GILLMAN CAPTURES HIS 4TH POLE OF 2000 IN POLAND!
CAPPELLINI HOSPITALIZED AFTER ACCIDENT IN PRACTICE!!

POZNAN, POLAND: American Scott Gillman saved his best for the final session of the afternoon as he took the pole for his 4th time this season and will start at the head of the field for the 1st Grand Prix of Poland, the 7th Round of the U.I.M. F1 World Championship for powerboating.

Gillman, the 1997 World Champion, took his 14th career pole with a 36.41 second lap and a speed of 158.19 kph in his ADNOC-LUBES DAC/Mercury 2.5 litre machine in one flying lap in the final "Shootout" session in which the top 6 pilots get a chance to do 2 laps to better their previous best times and gain the pole position of the race. The native of Basalt, Colorado was only 2nd quickest coming into the final session behind young Italian Francesco Cantando in his SINGHA BEER/Mercury 2.5 litre boat.

Cantando, who was looking for his first ever pole position, had a great opportunity to do so, coming out last from the dock knowing he only needed to improve by .33 of a second, but couldn't improve and settled for 2nd with a time of 36.74 seconds and a great chance to capture his first ever F1 win.

The big story of the day came in the first session during practice when defending World Champion and current points leader Guido Cappellini crashed heavily in turn one, getting the boat on one sponson in the corner and ending up barrel rolling 3 times before ending up upside down struggling to get out of the cockpit half submerged near the end of the course. The 214 kph crash had the Osprey Rescue team from the United Kingdom scrambling to get the 5 time World Champion out of his boat in quick time. Cappellini went by ambulance to hospital and returned 2 hours later only to return again a few hours later.Cappellni will miss starting his first race because of injury in a decade, last failing to start when he broke his arm in Malaysia in 1990.

His teammate Fabio Comparato in his LASERLINE/CASTROL DAC/Mercury 2.5 litre came on strong at the end of the day like Gillman, improving to a 37.68 second lap to reach the top 3 and then again going faster in the shootout to a 36.80 second lap and preserving his 3rd place starting position with a 156.52 kph lap.

Rookie-of-the-year candidate Laith Pharaon of Saudi Arabia in his HYATT HOTEL DAC/Mercury 2.5 litre boat did a best effort starting 4th from the dock with a 37.62 time while Latvian pilot Victor Kunitch will start 5th in his RE & RE DAC/Mercury 2.5 litre machine with a time of 37.63.

The 1st Annual Grand Prix of Poland will start it's 65 lap event at 14:30 CET and 8:30 Eastern Daylight time in North America. The question will be, can Gillman take advantage of Cappellini's absence or will Cantando, Comparato or Jones win for the first time in 2000?