Spectators from the Netherlands, Germany, France and England were promised a thrilling and exciting racing evening at Staphorst (Netherlands) last weekend and that’s exactly what they saw.
Despite a hot and sunny day, the club worked hard to produce a very fast race track that gave the spectators an excellent evenings racing at the FIM Europe Grass Track Individual European Final.
The eighteen competitors – who had qualified for this event via two previous semi-final rounds earlier in the season – quickly adapted to the conditions which produced some very fast and furious racing.
As the meeting progressed, the track conditions improved, and it became difficult to predict who would be the eventual winner. However once all the qualifying heats had been completed, home rider Jannick De Jong emerged as the hot favourite, although he was beaten once by the exciting young 17 year old English rider James Shanes.
With the sun starting to drop in the evening sky, the spectators’ excitement grew as De Jong made a flying start from the gate in the main ‘A’ Final, and although he raced hard for the four laps he was chased all the way by Shanes. Third place went to German rider Stephan Katt.
A large crowd waited to see De Jong crowned the 2015 FIM Europe Grass Track Individual European Champion – the only rider in the history of this event to win the championship title three years in a row.
Full results on FIM Europe website:
http://www.fim-europe.eu/events/98
