1997 FIM Long Track World Championship

1997 Individual Long Track World Championship

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	Venue
1	12 Jul	Aduard
2	20 Jul	Cloppenburg
3	17 Aug	Pfarrkirchen
4	6 Sep	Marmande
5	28 Sep	Mariánské Lázně

Final Classification

Pos	Rider	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Total Pts
1	Tommy Dunker	20	10	25	16	18	89
2	Steve Schofield	11	25	11	13	25	85
3	Glenn Cunningham	25	16	16	8	11	76
4	Massimo Mora	13	13	8	18	16	68
5	Egon Müller	5	18	20	9	14	66
6	Zdenek Schneiderwind	18	11	12	14	10	65
7	Philippe Bergé	12	9	18	12	13	64
8	Matthias Kröger	9	20	14	7	12	62
9	Steve Johnston	16	8	9	20	5	58
10	Jeremy Doncaster	14	14	13	4	9	54
11	Paul Hurry	6	12	1	25	7	51
12	Bohumil Brhel	8	7	7	1	20	43
13	Pavel Ondrašík	7	2	10	10	6	35
14	Christophe Dubernard	10	3	6	11	2	32
15	Vladimir Trofimov	4	x	5	2	8	19
16	Herbert Rudolph	3	4	3	3	4	17
17	Thorsten Kerl	2	5	2	x	1	10
18	Václav Milík Sr.	x	x	4	x	3	7
19	Adam Labedzki	x	x	x	6	x	6
20	Shane Parker	x	6	x	x	x	6
21	Oleg Kurguskin	x	x	x	5	x	5
22	Walter Scherwitzki	1	x	x	x	x	1
23	Mark Lemon	x	1	x	x	x	1