Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

SPEEDWAY Grand Prix Challenge But the racing did improve. In heat eight, Smith was unchallenged, but Ermolenko did well to peg back the Aussies, first reeling in Ryan Sullivan with a splendid inside maneuver before homing in and driving around Adams. But Australian glory was just one heat away when Adams won for the first time in heat nine. Crump kept a close watch on the German Barth but was rarely troubled as he took his points tally to five. Only Craig Boyce was finding points too hard to come by, but he did open his account when Holta pulled up in heat 10 while ahead of him in the best race of the meeting to that point. Ermolenko firmly closed the door on a battling Gerd Riss but then had no answers as the German powered around the outside with little room to spare. Heat 11 saw the previously unbeaten Brian Karger of Denmark try to sweep from the outside, but he was left wanting as Wigg and Karger's fellow Dane Stephen Danno took up the contest for the major points. Wigg drew clear, leaving Danno to sustain an attack from Smith. The latter's Bradford Dukes teammate Joe Screen was involved in a (Left) Challenge winner Simon Wlgg pushes his bike scross the finish to score the single point that guarantees his qualification for the Grands Prix In 1997. (Below) Former champion Sam Ermolenko had a hard night. He was tlilrd In the runoff and so failed to qualify. The agony of defeat· By John Hipklss PRAGUE, CZEQl REPUBUC, ocr. 5 ormer World Champion Sam Ermolenko suffered the misery and agony of World Stage elimination when he failed in his bid for a top-four berth at the Grand Prix Challenge in the Marketta Stadium in Prague. . The controversy-filled meeting, in which seven riders of the 1996 Grand Prix series knew their Grand Prix futures were on the line, climaxed in dramatic style as four riders needed a runoff to determine which two would line up as reserves for the first of the 1997 GPs, presently scheduled to be held in Prague. The meeting winner, England's multi-time World Longtrack Champion Simon Wigg - so often the Cinderella of the speedway di:;cipline literally pushed his way to qualification in a heat that allowed Australia's Leigh Adams to secure the number-16 (final seed) race jacket next year. Ermolenko lined up against British GP Champion Jason. Crump of Australia, of whom so much' is expected in international competition 'after his outstanding victory in London this year; Denmark's Mikael Karlsson, a GP rider in 1995 by virtue of his World Junior Championship title in 1994, and England's Andy Smith, who found himself in a similar situation last year of need- F ing a runoff. The foursome was to produce one of the most remarkable races of all time, with the posi tion changing hands on countless occasions. But more on that later. The meeting started in controversial style with a threatened rider walkout in the early stages with the solid block tires the order of the day. The Marketta circuit proved to be a bad choice of venue as the loose shale that was patched around the circuit made the track even more inconsistent, and while the anti-solid brigade will cite the tires as being wholly responsible for the falls of Denmark's Tommy Knudsen and Russia's Rinat Mardanshin, which ruled them both out of the meeting before a heat had been completed, it cannot be overlooked that once the loose shale had been graded off the surface, the racing became intense and at times desperate. Knudsen' was the unluckiest of all. Clearly leading heat one, he hit a bad patch on the pits turn in heat two and took an unsightly fall. He declined the short ambulance trip back to the pits, preferring to walk off the track, possibly for the last time in his career. With further damage sustained to his shoulder, the metal plate having been displaced again, Knudsen, who left the FlM guessing right to the last minute of his involvement in this meeting, is likely to hang up his leathers now that his Grand Prix career has concluded. Mardanshin broke away in the rerun, lost all control on tum one and somersaulted from his mount. The opening rides for the rest of the competitors were, as one would expect, rather tentative after that disastrous start, and rumors began to filter throughout that a rider's strike was in the cards. But four riders came to the line for heat five, Armando Castagna of Italy replacing Mardanshin. But Castagna didn't stay for long, plowing through the tapes as soon as the green light came on. Ironically, one heat later, when Norway's Rune Holta stepped in for Knudsen, he did a nearly identical thing. good battle to try to catch Karlsson for second place in heat 12, which Sullivan won as he began to make the most of his third opportunity of the year to make it through to his first-ever Grand Prix series. With Castagna committing a tapes felony again in heat 13, the race wasn't soured any as Ermolenko produced a third-to-first ride, passing Karger, who now lost his grasp on the meeting, and Karlsson, who seemed surprised to see "Sudden Sam" whistle by on lap three. Smith, who still held the hope of making the GP proper, led heat 14 all the way to the final tum before allowing Crump to get in with a hard-driving maneuver that shifted Smith over in the most ungracious of fashions and allowed the

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