interm ission you could feel th e co nfidence coming from the Danish pits. T eam Manager Olsen a t one point clapped hi s hands tog ether and ' shouted, " Go for it boys." H e then went into a Danish pep-talk that seemed to get them going. As th e riders ca me onto the track for event nine so did the water truck. That prompted the Danish camp to go wild. Gundersen stood in the middle of turn one and threw his hands into the a ir, "I don't believe this. It is just crazy." Well, on ly half craz y as according to water truck driver Brad Oxley. only half of the tr ack got watered before he was to ld to get off. The first race after intermission featured Schwartz against Nielsen. He had already beaten World Cham-

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