SPEEDWAY
Round 7
August 13,2005
EEIBiB
FIM World Speedway Grand Prix Series
STORY AND PHOTOS BY JOHN HIPKISS
ony Rickardsson's celebratory champagne remained on
ice after reigning World
Speedway Champion Jason
Crump delayed the inevitable
by winning Saturday night's Scandinavian
Grand Prix at Malilla in Sweden.
Rickardsson needed to finish ahead of
Crump - or within three points of him to land the sixth World title of his career
and equal the record of iconic Kiwi Ivan
Mauger, but though he finished on the
rostrum for the I I th GP in a row, the
Swede's third place, behind Crump and
Andreas Jonsson, trimmed his overall
lead from 54 points to 47 and left him
requiring the formality of just four points
from the last two rounds at Bydgoszcz
and Lonigo.
"I have to be happy," said Rickardsson,
who won only two of his seven races on
the night. "This was my worst finish of the
season, but I still finished in the top
T
three."
Rain delayed the start by nearly an
hour, but the Malilla track staff worked
wonders to get the meeting on, with a
new deposit of material producing a racing surface that served up passing aplenty
from the first race to the last in the first
GP held at the venue.
Crump, back to his best after pulling
26
AUGUST 24,2005 • CYCLE NEWS
out of the recent Speedway World Cup
with the chicken pox virus he picked up
from his two children, quickly gave
Rickardsson notice of his intent to hang
on to the title for another fortnight by
winning his first three qualifying rides. The
final warning came in heat I2 when he
contemptuously burst from last to first
down the back straight.
Rickardsson, who'd had a poor World
Cup, looked a shadow of his usual dominant self and failed to take the checkered
flag in his first three outings. But he then
won his last two to cruise into the semifinals.
Crump, who followed his trio of wins
with two second places, topped the qualifying, scoring on 13 points, the same as
Jonsson. Team GB skipper Scott Nicholls
again looked sharp with 10 points, a
storming ride taking him to victory
beyond Tomasz Gollob in heat six, with a
second victory following in heat 16.
Lee Richardson, the star for Team
Great Britain in the World Cup, started
well by reeling in Gollob on the last lap to
win heat one. However, disappointingly
and somewhat inexplicably, he then ran
four last places, though he had cause to
rue a tapes malfunction impeding his getaway in heat five.
Both Richardson and wildcard Jonas
