Sam Ermolenko, legend of the American speedway, Individual World Champion 1993 and the Eurosport commentator sums up the first Speedway Euro Championship round in Güstrow.
Did you enjoy the meeting in Güstrow?
The rain challenged the racers, with their vision especially, and it also opened unconventional racing lines. Traditionally gates one and four seem to produce the best starts at this track. This again was true, but the rain showers played their part, making it very entertaining from my seat anyway – so I would say it was good overall!
There were some tough conditions at the track, but we did not lack of some great racing.
The rain gave the racers more options if they recognised the changing conditions, making for spectacular racing on many occasions. I think we would all agree from the first four races, we saw some top racing, but with the tough conditions due to the rain showers I’m sure riders would have had difficulty in seeing - but if they didn’t make the start the track surface still gave them the security for good racing. There were only a couple of incidents through the wholemeeting, so all in all it was good.
Are you surprised with the final results? Poorer performance of the 2015 medalists can be quite a surprise.
It was a surprise to me that several of the favourites missed out, and that we got the final result we had. Really you need to be up at the top in the first round of the SEC. In most competitions riders can afford to have one bad round, but looking at the final results in Gustrow you’d have to say the remaining three rounds need to be very good for the riders who missed out here, people like Emil, Nicki and Antonio Lindback. It was maybe fortunate for them that the Final didn’t get run, because that stopped people like Martin Vaculik and KK from scoring more points and going furtherahead of them. The German venue was the one which gave an advantage to the local riders who were familiar with it, they had their family and friends there supporting them, and knew what to do in the changing conditions. It was a great performance though from Kai Huckenbeck, he can take a lot of credit for that.
Which of the heats was your favourite one?
I felt the best race overall was Heat 14, which was the battle between KK, Milik and Nicki, and once again the track played its part as a leveller. You just never could place a winner beforehand.
Next SEC round will take place on August 6th in Latvia. Andzejs Lebedevs, who is representing this country had a good performance in Güstrow. It should be no worse in Daugavpils. Do you think he can join the fight for the medals?
It’s bigger and more conventional circuit compared to Güstrow and I think the more experienced international riders should come out on top there. Lebedevs impressed me in Gustrow. A lot of speedway at this level is all about the mental side, and scoring eight points there will surely put him in a good frame of mind before he goes to a track that he knows well, so I expect him to be up there battling in Latvia.
