POLES ARE THE MASTERS

NEWS Saturday 31st October 2015, 12:42pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The eagerly-awaited World Under-21 Final at Mildura, Australia has been a disappointment in most respects, though not for the Polish youngsters who won easily with 50 points to Denmark’s 39, Australia’s 29 and Germany’s 5.

Trackside observers have been highly critical of the track preparation in a meeting which took a long time to run, with several non-finishers. It is a big opportunity lost for the Aussies who thankfully have the Melbourne GP to boast about.

It is disappointing for the riders to have gone so far to find a track which has not been good to race on. There’s no indication though that the result might have been any different.

The Polish quartet though will not be complaining. Their two Grand Prix qualifiers for 2016 (Zmarzlik and Piotr Pawlicki) both scored 15 point maximums with 17 year old Maksym Drabik on a very impressive 13. They were hot favourites but this is an incredible performance on a difficult track so far from home. They had 15 race winners in the 20 heats.

Denmark can be quite happy as their team does not have such obvious world class prospects, but they have done themselves proud. Nikolai B Jakobsen’s 15 points was a brilliant effort which will please Rye House fans – can they keep him? Anders Thomsen might be their best prospect but unfortunately he had to withdraw after two completed rides.

The Aussies will now be licking their wounds. Their most experienced rider Nick Morris did well enough, suffering a puncture while leading heat one, but the others did little more than regularly beat the Germans. Our man Max Fricke scored 6 which will be a disappointment to him.

The German achievement was to qualify, and hopefully enjoy the trip. It would appear that they only point they actually gained other than gifts was when Erik Riss beat Jack Holder in heat 7. However it is a young team which could improve. Erik finished on 2 points.

And what of the UK? Our best riders at this level are the likes of Howarth, Clegg, Ashley Morris, Bates and of course the outstanding Robert Lambert. They might have done slightly better than Germany had they got there but we need to improve – not that that is a criticism of the riders mentioned.

The answer to why we are not better is probably this: Out of 100 starters in speedway you get maybe one or two of real quality. We just don’t have enough starters.