The Lakeside Hammers GP Swedish star, Andreas Jonsson, was involved in a high speed crash during Saturday night’s Grand Prix, which took place in his homeland, but it now appears that he has escaped without serious injury.
The GP was staged at the Ullevi Stadium, Gothenburg and it soon became obvious that the track was going to cause the riders major problems. The 416 metre circuit is the largest track used in this season’s GP series and the speeds, especially towards the end of the straights, are the fastest seen.
As early as the fifth heat deep ruts had appeared on the bends and these caused the top riders in the World difficulties. Dane Niels Kristian Iversen was ruled out of the meeting with a shoulder injury when he hit one of these ruts in this fifth race.
Things did not improve as the meeting went on with Hans Andersen also taking a nasty fall in heat 14. That was followed by Tomasz Gollob also falling in heat 16. However, the main talking point occurred in heat 19, when, at the first attempt to stage it, Lukas Dryml fell causing the Hammers Czech rider Lubos Tomicek to take avoiding action and despite missing Dryml the Hammers rider roared into the air fence. Thankfully it appears that Tomicek did not sustain any lasting injury. Then, in the re-run, Andreas Jonsson and Tomasz Gollob touched down the main straight, which resulted in Jonsson careering at full speed into the end of the first air fence panel that goes around the bends. The Hammers star was taken from the track in an ambulance but the Essex Club’s Co-Promoter and Team Manager, Jon Cook, was relieved to eventually hear that, following hospital x-rays, Jonsson had not broken any bones in his back.
This morning, the remarkable news came through from Sweden that Jonsson was even proposing to ride again this coming Tuesday in the Swedish league although he is suffering with severe bruising to his lower back. This means that, provided the Hammers star gets through Tuesday without any ill effects, he will take his place in the Lakeside team for next Friday’s vital home top of the table clash against the Poole Pirates.
The repercussions regarding the state of the Ullevi track will, no doubt, be talked about in the days and weeks to come with Jon Cook having his own very strong views on this as well as the whole GP series. He intends letting everyone be aware of these views over the course of the next week.
