Tuesday July 10, 2012 at 4:48pm
Australian star Chris Holder was relieved to see off a late charge from Great Britain as he helped his side reach the FIM Monster Energy Speedway World Cup Final at Swedish track Malilla on Saturday (July 14).
The Roos scored 45 points to win Event 2 at British venue King’s Lynn on Monday (July 9) beating the Lions who bagged 41, the Czech Republic (30) and Germany (15).
The Aussies join host nation Sweden and Russia, who won Event 1 at Bydgoszcz last Saturday, in the Final, along with the winners of Thursday’s Race Off at Malilla. Team GB and the Czechs meet Bydgoszcz runners-up Poland and third-placed Denmark in the Race Off.
While Australia arrived at King’s Lynn as hot favourites to triumph, the Lions took the fight to them early on and led by six points after race six, allowing Roos boss Mark Lemon to send Jason Crump out as a tactical joker in heat seven.
The triple world champion earned his team a vital six points and the momentum swung in the men from Down Under’s favour.
A joker victory from Britain’s Chris Harris in heat 17 sparked a grandstand finish from the hosts, roared on by a partisan Norfolk Arena crowd. But Holder’s win over Harris in race 19 all but ended the Lions’ hopes and the Aussie was pleased to see off the battling Brits.
He said: “It was a pretty tough meeting all the way through. The Brits started off really well and we were up against it the whole time.
"It’s difficult to race people in their back yard when everything is on their side. It’s not easy, but we battled away and got closer.
“Crumpie did the job on the joker and got us back in the match. A bit of rain made it pretty slippery, but it passed over and the rest of the meeting was great.
“We managed to make them use their joker. We were trying to make them use it early, but they used it right near the end. They nearly got us and it was quite tight. We weren’t really comfortable, but we had a good last few races and sealed it.”
Holder says his side had no intention of panicking, even when the Brits took a six-point lead. “It was a long haul it was only six races in, so we didn’t get too down,” he said.
“We knew it was tough. The Brits are always going to be good – they’re a good team. But we weren’t too worried. Obviously we would have been if we were in that position with three races left, but we’ve got a good setup and we fought back. We turned them over in the end.”
The Aussies will be pleased to avoid Thursday’s cutthroat Race Off and Holder can now look forward to Saturday’s Final.
Australia went into the FIM Monster Energy SWC as favourites to triumph. But Holder believes the reduction in team sizes from five riders to four for this year’s competition has levelled the playing field.
He said: “The four-rider thing helps out a lot of teams, especially Russia because they’ve got four really good riders and maybe not five. Every country seems to have four good riders and it seems to make it tighter. We saw that again tonight.
“I don’t know why we’re the favourites. We’ve got a good team, but so has everybody. We don’t look at that. We just want to race and win.”
Great Britain boss Neil Middleditch was pleased with the heart his Lions displayed. He admits retirements for Tai Woffinden in heat 11 and Chris Harris in race 16, as well as a controversial exclusion for Danny King in heat 13, didn’t help matters.
But he said: “I think the boys showed tremendous spirit. We had a couple of unfortunate engine failures and an exclusion that I felt was a bit iffy. But that’s history and we certainly didn’t give up.
“Everybody fancies the Aussies for the World Cup and probably rightly so. We didn’t beat them, but we certainly ran them close. We’re in the Race Off now and it’s a challenge we’re up for.”
Czech skipper Ales Dryml admits his team was hungry to reach their first SWC Race Off since 2005.
He said: “In the first part of the meeting, you could see the Czech team was on fire. We were focused and we wanted to go further because we just haven’t performed for many years.
“We just haven’t qualified, but we knew we had to this year. We wanted to beat the German team, which we did in the end.”
German skipper Martin Smolinski admits his promising side needs to find some consistency as their tournament ended at King’s Lynn.
He said: “I think I was on the gas. I made the gates. I was leading in nearly every race, but I couldn’t really hold it. I haven’t raced at King’s Lynn for five years and everybody else here knew the track. I’ve just come back to the British league this year.
“Kevin Wolbert was on his home track and I expected a little more from him, but he wasn’t too bad and made some points.
“We had Tobias Kroner and Max Dilger, who were a bit inconsistent. We need to get them going and especially from the gate and the few metres into the first corner. You have to put your elbows out.”
Team GB don yellow helmets for the FIM Monster Energy SWC Race Off on Thursday. The Czechs have been drawn in red, Poland wear blue and Denmark are in white.
FIM MONSTER ENERGY SWC EVENT 2 SCORES:
1 Australia 45: Jason Crump 15, Chris Holder 12, Davey Watt 11, Troy Batchelor 7.
2 Great Britain 41: Chris Harris 17, Scott Nicholls 11, Tai Woffinden 8, Danny King 5.
3 Czech Republic 30: Ales Dryml 15, Lukas Dryml 6, Matej Kus 6, Josef Franc 3.
4 Germany 15: Kevin Wolbert 7, Martin Smolinski 6, Max Dilger 1, Tobias Kroner 1.