World Speedway Final 1994 - Vojens, Denmark
Malcolm Preen
All in all, a decent meeting. Some great racing, even some passing, and
some controversy. All things I don't imagine we'll see in the Grand
Prix, which is apparently looking more and more certain, and every time
it was mentioned (or Gunter Sorber etc) there were loud boos around the
stadium.
One guy who must be begging for the Grand Prix is Hans Nielsen - he'd
have been World Champion about 7 or 8 times if there had been a Grand
Prix, IMHO.
But it was not to be....
The meeting started dramatically as reigning champion Sam Ermolenko
seemed to be struggling to get anything out of his bike only to try and
go outside of Loram, and fell whilst trying to lean on him. From my
point of view the ref was correct, Sam had to go. Crump and Rickardsson
had a brilliant race in the re-run with Crump winning on the line.
Two restarts in heat three saw Nielsen eventually get the gate and lead
Gustaffson all the way, Gollub was surprisingly out of sorts.
Another re-run in heat 4, and it was looking like the Grand Prix would
be cancelled as they would still be running this years final !!! This
time Jan Staechmann seemed to lose control alone before head-butting
the fence. The ref decided it was all four, and Staechmann claimed
third place.
Before the interval, with riders now scrabbling for points to guarantee
themselves Grand Prix places, the next incident saw Tomasz Gollub
career out of the first bend and into the fence at a hell of a pace,
once again I'd have excluded him, but the ref said no, however he
wasn't fit to take his place, so the first of the reserves got a
start.
After heat 12, Nielsen was just romping it - two points clear of anyone
else, with six riders seemingly fighting for second.
Then it happened, Nielsen against Boyce, Boyce had to win to give
anyone else a chance, and Nielsen fell on the first bend, on his own
from our view, however given the Staechmann and Gollub decisions the
referee was going to let him back in, but as if he wanted some extra
excitement, Van Den Boomen decided he'd had enough, and the yellow
light came on.
The Nielsen fans were distraught, and most of the rest of us were
overjoyed - at least it would be a good finish now.
And so it proved, with one race to go Boyce and Hancock had the world
at their feet, they were clear leaders, and they met, so if one of them
won the race they would be champion... but things don't happen like
that, and Tony Rickardsson won, from Boyce, to leave them tied on 12
and Hancock with his head in his hands on 11.
And now heat 20 - Nielsen versus Ermolenko - and remembering last year
we looked forward to Sam stopping Nielsen, but it was never to be as
Nielsen powered his way into the now three man run-off
Boyce was on gate one, with Nielsen on three (more like mid track if
you ask me) and Rickardsson on the outside. The tapes lifted, and
Nielsen was off - he seemed miles apart from the first bend, and the
race looked over, but from somewhere, Tony Rickardsson grabbed the
biggest handle of throttle I've ever seen, and at the start of lap two
he went for it. It was as if Nielsen was standing still, and that was
it. Rickardsson was champion, and there were Swedes everywhere.
The parade summed it up, Rickardsson (obviously) and Boyce were
overjoyed, whereas Nielsen just sat on the truck thinking what might
have been. Pictures in the paper the next day showed him with head in
hands - I guess losing three world finals on run-offs really hurts.
Tony Rickardsson SWE 2 2 2 3 3 12-3
Hans Nielsen DK 3 3 3 FX 3 12-2
Craig Boyce AUS 2 2 3 3 2 12-1
Greg Hancock USA 1 3 3 3 1 11
Tommy Knudsen DK 3 3 1 0 3 10
Marvyn Cox D 3 FX 3 2 1 9
Henrik Gustafsson SWE 2 3 2 1 1 9
Mark Loram GB 1 2 2 2 2 9
Josh Larsen USA 2 1 FX 1 3 7
Jan Staechmann DK 1 2 2 2 0 7
Jason Crump AUS 3 0 0 1 2 6
Chris Louis GB 1 1 1 3 0 6
Sam Ermolenko USA FX 1 1 2 2 6
Stefan Danno SWE 0 1 1 0 0 2
Piotr Swist PL 0 0 0 0 1 1
Billy Hamill (res) USA - - - 1 - 1
Tomasz Gollub PL 0 0 F - - 0
Roman Jankowski (res) PL - - 0 - 0 0
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|Malcolm Preen |M.P...@uk03.bull.co.uk|
|Bull Info. Sys. Ltd. |M.P...@brno.uucp |
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