European Individual Grass Track Championship – SF2 : next stage the final!
From left: 2nd place Paul Hurry, winner James Shanes and 3rd place Kenneth Kruse Hansen
The semi-final 2 of the European Individual Grass Track Championship was raced on 23rd June at Leamington Spa, Great Britain.
In a very hot contested meeting riders from six federations competing for the top nine qualification places for the European Final, that will be held at Bad Hersfeld in Germany on 17th August.
Following completion of the qualifying heats, the English riders dominated the top places with Zach Wajtknecht and James Shanes tied on points for 1st and 2nd place and Paul Hurry and Richard Hall tied for 3rd place going through to the A Final.
With Shanes flying from the tapes in the Final, closely chased by Wajtknecht, this was going to a hard race. Unfortunately, Wajtknecht crashed during the second lap. Although he wasn’t seriously injured, he was unable to take part in the rerun, and was transferred to the medical centre for the Doctor to check him over.
In the rerun of the A Final, Shanes again flew out the start, but this time was chased by ex-European champion – Paul Hurry, who despite his best endeavours was unable to catch Shanes over the four laps race.
The European Individual Grass Track Championship now moves to Germany, where the nine riders from this Leamington Spa Semi Final will join nine riders from the earlier Semi Final staged at Bielefeld (Germany) at the beginning of the month.
