Belgium 2012

[womble53]

The season opener at Heusden Zolder went to Tomasz Piszcz, who took the Helzold Speedway Championship with a faultless display on Sunday 29th April. Saturday practice was seriously curtailed as the overnight, and morning rain had made the track wet & very heavy. Extensive track work by Rudi Mentens and his team saw a lot of dirt removed, to make the track useable for a shorter practice than was originally planned. Sunday morning brought a vast improvement in the weather, and a great deal of work on the track the previous evening saw the racing surface in much better condition than on Saturday, with most of the removed shale replaced and repacked. With a couple of short showers giving way to warm sunny weather in the latter part of the meeting, the contest was finished in almost perfect conditions.

 

Piszcz went unbeaten throughout the qualifying heats, before taking his semi-final from Randy Oldenziel, with Nick Laurens and Henry van der Steen missing out. 18-year-old Oldenziel rode a superb race to take second spot, after missing the gate, he made a terrific cut back on the opening turns to move from last to second place off the second turn. The second semi went the way of Dirk Fabriek, with a good run around the outside line the opening turns to lead onto the back straight. Anders Vad took second place after taking a huge fall on the first turn, in the original running.

 

Piszcz took the final on the second running after the first was halted at the first turn. Randy Oldeziel was the hard luck story of the afternoon, as made his best start of the day in the final, and was close up to the fast starting Piszcz, when he picked up grip and caught a huge lift that he couldn't control, and looped the bike as they entered the first turn. In the re-run Piszcz was soon in command and took an easy win from Fabriek, with Vad in third.

 

There were also impressive performances in qualifying from Patrik Nagy,Mateusz Borowicz, Nick Laurens and Henry van der Steen who all reached the semi-finals.

 

Scorechart

 

1. Nick Laurens (NL): 3, 3, 0, 2, 2 = 10+1

2. Tomas Sörensen (DK): 2, 1, 3, 2, 0 = 8

3. Lee Geary (GB): 1, 1, 1, 0, 1 = 4

4. Pascal Swart (NL): R, 1, 1, 1, 0 = 3

5. Wim Kennis (BEL): 1, 0, 2, 1, 2 = 6

6. Patrik Nagy (HUN): 2, 3, 2, 2, 3 =12+0

7. Mateusz Borowicz (POL): 3, 2, X(2 min), 3, 2 = 10+1

8. Maurin Vochteloo (NL): 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 0

9. Anders Vad (DK): 1, 2, 3, 3, 1 = 10+2+1

10. Henry van der Steen (NL): 2, 2, 3, 2, 3 = 12+0

11. Tomasz Piszcz (POL): 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 = 15+3+3

12. Steve Jones (GB): 0, 2, 1, 1, 0 = 4

13. Randy Oldenziel (NL): 3, 1, 2, 1, 2 = 9+2+0

14. Anne Spaan (NL): 1, 0, 2, 0, 1 = 4

15. Jez Pestell (GB): F, 0, 0, 0, 1 = 1

16. Dirk Fabriek (NL): 2, 3, 1, 3, 3 = 12+3+2

 

RESULT

 

1st - Tomasz Piszcz

2nd - Dirk Fabriek

3rd - Anders Vad

4th - Randy Oldenziel (flx)

 

The National Class went to veteran Willy Kennis, much to the delight of the crowd, with Kristof Ceusters taking the trophy for the 'Rookies'

Edited May 4, 2012 by womble53

[womble53]

Further dates for later in the year are as follows:

 

23rd & 24th June: Four Team Tournament.

 

1st & 2nd September: The Golden Helmet

 

Both weekends will probably follow the usual format, in that the Saturday will be open practice & try out day, and the Main event, along with a full supporting card of National Class, Rookies & Junior racing and possibly sidecar racing, will take place on Sunday. That normally means over 40 heats of racing.

[womble53]

The second event of the Belgium 2012 season takes place this weekend, when the Speedway Fan Club hosts a Four Team Tournament at the Helzoldstadion in Heusden-Zolder.

 

The teams are the local Helzold Stars headed by Denmark's Peter Juul Larsen, an they take on the Long Eaton Invaders, with Tomasz Piscz at the helm, Team Veenoord with Dane, Anders Vad, who finished on the podium of the recent Helzold Chapionship, heading them up, and they also included another finalist from that event, Randy Oldeziel. MSC Diedenbergen round of the line up, and they have Ukrainian rider Kiril Tsukanov leading the way. MSC Diedenbergen also feature Marc Riss, son of former World Longtrack legend, Gerd Riss.

 

Full details of the event can be found here. It is in Flemish, but a quick whizz of the Google translator will give you the basics, and since the preview was posted there have been a couple of changes to the line up. I know that some of the Brits won't be there, but Nico and the team have drafted in additional riders to take the spots left vacant, so a full field is expected to take to the huge Helzoldstadion circuit.

 

So if you fancy a speedway fix and your in the vacinity of Zolder, I'm sure the guys at the Speedway Fanclub will be pleased to see you, both on practice day, Saturday, and the day of the event on Sunday. The forecast for the day isn't special, but I know from experience the SFC will do there upmost to provide a full programme on the day.

Edited June 22, 2012 by womble53

[DutchGrasstrack]

The meeting got rained off sadly .

[manchesterpaul]

The meeting got rained off sadly .

 

Will there be an attempt to stage it again?

[womble53]

Will there be an attempt to stage it again?

