Unbeaten Szczyrba takes FIM Track Racing Youth Gold Trophy

Franciszek Szczyrba raced to an unbeaten and unbeatable five wins from five starts to top the points table at the 2024 FIM Track Racing Youth Gold Trophy that was staged in the Speedway Stadium Žarnovica in Slovakia on Sunday.
 
Drawing upon all the hard-won experience he gained in last year’s event when he finished twelfth on home ground in Gdańsk, the twelve-year-old Polish prospect was in incredible form to emerge on top of a field comprising twenty-five of the sport’s most talented up-and-coming racers from twelve nations aged between eleven and sixteen on 125cc machines.
 
With a total of ten competitors from last year returning for another attempt at winning the prestigious FIM Track Racing Youth Gold Trophy, Szczyrba had to fight for every point and in his opening Heat of the afternoon he won from Germany’s Levi Böhme – who finished fifteenth in 2023 – who over the course of the programme would emerge as one of his main challengers.
 
Following the first block of five Heats, Szczyrba shared the early lead with Karel Prusa and Jakub Hejkal from the Czech Republic, Latvian Andzejs Smulkevics and Poland’s Dawid Oscenda and when both Poles and Hejkal added another win in the second block of racing they began to pull clear from the chasing pack.
 
Böhme’s victory in his second Heat lifted him to fourth alongside Smulkevics, who lost out to Oscenda, before third straight victories for Szczyrba and Oscenda as Hejkal dropped a point to Poland’s Mieszko Mudło, who was fifth last year, gave the pairing a clear lead as the programme passed the halfway mark.
 
The main showdown of the afternoon came in the fourth block of racing when Szczyrba defeated Oscenda and Hejkal was penalised for a false start. Szczyrba then completed his clean sweep to sign off in style and take the Trophy with maximum points.
 
Oscenda also won his final Heat, but with Böhme remaining unbeaten after his earlier loss to Szczyrba the pair were tied for second and that meant a run-off to decide the final podium positions which went to Böhme.
 
With two wins and three second-placed finishes each, Mudło and Smulkevics ultimately came up just short of the points needed to get on the podium while Britain’s Oliver Bovingdon – another rider who competed in Gdańsk where he finished tenth – raced to a pair of Heat wins, but just two points from his last two races cost him his chance of finishing in the top three.
 
Finland’s Topias Manner and Michał Głębocki from Poland both signed off with victories in their final Heat races, but it was a case of too little, too late for them after dropping too many points earlier on in the programme.