15-year-old Sam Jensen from Holsted Denmark was crowned the new FIM Speedway 80cc Youth Gold Trophy winner in an incident packed three-day event staged at Vetlanda in central Sweden.
In possibly the best and most dramatic 80cc tournaments every staged, the Danish Vikings once again dominated the Youth Gold Trophy scene. But on this occasion it was not without a scare, as after 16 heats of the final, Australian rider Brady Kurtz looked to be odds on to take the title as he led the field by a clear point. Cruelly for Kurtz in heat 17, after the track had just been freshly prepared, he missed the start off gate four and was filled in, which caused his bike to miss a beat and in an instant the title was snatched away from him and to rub salt into the wounds his last place finish even denied him a much deserved rostrum finish.
The day-six meeting event staged at the fantastic purpose built junior track at Vetlanda, was crammed full of action and incidents, as the young racer’s enthusiasm and desire to win got the better of them at times. The meetings were filled with crashes that put quite a workload on the local hospital at times, but fortunately there we no serious long lasting injuries suffered.
The drama lasted right until the final race of the extensive 129 completed races, as the run off to decide second and third places ended in another crash, with the two riders competing crashing together, with Jason Jorgensen being awarded the runner’s up position by the referee after Jonas Jeppersen was disqualified for being deemed the primary cause of the pile up.
The entire 80cc was a huge success and a real credit to the hard working Vetlanda staging promotion. With the Championship open to nominated 12 to 16-year-olds, the other real stars of the week were the two Danish 12-year-olds, Mads Hansen who finished in fifth place overall with 10 points. Whilst Maja Aamand, a 12-year-old girl, certainly impressed and mixed it with the boys after she qualified through from a quarter final and only just missed out on a qualification place for the final after scoring 7 points.
Report by Chris Durno
Photos Michael Rundberg