Speedevents Internationals finals – Gustafsson and Christiansen take their second, Bohlin and Maurice secure their first season win
Sunday saw a superb conclusion to the second round of the FIM-E Drag Bike championship season with barely a hitch through the day and some excellent performances providing some of the highlights.
FIM-E Super Twin provided one of the best eliminators which culminated in a spectacular final between Marcus Christiansen and Per Bengtsson, both teams going a very different way to running numbers on nitro fuelled twins in an injected V versus parallel blower set up. Having worked their way through the preceding two rounds, Christiansen just bested Bengtsson’s personal best numbers with The Beast (a 6.294 defeating a 6.309) but both teams were beaming at the event conclusion. Christiansen extending his points lead, while Bengtsson was very happy with having to go very much back to basics after losing much of his electronics over the course of the day.
Rikard Gustafsson had a more straightforward passage to the FIM-E Top Fuel Bike class trophy, but was disappointed with a couple of uncontested passes (including Rene van den Berg shutting off in the final with a leaking air line before making a move). A pair of 6.10s and a 6.20 took Gustafsson to the winner’s circle but the RG Engineering team still have to solve the piston burning issues before hitting their own performance targets.
FIM-E Super Street Bike was, well, super. Some great numbers, tight racing and shocks and surprises throughout their four rounds of eliminations which boiled down to a match-up between first time FIM-E finalist Margot Schmidt (who was on something of a performance roll, dropping her PB to a 6.916 in the semis for which Team Brothers team mate Daniel Donat Lencses was unable to contest after an oil leak sprung on start-up – Lencses having changed an engine following a class low 6.679 in the quarters) and Swedish veteran Mathias Bohlin (who had also lowered his own PB to a 6.780 in the quarters). Come the trophy run, Margot couldn’t get around Bohlin’s sizable holeshot with the latter’s 7.054 besting a 6.977 from the Dutch rider.
Not to be out done, FIM-E Pro Stock Bike finalised something of a resurgent weekend for the class with championship one and two, Bertrand Maurice and Joerg Lymant contesting the final. Lymant got the jump off the line, but Maurice rode around him with a 7.140 to a 7.203 decision at the stripe.
The step-up in entries across all of the categories bodes well for the resumption of the championship back at Tierp Arena, although do we really have to wait until the start of August before we can do it all again?
Words and photos Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes
