After rain delays the Summit Racing Equipment Internationals comes to a halt
After a long two days of qualifying, the last thing the FIM-E fields needed to see when they woke up this morning was rain. Worried glances at various weather apps and rain radars were the order of the day while the Tierp Arena track crew worked hard to clean the racing surface and shutdown area. Mercifully the track was ready to go at 5:30pm local time, but with a notional curfew of 8pm the racing would finish at the completion of the semi-finals in all classes.
The finalists in FIM-E Top Fuel Bike were due to be Rikard Gustafsson, who had continued his run of 5.9s and 6.0s throughout the weekend to defeat Rene van den Berg and Sverre Dahl in the quarters and semi-final respectively, and Kari Rautanen, the Finnish Funnybike rider heading to his first FIM-E final with a 6.8 first round bye and a semifinal win over Jan Sturle Hegre in an on and off the throttle high seven second pairing.
Despite the non-running of the trophy round, Rikard leaves Sweden with a healthy lead in the championship as the tour heads to Germany and Britain in the next month.
Consistency was again a feature of the top half of the FIM-E Super Twin ladder as Marcus Christiansen rumbled into his almost customary final round spot with a pair of low sixes to defeat Greger Johanson in the opening round (the Swede clearly being in a rush to get somewhere leaving way before the tree activated) and then taking care of a stumbling Marko Lantto (the Finn reset his PB with a 6.739 a first round victory over Samu Kemppainen’s 6.808 in the class match-up of eliminations).
FIM-E rookie John Rolfstad picked up his first round win in the quarters, but then ran into the vastly experienced Per Bengtsson at the semi-final stage who produced a 6.610 to have a two second ET advantage over Rolfstad. Christiansen nevertheless manages to extend his lead over the competition in the championship standings.
The 14 riders in FIM-E Super Street Bike ran off a sixteen bike ladder so managed to get three rounds of racing in before the curfew ended things. The final would have seen Daniel Donat Lencses (producing an elimination’s best of 6.806 to defeat Mogens Lund at the semi-final stage) take on Mathias Bohlin (who defeated Alan Morrison Jnr with a 6.939 to take his spot in the final).
This weekend will have bunched up the top of the points chase, giving the likes of Lencses, Bohlin and Morrison Jnr plenty to aim for as the championship heads to a conclusion.
FIM-E Pro Stock Bike was due to see points leader Bertrand Maurice face off with newcomer Theodor Vik with Maurice producing an eliminations low ET of 7.319 on a first round bye before holeshotting his way into the final over Martin Newbury at the semi-final stage.
Second generation racer Vik booked his berth his debut final with a pair of 7.7s to defeat Joerg Lymant and then Timo Savolainen. Maurice has now extended his points lead and is looking a couple of steps closer to the 2023 series title.
Text and photos: Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes
