The 1997 Individual Long Track/Grasstrack World Championship was the 27th edition of the FIM speedway Individual Long Track World Championship. For the first time the Championship was decided on a Grand Prix system (a series of races) and also contained races on grasstrack.
The new system combined with the relatively new Speedway World Championship Grand Prix which started in 1995, effectively resulted in a separation of speedway riders. The leading speedway riders (with the exception of several Long Track specialists) could not commit to the Longtrack/Grasstrack schedule and therefore competed in the Speedway World Championship. The days of a speedway world champion in both normal track and Long Track speedway were gone.
The world title was won by Tommy Dunker of Germany.
Venues Round Date Venue1 12 Jul Aduard2 20 Jul Cloppenburg3 17 Aug Pfarrkirchen4 6 Sep Marmande 5 28 Sep Mariánské Lázně
Final Classification Pos Rider Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Round 5 Total Pts1 Tommy Dunker 20 10 25 16 18 892 Steve Schofield 11 25 11 13 25 853 Glenn Cunningham 25 16 16 8 11 764 Massimo Mora 13 13 8 18 16 685 Egon Müller 5 18 20 9 14 666 Zdenek Schneiderwind 18 11 12 14 10 657 Philippe Bergé 12 9 18 12 13 648 Matthias Kröger 9 20 14 7 12 629 Steve Johnston 16 8 9 20 5 5810 Jeremy Doncaster 14 14 13 4 9 5411 Paul Hurry 6 12 1 25 7 5112 Bohumil Brhel 8 7 7 1 20 4313 Pavel Ondrašík 7 2 10 10 6 3514 Christophe Dubernard 10 3 6 11 2 3215 Vladimir Trofimov 4 x 5 2 8 1916 Herbert Rudolph 3 4 3 3 4 1717 Thorsten Kerl 2 5 2 x 1 1018 Václav Milík Sr. x x 4 x 3 719 Adam Labedzki x x x 6 x 620 Shane Parker x 6 x x x 621 Oleg Kurguskin x x x 5 x 522 Walter Scherwitzki 1 x x x x 123 Mark Lemon x 1 x x x 1
References