15 year-old Frederik Jakobsen maintained the long run of Danish domination in the FIM 80cc Youth Gold Trophy event, when he was crowned the new 80cc Gold Trophy champion at Fjelsted on Saturday afternoon. Jakobsen, who rides for the staging Fjelsted club in their 80cc team, used his home track experience to the max, as over the three days of action packed racing, across six meetings, Frederik also won his qualifying round on Thursday with 14 points and his semi-final on Friday with 13 points.
In the final all Jakosen’s pre-meeting main rivals seemed to be caught out by the occasion and most of them tripped up at least in one race to hand the initiative to Frederik. Riding with a cool head on a hot afternoon he started off with three race wins, but then was surprised himself when he dropped a point to Patrick Jensen in heat 15. This saw Frederik go to the tapes in heat 17, faced with a start off what had been the graveyard of a gate four starting grid, but when the tapes rose he pulled of the best start of the entire afternoon and rounded the other three riders to then go on to win the race by some distance.
As he crossed the finishing line there were some emotional seems as his family and friends spilled on to the track to greet him and celebrated by tossing him in the air in joyous scenes. His father Jan, who had once been a professional rider, racing in England for the famous Cradley Heathens team, was overcome with joy, as his son had previously won the European and Nordic 80cc titles in 2012.
The entire event was as expected totally dominated by the Danish youngsters, which is credit to their mentor Eric Gundersen, the former World Speedway Champion, who spends so much time coaching and encouraging the Danish youngsters in the 80cc stepping stone level. Gundersen buzzed around the Fjelsted pits helping and talking wisdom to his young fledglings throughout the event, which saw the host Danish nation filling as many as 13 out of the 16 places in the final, a new record for the competition.
This saw the rostrum filled with young Danish “Viking” riders, as Sam Jensen took the runner’s up spot with 13 points and Patrick Hansen finished third with 11. Jakobsen’s main threat was expected to come from fellow Fjelsted club racer John Jorgensen, who was the reigning Danish 80cc Champion, but Jorgensen suffered a real “bad day at the office”, as he took three heavy falls on the afternoon, including two disqualifications, which limited the heavily fancied Jorgensen to just three race wins in the heats that he did finish.
Best of the non-Danes competing in the final was Norwegian Lasse Fredriksen, who rode steadily and picked up points in each of his five races to end up with 8 points, which saw him finish in 6th spot overall.
The three qualifying rounds and two semi-finals had passed off without too many incidents or problems, but this meant there was so hot competition between the 16 riders that made it through to the Gold Trophy Final. This saw a host of crashes and reruns in the final, as riders wouldn’t give an inch, which meant it was a very busy afternoon for the referee Christina Turnball from the UK.
The whole event was a tremendous success, with a sizeable crowd of 528 attending the junior track at Fjelsted. So it was with full credit to the Fjelsted club and its hard working team that the four day event ran without a hitch and was a real credit to the FIM.
1. Frederik Jakobsen (DMU) 14,
2. Sam Jensen (DMU) 13,
3. Patrick Hansen (DMU) 11,
4. Jason Jorgensen (DMU) 9,
5. Kasper Andersen (DMU) 8,
6. Lasse Fredriksen (NOR) 8,
7. Mads Hansen (DMU) 7,
8. Lasse Portner (DMU) 7,
9. Jonas Jeppesen (DMU) 7,
10. Mathias Nielsen (DMU) 6,
11. Joel Kling (SVEMO), 6,
12. Martin Steen Hansen (DMU) 6,
13. Kamil Nowacki (PZM) 5,
14. Jonas Seiert-Saik (DMU) 5,
15. Sebastian Mortensen (DMU) 4,
16. Andreas Jensen (DMU) 4
Text from Chris Durno and pictures from Jannik Munk