Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/142449
~&U«I~ ,-------------'-------, ,---";.,,......-------------, Danish rider to survive th e InterContinental Fina l, where big nam es like Ol e Ols en and Erik Gunderson fai led to rack up en ough points. A regular team member for h is country in international meetings, Nielsen rides for th e Birmingham team in the British League and carries their top points average. But his star has never shined very brightly on World Final night. Australia f)etett ~ fJaH~~ 24 this season when engine failures almost took away his chances of making it through the British Final. He scraped through that one into the Overseas Final, where he won, then cruised through the Inter-Continental Final to gain his sixth starting berth in a World Final. If Jessup can stay awa y from his fam ous engi ne fai lures, he is very capable of bea ting any of the other IS com pe titors. The other two Englishmen are half of a racing family, Lesand Peter Col- lins. Les, 24, is the younger of the pair and is currently enjoying his best season to date. He rides forLeicester in the British League and he won the penultimate round of the championship, the Inter-Continental Final in Sweden. Les won the British Junior Championship in 1977 and graduated from that to win th e Bri tish League Riders Championship last year, a crown tha t has thus far eluded Bru ce Penhall. Collins will mak e his World Final debut in Los Ang-eles, and although he's not considered a threa t for top honors , he has proven already that he can beat the best on his nig-ht. H is brother Peter should be remembered by those race fans who went to see the World vs. America series on southern California tracks a few years ago. Peter, born in Manchester on Mar . 24,1954, is no stranger to the World Final. He spent 1981 in retirement, but this will be his eighth appearance, and in Po land in 1976he went all the way to the title. This year Collins has barely made it through the qualifying rounds, being involved in three separate runoffs to grab his chance at the titie. On . the big night, however, all riders at least start equally and his experience should prove val uable. The sole representative from Down Under is Phil Crump, 30, from Mildura. Winner of the Australian Championship in 1974-75 and 197879, Crump will be making his third World Final appearance. A-member of the British League Swindon team , Crump qualified Irorri the InterContinental Final with seven points. He's represented his country 52 times in international com pe tition , so he is not short of experience. Crump can't really be considered a top th reat for the crown, so the pressure won't be on him, and that means he could be a dangerous opponent. . Finland Kai Niemi comes from Bori , and he too is the sole representative of his country. Born in September of 1955, Niemi has won th e Finnish National Champi onship five times in a row , 1977-81, and now rides for Wimbledon in the British League. He was involved in an incident in the Inter-Continental round when he accused Dan ish rider O le O lsen of using an illegal silencer. Olsen failed to qualify while Niemi scraped through by scoririg seven points. Denmark Sweden The sole Danish representative is 22-year-old Hans Nielsen from Broust. Surprisingly, Ni elsen was th e only Twenty-seven-year-old Jan An dersson is all that's left of what once was a great speedway nation back in