Rainy weekend and Saturday race postponed

The weather forecast looked quite good earlier in the week for the last and decisive round of this year’s Viking Cup 2025. Friday’s practise went well in bright sunshine and there was a lot of riding for everyone who was there. During the afternoon it became cloudy and the forecast for Saturday got worse and worse. Just in time for the start of this year’s new version of Trotteln i Taket at 18.00, the first rain drops started to fall and halfway into the race one had to take a break due to heavier rain shower. Still warm in the air and on the ground, the track recovered quickly and one were able to continue and finish. In the two final rounds, Stefan Axelsson went to the motorcycle class on his RD125, together with the slightly heavier competitors Ronny Karlsson on an Ironhead and Micke Törnqvist on an evo-sportster from 84. On the rather small track, many probably thought that Axelsson would have the advantage of a significantly lighter bike, but it turned out in the end that the largest cubic capacity also applies on small tracks when Micke Törnqvist gallantly won the final. Thus, Törnqvist finished undefeated with four straight heat wins and a win in the final. But it was a strong starting field and Søren Teil Hansen also on an evo-sportster finished the race undefeated but missed one of his heats and thus a final place for different reasons.

The Moped class also turned out to be a story of most engine capacity when newcomer in Trotteln context Anders Hukka finished the day undefeated on his Mustang Cobra from 1979, despite the lack of a hot shoe and occasionally really funny fights with Mikael Axelsson who wheeled around on his pedal moped.

The oldest team of the day and one of the finest was without a doubt Christoffer Uggla who, in contemporary clothing, rode like crazy with his super fine Husqvarna NO. 30 from 1929. Not only it is hand geared, the lever sits also on the right side, the same side as the throttlegrip. However, this did not prevent Uggla from full throttle sliding through the curves. Trotteln veteran Roy Abrahamsson choosed to retire when he lost the gear peg after a crash. He was, however, in good health cause he was wearing both a helmet, back protector and gloves :). This year’s Trotteln was a fun race, but unfortunately with a small crowd. The reason is of course the weather, but the Vetlanda crowd was probably fed up with motor events after both speedway and car speedway as well as the competing speedway-GP in Målilla during the same week.

On Friday evening, after Trotteln, the rain calmed down a bit and later during the night it picked up again. Early in the morning on Saturday it had stopped and the track looked nice, but already during sign-in and inspection it started again. After several changes to the schedule, reduction of heats and restructuring of Dash for Cash as well as breaks and waiting, the race director decided to cancel as the forecast looked bad for the afternoon. Several of the Finnish riders still wanted to take the opportunity to ride and went out on the floating putty-like track material after Riku Haapmäki had test ridden with swells in the material as a result and claimed that the track was safe :). Norwegian Malene Solvang also joined in what is now called the Koskenkorva championship and we are extremely unsure who actually won. The practise was contagious and in the end there were about ten riders on the track, including home riders Conny Ivarsson and Nesse Nilsson as well as Stefan and Mikael Axelsson and the amateur class leaders Eero and Temu Hyviränen. We guarantee that everyone got their fair share of the Vetlanda track with them back home both in a laundry basket and on bikes. As a race organizer, it is a difficult decision to cancel a race, as many of the riders have travelled a long way, but the risk of accidents among slightly less experienced riders must always weigh most heavily.

The organization behind the Viking Cup therefore immediately sought a solution to be able to complete the cup at another time. The Norwegian organization for Hells Race in Oslo reached out to the question and the last round of the Viking Cup will therefore be run as class in class when the Hells Race is run on August 8-9. Thanks to this, in connection with the decision to cancel, it was also possible to announce that the cup will instead be decided there and all participants will have a chance to decide the cup by themselves.