Kay de Wolf of the Beursfoon KTM team has moved into the lead of the European Championship 85cc qualifying series. Despite mixed fortunes at Sverepec in Slovakia, he scored enough points to jump from third – to first in the series standings. Scott Smulders was a man on fire during the weekend, and in the second heat, he charged form the back to fourth in an inspired ride.
Sverepec is a former GP track and offers hard underground with terrifying elevation changes. The track was well prepared, and Kay and Scott qualified sixth and seventh respectively.
Kay rode a hard race in the opening heat, and finished third, adding handsomely to his points tally. Scott made his way up from a mid-field position, but lost a few spots again after a mistake. After another crash, he dropped to 17th, but gave it his all to recover to ninth.
Kay suffered a setback in the second race. He crashed whilst in third position, and dropped back to just inside the points. He put his best foot forward, and got back up to 11th in the time available to him. Scott had a bad start in this moto, and had to claw his way back from the rear. He passed riders lap after lap in an inspired ride, and finally ended up fourth. This yielded him sixth overall for the day, with teammate Kay de Wolf in seventh.
The last round of the qualifying series will be held at Markelo in the Netherlands on 7 and 8 July. The entire Beursfoon team will be in action in front of their home crowd. Next weekend the team will roll out at Lelystad at the next round of the Open Dutch Championship series.