| Nations battle for Francesco Zerbi Trophy at Pleven this weekend |
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FUNCHAL (PORTUGAL), 7 October 2009 – A year after Italy grasped their second Francesco Zerbi Trophy at Pleven’s FIM SuperMoto of Nations, the squad will be back to action again in Bulgaria playing defense against a strong line up of other 19 National Teams hungry for success. 2009 will mark the fourth edition of this challenging event where Italy holds the record of the most successful team. Courtesy of their 2007 victory, France also experienced success in the event. This year’s Team Italy will feature dramatic changes in its whole line up starting from newly appointed Team Manager Attilio Pignotti, taking over from Andrea Bartolini. Pignotti, a SuperMoto of Nations winner himself, put together a strong team in the likes of Fabrizio Bartolini, Gaspardone and Mariani. Husqvarna mounted Bartolini, the cousin of former Motocross World Champion Andrea Bartolini, stepped into the World series this year after showing a strong potential in the UEM Championships. Bartolini is currently placed ninth in the S2 World series despite having missed one Grand Prix. Gaspardone is one of the most talented Italian youngsters as he heads to Pleven with high ambitions. Riding a S2 Honda Gaspardone, who is an SMoN debutant like the other two team mates, will try and make up for an up and down start to the S2 World Championship where he currently sits in fourth. Veteran Mariani completes the team in the Open class. The TM Superider is sixth in the S2 standings and a third place finish at moto one in Latina was a confidence booster for the Nations.
Bartolini sliding Taking their first podium last year with third overall, the Bulgarian Team look forward to the event but the home squad underwent changes as well. With Open class Superider Tonchev and S2 Superider Georgiev having remained, the team is completed by UEM S3 leader Karanyotov in the S1 class. The latter has unveiled an extremely talented Superider at his breakthrough season, therefore he was give the honor of defending his Nation at the most important event of the year. The three Bulgarians will be all provided with KTM machinery. This year Bulgaria will have a Junior team too in the likes of Stefanov, Totev and Dobrev.
Karanyotov now leads the UEM S3 series Czech Republic instead will head to Bulgaria aiming at their first podium at the event, something they missed last year by less than 20 points. The Czech will be represented by former European Champion Vorlicek in the S1, Bocek in the S2 and Janousek in the Open class.
Vorlicek will lead Team Czech Republic Team Germany is also a potential podium finisher with Becher, Joannidis and Deitenbach while Spain seeks success through their three representatives Grau, Cucharrera and Retuerta. The latter team will bring also three juniors in the likes of Garcia, Gimenez and Llados. Among the most exotic squads are Turkey and Brazil, while the entry list of 20 teams is completed by Slovenia, Finland, Sweden, Austria -another strong team with Maier, Rothbauer and Neuburger- Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, Greece and Poland.
Rothbauer in action 2008 PODIUM: 1. Italy 2. France 3. Bulgaria S1 Overall Winner: Ivan Lazzarini S2 Overall Winner: Davide Gozzini Open Overall Winner: Attilio Pignotti
An aerial view of Pleven’s race track
More photos available at www.supermotos1.com/galleryinfo.aspx TIMETABLE Saturday: S1 Free Practice at 9:00 am; S2 Free Practice at 9:45 am; Open Free Practice at 10:30 am; S1 Time Practice at 12:00 am; S2 Time Practice at 12:45 am; Open Time Practice at 1:30 pm; S1 Qualifying Race at 3:00 pm; S2 Qualifying Race at 4:00 pm; Open Qualifying Race at 5:00 pm. Sunday: Warm Up B-Final Group at 9:00 am; SMoN Warm Up Group 1 at 9:30 am; SMoN Warm Up Group 2 at 10:00 am; SMoN B-Final at 11:00 am; SMoN Race 1 (S1+S2) at 1:00 pm; SMoN Race 2 (S2+Open) at 2:15 pm; SMoN Race 3 (S1+Open) at 4:20 pm. LINKS Freecaster.tv is the prime source of LIVE and On-Demand coverage for action sports on the Internet. Watch the 2009 FIM MX1/MX2/MX3 and Women’s World Championships, the 2009 SuperMoto World Championship and the 2009 FIM Snowcross World Championship races exclusively, LIVE and free on www.freecaster.tv. |
