Svitavy
At last I made it to Svitavy speedway.
It was only a short 24 years since the last aborted attempt.
1994 saw a bus load of Edinburgh Monarchs and a few assorted other speedway fans embark on a continental speedway extravaganza (I’ll protect their names but let’s just say there were a few Monarchs Fans Legends on the bus, some now sadly do not attend the speedway).
The route included, amongst other places, Edinburgh, Coventry, Harwich, Hook of Holland, Bad Bramstedt, Brokstedt, Berlin, Prague, Pardubice, Marianske Lazne and of course Svitavy. A legendary trip.
Sadly the only meeting that was planned and didn’t happen was the Svitavy fixture.
The route on the 25th August 2018 was considerably more direct. Podebrady via Kolin to Svitavy on Czech rail (worth noting that the route takes in Pardubice - a town with a legendary and probably my favourite track).
It’s also worth noting that after approximately 3 months of wonderful weather, of between 30 and 37 degrees centigrade, the night before the meeting there was as ‘thunder plump’ of rain.
Surely not another rain off?
So after a couple of hours on the train we hopped off at another Soviet style train station. A quick map check and a short stroll took us into a very pretty and quiet town centre. It’s a quirk of Czech shops that they close by 12 noon on a Saturday hence many town centres are very quiet at the weekend.
The meeting was scheduled to start at 1:30pm so we had time for a spot of lunch. Lunch is a meal that the Czech’s have mastered. Typically Czech restaurants (or ‘restaurace’ - to give them their Czech name) offer a Polední menu. In other words a daily lunch menu which normally includes a soup and choice from a couple of main dishes. All for the tidy sum of approximately 150 to 170 Korun (Czech Crowns) i.e. £5 or £6
Our lunch spot of choice being Hotel Slavia (or to be more precise their casual bar meal restaurant).
So after being fed and watered it was another 30 minute walk to the stadium. Navigating a new Czech town is always fun but this time we were assisted by the sound of the bikes warming up.
And here we were ...
We paid our 70 Korun (£2.30) a head for entrance and free racesheet.
Although the surroundings were pretty basic and in need of freshening up I'm confident that many a UK promotion would snap up the opportunity to have this track as their home.
The meeting itself turned out to be a bit of an oddity and really quite basic.
11 riders including a young German woman (approximately 16 years old), a couple of under 16 Czech lads on 250cc bikes, an over 40 year old and a selection of other Czech riders. I’d heard of most of the field but one or two names intrigued me.
Sindy Weber was the young German woman. I’d previously seen her racing a couple of times at Pardubice during the Golden Helmet weekend in the 250cc meeting. Worth noting that during those meetings she often over shadowed her German partner Ben Ernst. Ben is now the 250cc World Champion. Sindy appeared to be on a 500cc bike during this meeting. It will be worth noting if Sindy can keep her enthusiasm for the sport.
Other well known faces, to me, were Ondrej Smetana (or Andrew Cream to give him his English name), Patrik Mikel, Martin Gavenda and Michal Skurla. Ondrej being the best of that bunch in my opinion.
There were a couple of other names who were onboard 500cc bikes that I hadn’t heard too much about Daniel Silhan, Jan Macek and Lukas Vinter. The latter it transpires had entered the meeting with a wrist injury and didn’t last long.
The 40+ year old was Jaroslav Petrak.
It’s always interesting to learn about new names that are up and coming in the sport and young Michal Bastecky and Pavel Kuchar are a couple of names to follow. Both were onboard 250cc bikes which obviously impacted their scoring. Young Pavel looked very stylish and was very unlucky in his third ride when his engine gave way. He’d to borrow Michal’s 250cc for the remainder of the day. Keep an eye on Pavel.
For the statisticians out there the scoresheet can be seen below.
Whilst the meeting was very basic you have to give great credit to those that organised it. The meeting had running commentary and they obviously were doing the best with the resources at hand. It is to their great credit that the track was graded and watered after every three heats.
Real grassroots speedway but hugely enjoyable.
'Chief Programme Filler Inner'
1st Ondrej Smetana
2nd Michal Skurla
3rd Patrik Mikel
