Martin Smolinski sped his way to victory in the opening round of the 2014 Speedway World Championship at Western Springs.
Smolinski held off challenges from Nicki Pedersen (2nd), Krzysztof Kasprzak (3rd) and Freddie Lindgren (4th) in the final of the FIM Speedway Grand Prix event in Auckland last night.
The meeting featured the 15 best riders in the world, along with New Zealand wildcard entry Jason Bunyan.
It was Bunyan’s third Grand Prix appearance and last night he again proved he can be competitive with the world’s best, claiming two precious points.
His points haul resulted from his third-place finishes in his first two heats. He finished ahead of English rider Chris Harris in the first heat of the night, then came in ahead of two-times world champion Greg Hancock in his next race.
His two points meant he finished in 15th spot on the points table last night. Harris finished the night pointless.
Bunyan had secured a solitary point in both of his previous two Grand Prix rides.
He wasn’t the only Kiwi to get on the Western Springs track last night.
Christchurch-based rider Andrew Aldridge – one of two track reserves – was called into action when Australia’s Darcy Ward was forced out of the meeting with injury after a crash in his fourth heat.
Aldridge – who two years ago suffered a broken neck – lined up in a star-studded heat against three current or former world champions in Tai Woffinden, Chris Holder and Hancock.
Aldridge finished last, but his Grand Prix debut capped off an incredible recovery from his injury.
Meanwhile, Hancock, at 43 the oldest rider chasing this year’s title, predicted the race for the world title would be hotly contested.
Despite the absence of series regulars Tomasz Gollob from Poland and Emil Sayfutdinov from Russia, he said it would be an even tougher series than in 2013.
“Last year was awesome . . . you could see there was a big step up in the youngsters coming in,” Hancock said.
“The younger guys are motivating each other.
“They start to forget about the [older] guys like myself . . . they are all rising to the situation.
“They have long careers ahead of them. It is awesome and is long overdue. It is an awesome group of youngsters coming through.”
But Hancock said he was determined to remain a force himself in 2014.
“I say this with all respect to all of them, I know I can beat them too.”