 

Wouldn't have thought so MP, they only have 3 meetings a year (noise restrictions I think), and as they practiced on Saturday and ran a few Rookie races on Sunday before the rain really set in, I should think that was classed as meeting number two for the year, so the next action will be on the weekend of 1st & 2nd of September for the Golden Helmet.

 

On Sunday they held on and held on, but to no avail, as the rain wouldn't relent. We all got very wet, as Jesper can no doubt attest to, and the poor lad drove all the way back from Gorzow (nearly 600 miles), just to get a soaking.

Edited June 25, 2012 by womble53

[manchesterpaul]

 

 

Wouldn't have thought so MP, they only have 3 meetings a year (noise restrictions I think), and as they practiced on Saturday and ran a few Rookie races on Sunday before the rain really set in, I should think that was classed as meeting number two for the year, so the next action will be on the weekend of 1st & 2nd of September for the Golden Helmet.

 

On Sunday they held on and held on, but to no avail, as the rain wouldn't relent. We all got very wet, as Jesper can no doubt attest to, and the poor lad drove all the way back from Gorzow (nearly 600 miles), just to get a soaking.

 

Oh well there's always a bright side, at least he didn't drive 601 miles! Ok i the glass half-full type of personality lol.

 

On a serious note, it's a farce that Speedway suffers so heavily from 'noise' objections in so many countries. The noise from football matches and the associated crowd noise and anti-social behhaviour and littering etc before and after the matches far outweigh the noise of 20 one minute speedway races spread over 2-3 hours.

[womble53]

Oh well there's always a bright side, at least he didn't drive 601 miles! Ok i the glass half-full type of personality lol.

 

 

On a serious note, it's a farce that Speedway suffers so heavily from 'noise' objections in so many countries. The noise from football matches and the associated crowd noise and anti-social behhaviour and littering etc before and after the matches far outweigh the noise of 20 one minute speedway races spread over 2-3 hours.

 

 

It's a real shame, especially at Zolder in particular. Just a few miles (Ooops sorry Kilometers as we are taliking about the Continent ) down the road you have the Zolder race circuit, which still has 9 motor racing events to run this year, including a 24 hour race, and when its running it can be heard from the town centre quite easily. The other thing about the speedway track is that it is in an old industrial area, at the end of town, opposite an old coal mine, and whilst there are quite a few houses around it's not right on a heavily populated part of town, like Blijham in Holland for instance, which backs on to a very large residential area, with house on the opposite side of the lane.

 

The club who run the speedway are great people, and for an amateur club, run a very professional set up, and desrve to be successful, so a rain off like this is a big blow, as the profit from this meeting would have gone on to help finance the Golden Helmet meeting, and allow them to invite some higer grade riders, which would help in attracting the crowds in future.

 

You can find their website here, and it currently has some photos of the aftermath of the rain on Sunday, as well as information about the club etc. As I said before a quick whizz through the Google Translator will help get the idea.

Edited June 26, 2012 by womble53

[DutchGrasstrack]

We all got very wet, as Jesper can no doubt attest to, and the poor lad drove all the way back from Gorzow (nearly 600 miles), just to get a soaking.

 

Yeah that was a big shame, but even more for the club as this rain-off cost them alot of money hope the sun will be out at their Golden Helmet meeting!

[Helzoldracer]

Next sunday the 2nd of september the club of Heusden-Zolder will stage their yearly Golden Helmet meeting.

Official practice is at 10am, the pre-main event at 12am and the Golden Helmet at 1.30pm.

Riders take part in the 125cc, rookies and national class. The Golden Helmet meeting will be run in the SGP format with 20 qualifying heats, 2 semis and a final.

A total of 50 heats will be run, so spectators get something for their money The entrance fee is € 12, the race programm is for free, as is parking.

 

The Golden Helmet line-up is as follows :

1 Randy Oldenziel (NL)

2 Steve Jones (GB)

3 Xavier Muratet (F)

4 Stanislav Melnichuk (UA)

5 Tomasz Piszcz (PL)

6 Henry vd Steen (NL)

7 Thomas Sörensen (DK)

8 Dirk Fabriek (NL)

9 Valentin Grobauer (D)

10 Bartosz Bietracki (PL)

11 Kyle Newman (GB)

12 Nick Lourens (NL)

13 Lee Geary (GB)

14 Peter Juul Larsen (DK)

15 Krzysztof Stojanowski (PL)

16 Andriy Kobrin (UA)

 

I expect some good racing from the young Ukrainian riders Melnichuk and Kobrin. Young Pole Bietracki is from the Bydgoszcz club and was impressive last time in Belgium when he practiced the day before the rained of team meeting. Of course more experienced riders like Piszcz, Larsen and Stojanowski will be up there as well.

A good bet for the podium could be Kyle Newman. It will be his first race in Belgium but seen his recent result in the U21 final in Coventry I think he'll be up for it.

Then you have Dutch long track specialist Fabriek who rides our big track very well and got 2nd place in our season opener behind Piszcz.

Young Dutch riders Oldenziel and Lourens are with the club now for many years and are real track specialists. They can be a surprise on the day!

In general I think we have put together a nice line-up concidering the fast we run the only speedway track and club in Belgium.

 

In the national class locals Wim Kennis and his father Willy will race against a few Dutch riders alongside with British racers Jez Pestell, Lee Springthorpe, Kevin Teager and Paul Chester.

 

In the rookies class 6 Belgians take on their Dutch rivals. In the 125cc class or only Belgian rider Dennis Claes will face 5 Dutch rivals.

 

This race might be a nice oppertunity for English fans to visit Belgium.

 

Greetz