Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

lng, but winning in front of my home Swedish fans is something special. I won and none of the guys near me in the World Championship had particularly good meetings. I have to be happy with that." With the series now at exactly the midway point, Hamill is ninth overall on 43 points, and Hancock now up to 10th, just a point behind. The top 10 automatically requalify for the 2003 series, so both Americans are just within the frame, but Jonsson in particular looks a real menace, being just one point shy of Hancock and two of Hamill. Round six is in Prague on July 20, and history indicates that both Hamill and Hancock will be looking forward to their annual visit to the Marketa Stadium. Hamill has won both the last two GPs staged in the Czech Republic - last year's victory began seven and 18 around a last place in 15. Twice he was involved in tworider reruns, the first time in heat three when the British duo of Andy Smith and Carl Stonehewer were both excluded. First, Smith was excluded for bringing Hamill down in a slowmotion spill after the American had gone under him, with Stonehewer also laying his bike down behind them. Then, in the first rerun, with Hamill leading, Stonehewer toppled off on the outside of Niklas Klingberg. In heat 18, Hamill went through behind Tomasz Gollob after Grzegorz Walasek fell challenging Hamill for second place behind Krzysztof Cegielski, and then Cegielski's bike played up and he failed to make the two-minute time allowance for the restart. Attempts to bring a second machine out onto the track for him proved in vain. Hamill, off the adverse outside grid, fina lIy exited in heat 21 when his bike got no further than the first bend due to a throttle-cable fault. "I suppose I was lucky in one sense," Hamill said, "and then unlucky in another. But I worked my butt off to get where I did. I don't think I could have done anymore, and it was disappointing for the night to finish like it did. "I was off gate four in heat 21, which was always going to be difficult. You only have to look at how gate four went in the semi-finals and final. Gate four was pretty hard to make work on what was a very difficult track because of all the rain. "I also suffered because of my position in the pits as well. I suffer from asthma and I seemed to be breathing in exhaust fumes all night long. The guys opposite me all seemed to be in the main event so they were warming up their bikes as I was coming and going in the earlier races. "At one stage, I couldn't go back in the pits because of the fumes. I felt totally exhausted at the end of the meeting." The exciting Jonsson, a teammate of Hamill's at Coventry, and (Above) Dryml (14) squirts away from Rune Holta (17) and another rider In heat race action. (Right) Jason Crump (2) battles with Tomasz Gollob (3) and Mark Loram (9). Crump made It to the final, where he finished fourth. Hancock's at Rospiggarna in the Swedish Elite League, again looked a real threat to the title pretenders when he nudged Sullivan aside to win heat nine, despite a trademark lift coming out of the final turn, and he then took heat 13 as well, in typically assertive manner. His luck changed for the worse in heat 19, when his bike spectacularly took off at the end of lap three to dump him on the track, and though he appeared to have tucked in behind Rickardsson in heat 22, mechanical problems entering the back straight frustratingly terminated his involvement. With Sullivan missing out on the final after winning the previous two GPs - the Aussie was a victim of the disadvantageous outside gate as drizzle turned into heavier rain to add to the track problems - Rickardsson now leads the way again by two points at the halfway stage of the 2002 series, with a below-par Gollob losing ground after managing only eight points, and the likes of Jason Crump, Leigh Adams, Karlsson and Loram all in the shadows. Dryml, the 21-year- old Czech whose form for British club Oxford has been enigmatic at best, deserved his runner-up spot, given that he had negotiated his way through eight races on the night, half of them off gate four. Rickardsson, chasing a fifth World title, admitted that his preparation was not what he had hoped for, even though the result was just right. He had needed first-aid treatment when he fell off while messing around on a monkey-bike following Friday's official practice. "I hadn't been feeling good before the meeting," he said, "and things didn't go too well in practice. The track was very difficult and very tir- his climb up the rankings after a dreadful start to the series - while Hancock too has happy memories of Prague, having won the first-ever GP there in 1997 - to launch his title campaign - and also having finished runner-up there to Gollob in 1999. Hancock, however, will start in the main event for the first time this year, whereas Hamill again goes from the outset and faces another long and winding road to reach his first semifinal of the series. eN Stockholm Olympic Stadium Stockholm, Sweden Results: July S, 2002 IRound 5 of 111 SEMI-FINAL 1 (Top 2 transfer to Final): 1. Greg Hancock: 2. Lukas Drym[; 3. Mark Loram; 4. Ryan Sullivan. SEMI·FINAL (Top 2 transfer to Final): 1. Jason Crump; Tony Rickardsson; Leigh Adams; 4. Mikael Karlsson. FINAL: 1. Tony Rickardsson; 2. Lukas Dryml; 3. Greg Hancock; 4. Jason Crump. FIM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SPEEDWAY GRAND PRIX SERIES STANDINGS (After 5 of 11 rounds): 1. 1. Tony Rickardsson (96/2 wins) 2. Ryan Sullivan (94/2 wins) 3. Tomasz Gollob (71/1 win); 4. Jason Crump (70); 5. Leigh Adams (68); 6. (TIE) Mikael Karlsson/Mark Loram (65); 8. Todd Wiltshire (46); 9. Billy Hamill (43); 10. Greg Hancock (42); 11. Andreas Jonsson (4]); 12. Luklls Dryml (39); 13. Rune Holta (28); 14. Carl Stonehewer (23); 15. Andy Smith (22). Upcoming Rounds: Round 6 - Prague, Czech Republic, July 20 Round 7 - Gothenburg, Sweden, August 31 Billy Hamill (6) failed to reach the Semi Finals at Stockholm and now finds himself ninth in the series standings. aye I e n e _ S • JULY 24,2002 55

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