Star Cross
Frederic Bolley (1) gets the jump on
ElWin Machtlinger (9) and Andrew
McFarlane (291 at the final preseason
GP wann-up race in Italy.
(Left) Andrea Bartolini scored the
Open-class win.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY MARIO MARINI
MANTOVA,ITALY,MAR.!!
t's been an unconventional beginning of the MX year in Europe due
to the cancellation of the traditional
February pre-season race in Beaucaire, France, where many of the
Old Continent's top teams have been
introduced for many years. So
through the past month, the GP riders had to warm up at ·some less
important international events and a
few national races, and a late calendar change (moving back the first
GP a week from its original March 11
date) gave the dynamic crew of
Italy's Mantova club the opportunity
it was waiting for to organize a very
interesting meeting just a week
before the GPs take off.
A few of the best World Championship circuit's riders attended the
event, and it turned out to be quite a
hard-fought race on one of the rare
sandy Italian tracks. The race format
was thre~ motos of 25 minutes plus
two laps each, with the 125cc and
Open classes running together. And
at the end of the long racing day,
former 500cc World Champion
Andrea Bartolini climbed to the high
step on the podium. This was good
news for the Italian (who switched
I
30 MARCH 28, 2001 • c u e I ..
from Yamaha to Husqvarna in the
off-season), as he was up against
the biggest class' top contenders,
like World champ Joel Smets, former teammate Marniq Bervoets,
sensation Stefan Everts and outsiders Johnny Lindhe and Andrew
MacFarlane.
The result wasn't clear until the
very last turn of the last moto, as
the battle was quite tight, and
Smets, MacFarlane, Lindhe and Bartolini himself all had good shots at
the overall. The Italian finished second in moto one, won the second
outing, and got a top-10 position in
the last one.
Smets' loss was somewhat of a
surprise, but the Belgian KTM rider
lost concentration in moto two and
crashed while leading; in the first
heat he had started last and climbed
up to sixth place. He easily won the
last race of the day.
Moto one went to the young surprise from Australia, MacFarlane,
hired by Yamaha Europe to race the
GP circuit on a standard machine
n
.. _
s
