EUROPEAN PREVIEW - SGPQ

Image courtesy of Steve Hone Photography

There are two meetings on Saturday which are at Lonigo in Italy and Zarnovica in Slovakia, whilst German venue Abensberg stages its round on Monday.

Tom Brennan, already boosted by the news that he has received a permanent Wild Card for the SEC series, races at Lonigo where his opposition includes Premiership regulars Rohan Tungate, Jan Kvech and home favourite Paco Castagna along with the likes of Rasmus Jensen and Jacob Thorssell.

Meanwhile Brennan’s Ipswich team-mate Adam Ellis is at Zarnovica in a strong meeting which features Luke Becker, Matej Zagar and Chris Holder along with current GP riders Anders Thomsen, Andzejs Lebedevs and Martin Vaculik.

Jake Mulford is the GB representative at Abensberg for an event which will give him great experience, with current GP riders Jack Holder, Dominik Kubera and Kai Huckenbeck competing along with the likes of Michael Jepsen Jensen and Kim Nilsson.

There is also an important meeting at Debrecen on Saturday as the third and final SGP2 Qualifier takes place.

Luke Killeen will represent GB in the meeting, and his opponents include his Oxford Cheetahs team-mate Mitch McDiarmid along with SEC competitors Nazar Parnitskyi and Norick Blodorn, and Czech talent Adam Bednar.

This weekend’s PGE Ekstraliga action kicks off on Friday and as the schedule has reached Round 8 it means aggregate bonus points are now in play.
The fixtures are rapid reversals of last weekend, with bottom club Rybnik first into action against Zielona Gora, although having held their opponents to a 48-42 win last time out, there is the opportunity for ROW to take maximum points from the meeting.
Dan Bewley will be in action for Wroclaw at Czestochowa, although this meeting only has the regular two points attached to it following last week’s postponement.

Wroclaw have confirmed that Brady Kurtz will not be riding following his crash in Prague last weekend so the likes of Bewley, Artem Laguta and Maciej Janowski will need to cover for the absence of the Australian, with Zach Cook set to step in for his top-flight debut.

Bewley then heads to Rzeszow on Saturday to take his place in a Rest of the World team to face Poland, who include Bartosz Zmarzlik, Patryk Dudek and Kubera.

On Sunday the pressure could well be on Gorzow, especially if Rybnik take points on Friday, with the side currently second from bottom taking on fourth-placed Grudziadz, and the visitors are already 58-32 ahead from last week’s fixture.
But the stand-out match of the weekend is the one involving Robert Lambert as second placed Torun host unbeaten leaders Lublin, who have won all six of their matches so far.

If there is to be a venue where Lublin slip up this season, Torun could just be the one, especially as last year the home side did hand them their first league defeat by a scoreline of 48-42, before improving on that in the play-offs with a 51-39 result – although it wasn’t enough to take them into the Final.

There is also a rearranged fixture coming up on Tuesday June 10 with Lublin travelling to Gorzow in a Round 6 match.

In Metalkas 2 Ekstraliga there are two matches on Sunday, starting with Brennan racing for second placed Bydgoszcz as they head to Ostrow, who have only won one of their four matches so far.

Elsewhere Tarnow will look to get off the mark and they do have the opportunity to do so at home to a Poznan side who have been out of form.

In the National Speedway League on Sunday, Opole and Landshut meet for the second time in two weeks, this time in Poland, with Charles Wright and Leon Flint both declared in the line-up for the visitors as they look to build on a narrow home win last week.

Richard Lawson returns for Krakow as they host Gniezno, with Ellis included as usual for the visitors who are level on points with Gdansk at the top and were 57-32 winners when they met last week, whilst the Gdansk/Pila match has been postponed due to a poor weather forecast.