Dynamite Drymyl!

Oxford teenager and fast rising talent Lukas Drymyl showed just how good a rider he is developing into by running away with the World Under-21 Championship quarter final, at Peterborough on Sunday afternoon.

He was simply untouchable - winning all his five rides by large distances. Home rider David Howe was Drymyl's only serious challenger on the day and the two lined up in heat twelve as the only two unbeaten riders at that stage. But the Czechoslovakian youngster showed Howe the way home convincingly, Howe finishing in second place both in that heat and in the meeting overall.

Oliver Allen made a brave attempt to ride while still suffering from his broken hand but it was too much for him and he withdrew after just one ride. Polish Under-21 Champion Rafal Kurmanski was another to take an early exit, taking two falls and collecting injuries despite a good opening win.

After an afternoon of entertaining racing, the seven qualifers for the semi-finals were Drymyl, Howe, Jaroslaw Hampel, Chris Slabon, Dawid Kujawa, Blair Scott and Theo Pijper. Rusty Harrison won his last outing to scrape through as reserve.

A big name casualty to fail was Coventry's American rookie Billy Janniro. Expected to have little problem after a bright start to his Elite League career he never looked comfortable and only mustered a miserable five points which was never going to be enough.

Another 'certain' qualifer pre-meeting was Jaroslaw Hampel. But he began poorly with a third place followed by a second and looked shaky. He then got his act together to win his remaining three races, including a fine third-to-first effort in heat nineteen. Hampel's finishing total of twelve was equalled by the very impressive Polish based Canadian Chris Slabon.

This meant a run-off for third place overall which Hampel just won despite continued challenges from Slabon who used the outside lines to good effect, almost getting up with one big last full throttle effort.

David Kujawa quietly went about his business collecting a second place in each of his races to finish with ten points and a comfortable qualification. Edinburgh's Blair Scott also scored ten and will be in the draw for the semi-finals.

The other qualifier, Dutchman Theo Pijper, came in to the meeting as an unknown rider from a country not noted for producing speedway talent. But he went away as the name many people were talking about after winning his opener against Janniro and Scott and then taking another six points. Pijper looked good and took his chances well in what was only his second meeting of the year.

German Martin Mescke just missed out finishing on seven points but caught the attention with a series of tiger like performances. The rest of the field were generally off the pace finding points very hard to find. It would be no great surprise to see riders such as Slabon, Kujawa and Pijper given chances in British league speedway before the season is out as they certainly looked good enough on Sunday's evidence.

Scorers:

Lukas Drymyl (Czech) 15
David Howe (GB) 14
Jaroslaw Hampel (Pol) 12
Chris Slabon (Can) 12
David Kujawa (Pol) 10
Blair Scott (GB) 10
Theo Pijper (Hol) 9
Rusty Harrison (Aus) 8
Martin Mescke (Ger) 7
Filip Musil (Czech) 5
Billy Janniro (USA) 5
Rafal Kurmanski (Pol) 3
Henk Bos (Hol) 2
Patrik Linhart (Czech) 1
Eugene Smith (SA) 1
Oliver Allen (GB) 0
Andrew Appleton (Res) (GB) 6
Rob Grant (Res) (GB) 0