EUROPEAN PREVIEW
Great Britain go into action for the first time in 2023 when they compete in Final B of the FIME European Team Speedway Championship on Saturday. Dan Bewley, Adam Ellis, Tom Brennan and Richie Worrall will line up for GB at Pardubice in a meeting from which only the winners will definitely qualify for the Grand Final
Image courtesy of Taylor Lanning Photography
Final A in Gdansk features France, Latvia, Poland and Sweden, whilst the opposition for GB consists of the Czech Republic, Denmark and Ukraine.
On paper the Danes offer the strongest threat as they include GP and SEC regular Mikkel Michelsen along with Rasmus Jensen, Frederik Jakobsen and Andreas Lyager in their starting quartet.
And the home side will feature plenty of local knowledge from the likes of Vaclav Milik, Jan Kvech, Eduard Krcmar and Petr Chlupac.
The winners of each meeting qualify directly for next Saturday’s Grand Final in Stralsund, where they will be joined by hosts Germany and the highest scoring runners-up.
Meanwhile, the weather has already intervened in the weekend’s PGE Ekstraliga action, with three of the four matches rescheduled.
Robert Lambert will be inactive for the next week after Torun’s trip to Krosno, originally scheduled for Sunday, was an early postponement, with the meeting re-arranged for April 27.
Meanwhile Dan Bewley and Tai Woffinden will get their league seasons underway on Sunday when Wroclaw take on Leszno, with that meeting having been put back by 48 hours from its original Friday date.
Having also been postponed last weekend at Lublin, this will be the first meeting for the powerful Wroclaw team who include former Leszno stalwart Piotr Pawlicki, whilst Artem Laguta makes his return to league competition for the home side.
Sunday’s fixture between Czestochowa and Lublin remains scheduled for the evening as planned, but Friday’s other match involving Gorzow and Grudziadz has now been re-arranged for next Tuesday (April 18).
In Division One, the three winners from opening weekend are all racing away from home in Round 2.
Bydgoszcz, who narrowly lead the table on race points, travel to Landshut on Sunday who suffered defeat in their opener to Poznan.
Also on Sunday, Gdansk visit Lodz after their opening victory against Ostrow, whilst the relegated former Ekstraliga side take on Rybnik who are racing for the first time this season.
Zielona Gora also enter the fray for 2023 with a home match against Poznan on Monday.
There are three Division Two fixtures scheduled for the weekend with Scott Nicholls again in action for Rawicz after his successful return to Polish racing in the first round of the season.
Nicholls lines up at No.5 in the trip to Gniezno on Saturday afternoon, in which he will come up against two familiar faces from UK racing in Josh Pickering and Sam Masters.
Meanwhile on Sunday the first meeting of the season for Pila is set to feature a debut for Dan Gilkes in the trip to Rzeszow, whilst the weekend is completed by the fixture between Opole and Tarnow.