Tatum wins in NZ, Barth is Longtrack champ.

Kelvin Tatum won the final round of the 2003 World Longtrack Championships in New Plymouth, New Zealand on Saturday. The superb win was not sufficient to move Tatum up from runners-up spot as Championship leader, Robert Barth, from Germany, finished in third place in the meeting and the points he achieved for that enabled him to take the Championship.

In the twelve qualification races at New Plymouth each of the eighteen rides competed in five races. Tatum was unbeatable in his rides scoring an untroubled five victories to lead the qualifiers on a maximum of
20 points.

German Gerd Riss, who entered the meeting in third place overall, scored 19 points in his qualification rides, dropping his only point to fellow German Robert Barth. He did not, however, meet Tatum in his five rides. Third qualifier was Championship leader Robert Barth on 18 points. His two dropped points were when he came up against Tatum in heats six and eight.

These three were joined in the six man "A" Final by Dutchman Uppie Boss, German Matthias Kroger and Britain's Oliver Allen, who was making his debut in this year's competition. They all finished their qualifying heats on 14 points.

In the "A" Final Tatum continued his unbeaten run by taking the win, and the 25 Championship points. Gerd Riss finished in second place and 20 points with Robert Barth completing the rostrum places in third place on 18 points. In the overall Championship Robert Barth scored 131 points to take the Title with Tatum finishing as runner-up on 120 points. Gerd Riss was third overall on 98 points.

In the six event Championship Tatum and Barth each won three meetings and finished second in one other. The difference, however, was that Barth finished in third place in his other two rounds whereas Tatum finished third in one meeting and last in the "B" Final scoring only seven points in his other meeting.