EUROPEAN REVIEW

Image courtesy of Steve Hone Photography

The home side took the local derby clash 52-38 with four members of their top five in double figures, and Woffinden and Bewley both won three races apiece.

It wasn’t an entirely one-sided affair thanks largely to the efforts of Janusz Kolodziej, who scored 15 points for the visitors, but Wroclaw could afford a low-key home debut from Piotr Pawlicki who won his first race but ended up with a score of just 5+1.

Bewley, meanwhile, won three of his first four rides to finish on 11, even though he ran a last in his final outing, whilst Woffinden collected 12+1 and his only defeat came in Heat 11 when Kolodziej and Grzegorz Zengota raced to a 5-1 for Leszno.

Kolodziej had earlier prevented a Wroclaw 5-1 with a terrific move to split Woffinden and Maciej Janowski in Heat 3, but the hosts always retained control and clinched their victory when Bewley and Janowski combined in Heat 13 for a 5-1 over Chris Holder and Jaimon Lidsey.

Elsewhere, defending champions Lublin kicked off with a 49-41 away win at Czestochowa with Bartosz Zmarzlik marking his official debut with a faultless 15-point maximum.

There were mixed fortunes for the riders facing their former clubs as Fredrik Lindgren scored just 2+1 for Lublin, but Zmarzlik received good back-up from Dominik Kubera on 10+1 and debutant Jack Holder on 9+1.

Meanwhile on the Czestochowa side, Mikkel Michelsen racked up 14 against his old side and Maksym Drabik carded 9+2, but Leon Madsen (11+2) was the only other major scorer with the injury absence of Kacper Woryna proving costly – as it had done in their first-day draw at Grudziadz.

Tuesday evening saw Gorzow collect their first points of the season with a 51-39 win over Grudziadz in a fixture delayed from the weekend due to the weather.

Szymon Wozniak and Anders Thomsen both scored 13+1 underlining that Gorzow should still have good home strength despite the departure of Zmarzlik, whilst Nicki Pedersen scored 13 for the visitors and Max Fricke added nine.

The remaining Round 2 fixture between Krosno and Torun will now be staged on Thursday April 27, the same day as the Lublin/Wroclaw match delayed from Round 1.

In Division One, a dramatic meeting saw Ostrow edge out Rybnik 45-44 with the last heat producing plenty of talking points as the home side went in with a three-point advantage.

But they lost Grzegorz Walasek who was excluded after his engine failure caused team-mate Oliver Berntzon and Patryk Wojdylo to come down, and in the re-run Kurtz and Wojdylo held a 5-1 position which looked set to turn the match, only for Berntzon to pass Wojdylo to secure the narrowest of wins.

Leon Flint took his place at No.8 for Ostrow, ironically against his former club, but did not get a ride during the meeting.

No other matches could take place in the second tier due to the weather, whilst in Division Two a pair of meetings took place with Rzeszow recording a massive 60-30 win over Pila.

There was a good performance from Anders Rowe for the home side as he won three races to finish on nine points, whilst Dan Gilkes collected a praiseworthy 6+2 for the visitors.

Elsewhere, Opole took a narrow 46-44 win over Tarnow having gone into the match without Adam Ellis who was unable to make it in time from competing for GB in the FIME European Team Championship event at Pardubice.

Round 1 of the Under-24 Ekstraliga took place on Tuesday, although two of the four scheduled matches were postponed.

Leszno secured a comfortable 59-30 win over Wroclaw, for whom Connor Bailey scored five and Nathan Ablitt one, whilst Krosno were 50-40 winners at Czestochowa.