GP Qualifier final - Pepe wins, Lukas hurt again.

At Poole this afternoon, sixteen top riders chased just six qualifying places for the 2004 Grand Prix series. Poland's Piotr Protasiewicz won the meeting with fourteen points to secure his GP spot. The other five riders that made the cut were Bo Brhel, Bjarne Pedersen, Kaj Laukkanen, Ales Dryml and Jesper Jensen.

Protasiewicz ran second to Brhel in his opening ride but then reeled off four wins to head the score chart. Brhel dropped just a couple of points and was never in danger of missing out.

Pedersen, a current GP rider, raced to a dozen points on his home track to take the pressure off himself somewhat knowing that should he finish outside the top ten in the GP standings at the end of the series he's back in anyway.

Laukkanen battled his way to eleven with his second behind Brhel in his last ride being enough to get him to the show. Ales Dryml recovered from a first race fall and the sight of his brother, Lukas, taking a trip to hospital with a possible broken ankle, to collect ten points from his remaining four outings and the possibility of competing against Lukas next season while Jesper Jensen, like Dryml, came back from a nightmare start which left him with just a single point after two rides.

But after that, Jensen really got it together to slam in two wins followed by a second to Protasiewicz to make it by the skin of his teeth.

Lukas Dryml and Peter Karlsson had their chances ended when clashing in heat three which ended in a nasty accident and lengthy repairs to the track fencing. Dryml taken to hospital with a possible broken ankle which must be particularly hard to take for the young Czech so soon after his horrible crash in the Slovenian Grand Prix a few weeks ago.

His season could well be over as could his participation in both this season's and the 2004 GP. He will have to hope GP points he already has - plus anymore he can add if fit - will be enough to for a top 10 standings finish otherwise brother Ales will carry the family honour alone next season.

Karlsson will be similarly disappointed. He bravely attempted to continue but that proved impossible and he withdrew from the meeting seeing his hopes of a return to the world stage shattered.

World Championship Grand Final, Poole:

Scorers

Piotr Protasiewicz 14
Bohumil Brhel 13
Bjarne Pedersen 12
Kaj Laukkanen 11
Ales Dryml 10
Jesper Jensen 9
Joonas Kylmakorpi 7
Billy Janniro 6
Rafal Dobrucki 6
Simon Stead 6
Matej Zagar 5
Tomas Topinka 5
Roman Povazhny 5
Charlie Gjedde 5
Sebastian Ulamek 4
Theo Pijper 1
Lukas Dryml 0