8th placed Kevin leading Covatti, winner of the other semi Image Credit: Ron MacNeill

KEVIN JUST MISSES THE GRAND PRIX CHALLENGE

NEWS Saturday 27th June 2015, 11:42pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Kevin Wolbert continued his successful season by scoting 8 points in the Riga semi-final of the Grand Prix qualifiers.

Initially we thought he had qualified, having gone through the scorers on the Speedway Updates site, but either blindness was a problem or else Maksim Bogdanovs was at one time omitted from the scorers.

He may attend the GP challenge as reserve, or he could even be given one of the wildcard places usually reserved for someone who has been unlucky. It's not obvious that anyone is in that position. Whatever happens, Kevin has done extremely well.

In the other semi at Terenzano, by far the harder of the two, Sam Masters scored 4 after falling in his first ride. Max Fricke finished on the same total, with a race win in his fourth ride but a fall in his fifth.

Justin Sedgmen went all the way to Terenzano to sit watching, something he was pretty well resigned to when he set off.

In the European Under-21 semi-final at Macon, France, Erik Riss finished third on 11 points, behind Zdenek Holub (13) and Adam Ellis (12). This will take him to the final at Silkeborg, Denmark on 29th August. There are so many titles these days, there should be enough for every rider to win one.

The GP Challenge qualifiers are –

From Riga: Leon Madsen 14, Andriej Karpov 12, Kjastas Puodzuks 10, Aleksander Loktaev 10, Linus Sundstrom 9, Antonio Lindback 9, Maksim Bogdanovs 8.

From Terenzano: Nico Covatti 14, Przem Pawlicki 12, Piotr Pawlicki 12, Vaclav Millik 11, Chris Harris 9, Freddie Lindgren 8, Kacper Gomolski 8.

Just to emphasise the strength of the Italian meeting, current GP rider Michael Jepsen Jensen and 2013 European Champion Martin Vaculik both failed to qualify.