EUROPEAN PREVIEW

Image courtesy of Taylor Lanning Photography

Wroclaw host champions Lublin in the clash of last season’s top two, and it also serves as a warm-up for the start of the Grand Prix series with six riders involved who will be competing in Landshut next weekend.

In the first two rounds of league action Wroclaw lost their opener at Torun before racing to a big home win over Zielona Gora last week, whilst Lublin have a 100 per cent record so far, although their win over Czestochowa in Round 2 was not by the margin expected.

Bewley and Brady Kurtz both race for the hosts whilst the GP stars for Lublin are Bartosz Zmarzlik, Fredrik Lindgren, Jack Holder and Dominik Kubera.

Meanwhile Robert Lambert has a clear weekend as his fixture for Torun at promoted Rybnik was an early victim of the weather, and it will now take place this coming Tuesday (April 29).

The Round 3 fixtures open up with under-pressure Zielona Gora hosting Grudziadz, and if the likes of Leon Madsen and Rasmus Jensen cannot hit top form for the home side, they could well come under threat from the visitors for whom Max Fricke and Michael Jepsen Jensen are both facing one of their former clubs.

Sunday’s other fixture sees another side with no points so far, Czestochowa, host Gorzow who picked up a point from a home draw against Torun last week.

The visitors will be looking to European Champion Andzejs Lebedevs to step up in support of Martin Vaculik and Anders Thomsen if they are to handle the threat of Jason Doyle, Kacper Woryna and Piotr Pawlicki.

There are two matches in Metalkas 2. Esktraliga with the Round 3 matches split over the next two weekends.

The opening fixture is a big one between two of the promotion candidates as Tom Brennan and his Bydgoszcz team make the trip to Leszno, who expect to be without Ben Cook until June which may well have a negative effect on their results over that period.

Along with Bydgoszcz, Krosno are the other team with a 100 per cent record from their first two matches, and they host Poznan who have also started well with a win and a draw so far. A key clash there includes Tobiasz Musielak, who has struggled in the UK this year but has double figures in both matches for Krosno, taking on Ryan Douglas who has been in fine form for Poznan.

In the National Speedway League, there are three matches this weekend with British involvement in each of them.

Gniezno, who are the early pace setters, travel to Daugavpils with Adam Ellis in the visitors’ line-up for the match in Latvia and they will be confident of completing a hat-trick of wins.

Elsewhere, Richard Lawson travels to Gdansk with Krakow, who lost their home opener to Opole, who have no fixture this weekend.

Leon Flint, meanwhile, is named at No.2 in the Landshut line-up as they chase their first points of the season when they visit Pila.

Saturday’s event is the semi-final of the European Pairs Championship in Krsko, where Great Britain will discover their opponents in the Final later this season.

GB are one of five seeded nations for the meeting in Daugavpils on July 19, along with hosts Latvia, Denmark, Poland and Finland.

The event in Slovenia features the host nation together with Norway, Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden, Italy, France and Ukraine.

The Czechs may well start as favourites with the international experience of Jan Kvech and Vaclav Milik, backed up by exciting youngster Adam Bubba Bednar, whilst the meeting includes three riders who race for Edinburgh in the UK Championship – Victor Palovaara and Jonatan Grahn for Sweden, and Paco Castagna for Italy.