FIM Europe News

Maurizio Micheluz - Photo Robert Pairan The defending champion Maurizio Micheluz won the first day at the second round of the Enduro Championship in Buzet (Croatia). Second position, Tom Sagar, who fought more with the power of his KTM 450 than with the other competitors: "In the narrow routes it is very hard to get close to the small machines with this big bike", said the Briton satisfied after the competition. Ranked third overall all classes then one of the "small" motorcyles: the Swiss Jonathan Rossé, who did not only take the second place in the E1 class, but with his 250cc four-stroke Yamaha also conquered the third place in the overall standings.This is the final standing as fot the first three positions, but it also the E1 class podium of the E1, with the Italian Micheluz on the Husqvarna in front of Rosse and the Frenchman Fortunato Benoit.In the E2

From the left, Mr Danijel Vastag, the lawyer Rodolfo Romeo, Mrs Ingrida Visockiene, FIM Europe President Dr Wolfgang Srb, the Secretary General Mr Alessandro Sambuco, Mr Jos Driessen, Mr Manuel Marinheiro and Mr Roy Wetterstad, Chairman of the FIM Europe Strategic Plan Working Group Today the FIM Europe Strategic Plan Working Group (SPWG) met for the first time in Tiber Hotel in Fiumicino (Italy). The group was formed in the last Executive Board in Assen, in March, with the aim of developing FIM Europe strategies for the next five/ten years. The Working Group is chaired by Mr Roy Wetterstad, NMF, and its members are Mr Jos Driessen, FMB, Mr Manuel Marinheiro, FMP, Mr Danijel Vastag, AMSS-MSS, Mrs Ingrida Visockiene, LMSF. To contribute to a well-defined description of the strategies currently adopted by FIM Europe, to all the meetings of SPWG will also be present the FIM Europe President, Dr. Wolfgang Srb, the Secretary General Mr Alessandro Sambuco

The European Championship Motoball in Kuppenheim (Germany) started on Wednesday 20 May with the pre-rounds. All teams faced several matches to gain points and finish among the best 4 placed.The matches on Saturday were important to decide who was playing for the Semi Final, (place 3 and 4), or the Final for the Championship title.All matches took place under good circumstances in the beautiful stadium of Kuppenheim.The organiser MSC Puma Kuppenheim has done everything that was possible to make this European Championship a successful event. The four teams which arrived in the Semi Finals were Germany and France and Russia and Belarus. Germany won the match with France 4-0 and Russia won the match with Belarus 11-2. France and Belarus played a match for the 3rd and 4th place and France won 11-2. "The final was a real thriller between Russia and Germany”, states Mr Martin de Graaff, FIM Europe

The first round of the European Enduro Championship in Rieti (Italy). Photo: Robert Pairan. This weekend (30 and 31 May) the second round of the European Enduro Championship will be held in Buzet (Croatia). It will not be only an Enduro event: a riders' parade and a stunt show are scheduled on Friday evening, while the “Enduro Night” will be held in night club on Saturday.As for the route, there is already a plan in advance over the 60 kms to be completed three times a day.The riders who will take part to the second round of the series are over 200.It will be possible to follow the event with live-timing at the following link: www.casomeric.cz/enduroonline/More information, maps and schedules, results and links on the official website:http://fim-enduro-european-championship.com

The first round of the European Individual Speedway Under 21 Championship scheduled on May 25th in Debrecen (Hungary) was cancelled because of weather conditions. The organisers had done a great job to set the track, but the Jury decided to stop the race after heat 3 because of heavy rain and thunderstorms (practice had been held regularly and with fine weather conditions). The event was cancelled because the weather forecast predicted heavier rain for the next day. A new date for the event will be fixed. At the moment the next event remains in Macon (France) on June 26th.

The last weekend saw the opening round of the FIM-Europe Drag Bike Championship at Santa Pod Raceway, England. FIM-Europe Top Fuel Bike class attracted eight entries, with multi-time series champion Ian King qualifying in the number one spot and the quickest run of the event with a 5.830s/232.52 mph run, but the home rider lost out to Filippos Papafilippou at the semi final stage. The final proved to be a Sweden vs Greece affair, with Rikard Gustafsson tak­ing the win when Papafilippou stopped for brief fire shortly after leaving the startline. Gustafsson (in the photo by Rose Hughes) ended up idling to a 21 second clocking from his Suzuki Funnybike. The final of FIM-Europe Super Twin ended up as an all-Dutch affair, with low-qualifier Martijn de Haas (in the photo by Rose Hughes) defeating fellow countryman Job Heezen with a 6.6056s/212.81 mph to a 7.3536s/205.24 mph decision. Defending FIM-Europe Pro

Today the fourth round of the European Junior Cup was held in Donington (England), together with the World Superbike and Supersport championships, as usual. The Spanish rider Javier Orellana has extended his championship lead in the Pata European Junior Cup after storming to his 3rd win of the year in today’s 10 lap race.Now 27 points clear in the overall standings he came home 3 seconds ahead of French Guillaume Raymond who claimed his first podium finish of the year in 2nd. Italian Paolo Grassia completed the podium. British Sam Wilford claimed a season best 5th.Championship contender Emanuele Pusceddu, who won in Imola (Italy), was involved in a multi-bike crash in the opening lap. The Italian will look to regroup in Portimao in a fortnight.Avalon Biddle, from New Zealand, is the winner in the Women European Cup, and now she has the same amount of points in the general standing as

The fourth round of the European Motocross 125 and 250cc  Championship was held this weekend in Matterley Basin (England). In EMX 125, in Race 1 (in the photo a moment of the start), French rider Maxime Renaux won in front of British Conrad Mewse, while Miro Sihvonen from Finland managed to catch the podium. In Race 2, it was Josiah Natzke, from New Zealand, to win with a good margin on the leader of Race 1, Maxime Renaux, who is however the winner of the overall. Third position for Spanish Ruben Fernandez Garcia. With a third position in the overall, Spanish Jorge Prado Garcia on KTM maintains the leadership of the championship after the first four rounds. In EMX 250, Darian Sanayei, from USA, won Race 1 in front of Adam Ste­­rry and Steven Clarke, both from Great Britain. In Race 2 Damon Graulus from Belgium won, finishing before French Maxime Desprey and British Adam

The second round of the Honda 150 European Championship was held this weekend in Matterley Basin (England).Young Brit Jack Bintcliffe put in a dominating performance at his home event to win the second race of the weekend with a time gap of sixteen seconds over Emil Weckman, who, with his race win yesterday, moves into the championship lead. The holeshot was taken once again by Mack Bouwense who started strongly but found himself slipping back through the pack as the race progressed. With his home fans cheering him on, Bintcliffe took the lead after the first couple of corners, which allowed him to make his getaway. Close on his tail for a time was fellow Brit, and wildcard rider for this event, Jake Parker who rode strongly all race until an incident caused him to lose time in the closing laps.Although Bintcliffe and Weckman were able to pull out a large gap

The Spanish rider Mika Perez (in the photo) took the pole position at Donington Park ahead of Pata European Junior Cup’s fourth race of the season, scheduled for tomorrow at 11am local time (GMT+1). Pole-sitter for the second time this year, the RBC Team rider was the only EJC entry to break the 1’40s barrier as he lapped in 1’39.952 to edge out Emanuele Pusceddu (SK & Itaba Moto) and Guillaume Raymond (Activbike), who will join him on the front row of the grid. Series leader Javier Orellana (Europ Foods) will start the race from fourth place, with the top-12 covered by 0.819s after one of the closest ever qualifying sessions for the category.