EUROPEAN REPORT - Week 6

Image courtesy of Taylor Lanning Photography

Kurtz, who was fourth in the season opener in Landshut, holds a five-point lead over World Champion Bartosz Zmarzlik who failed to make it through his Last Chance Qualifier at the PGE Naradowy.

Jack Holder dropped his only point to Kurtz in his five programmed rides but then got the better of his fellow countryman in the final for his second GP win overall, and some redemption after he was cruelly denied victory in the same meeting two years ago.

With Kurtz second on the night ahead of Wild Card Patryk Dudek and Dominik Kubera, it means he has 38 points at the top of the standings ahead of Zmarzlik on 33, with Andzejs Lebedevs up to third on 29.

It wasn’t the GP that the Great Britain duo had been looking for, even though the weekend started in promising fashion as both Robert Lambert and Dan Bewley qualified for the Sprint Race. They finished third and fourth in that race, to score two points and one point respectively, behind surprise winner Jan Kvech with Kurtz second.

In the GP itself, Lambert made it into the Last Chance Qualifier having scored nine points, but he was eliminated with second place behind Dudek, which at least boosted his final position and his meeting total to 11 points.

Bewley was unable to win a race despite being involved in plenty of hard racing, and he finished with five points which actually translated into just four in the series.

That means after two rounds Lambert is sixth in the overall standings on 24 points with Bewley just behind in seventh on 23.

Due to the Grand Prix and poor weather in Poland over the weekend, only one league fixture took place which was on German soil as Landshut hosted Gniezno in the National Speedway League. The visitors took a 49-41 away win in a meeting which featured plenty of British interest, with Adam Ellis winning his first two rides and scoring seven points, whilst Australian star Sam Masters scored 13+1.

For the hosts, Manchester GP Wild Card Charles Wright collected 8+1 from six rides whilst Leon Flint totalled 5+2 from five, with Erik Riss their top scorer on 11.

The latest round of Bauhaus-Ligan fixtures took place in Sweden on Tuesday with Lambert enjoying a strong performance in Vastervik’s 53-37 win at Vargarna.

He scored 12+2 from five rides, dropping his only point to former Edinburgh rider Oskar Polis in Heat 9, but was otherwise unbeaten, and team-mate Fredrik Lindgren picked up 13+1.

Tom Brennan scored a solid five points from four rides, whilst reserve Jakub Misokwiak was top scorer for the hosts with 13 from five.

Elsewhere there was a close win for Smederna who took the lead at Dackarna with a 5-1 in Heat 13 from Maksym Drabik and Gleb Chugunov, and then held it with two 3-3s for a 46-44 away win having been six points down with five races to go.

Drabik scored 13 with Leon Madsen winning four races to score 12, whilst Frederik Jakobsen picked up 10+1 for the Malilla side.

Indianerna were 51-39 winners over Rospiggarna with Bartlomiej Kowalski leading the way on 13 points, whilst Artem Laguta top scored 11 for the visitors.

The meeting at Piraterna was abandoned after Heat 10 due to more issues with the track, although the result did stand with away side Lejonen being comfortable 40-19 winners in a meeting which only started after a 30-minute delay.

Zmarzlik scored a nine-point maximum for Lejonen, who had all but two of the race wins with reserve Casper Henriksson picking up 9+2.

The full line-up is now known for the SEC Challenge later this month after the last qualifying meeting took place in France last weekend.

Polish riders dominated at Lamothe-Landerron as the meeting was won by Szymon Wozniak on 13 points ahead of Wiktor Przyjemski on 12, joined by Frenchman David Bellego. Przemyslaw Pawlicki took the final qualifying place after winning a three-man run-off with Oliver Berntzon and Steven Goret after all finished on 11 points. Jason Edwards, in his first meeting at this level, scored a creditable five points including two second places to finish 12^th overall.