Dan discusses current circuits.

[ouch]

An interesting take on circuits from Dan in this week’s Star. It’s good to hear an informed opinion from one of the most skilful & adaptable riders currently in action. Here’s what the world number 3 had to say. 

"We will see what happens with the new promoter," Bewley said. "But I would love to see more temporary tracks and have that bit of guesswork again, where no-one has an advantage."

Someone who hasn't ridden a bike might also notice the lack of small tracks on the calendar and suggest this is also to the detriment of a championship largely raced on high-speed Eastern European ovals.

Bewley has a very different take and insists the circuits are more varied than meets the eye. He said: "When it comes to tracks like Lodz and Gorzow before it, or even Torun, the closest track to those in Britain is probably Leicester. You actually really have to turn the bike a lot on those tracks.

"People have this conception that all the Polish tracks are big and easy and you just ride around in a circle. It's really not very accurate. We go to Landshut and we're doing 80mph at the end of the straight but then we are under the bars to try and turn it.

"All the tracks we ride have slightly different material. You could argue Belle Vue and Wroclaw are the same track but they are actually completely different with the material. There is a big difference between them. I actually think there is quite a variety between all the tracks now." In the 2000s, it was often widely assumed that Polish riders struggled to adapt to Britain's tight and technical tracks. But a new age of purpose-built speedway stadiums such as Torun, Gorzow and Lodz seems to have given those competing in Poland a more technical grounding. "Gorzow is more technical than Wolverhampton used to be, for example," Bewley said. "Wolves wasn't very difficult. People thought that I couldn't ride it. The difference was I wasn't very good off the start back then. I could easily ride it. The track was really not that difficult."If anything, Gorzow is probably a lot harder than most British tracks to ride. I know we're not going there for SGP this year but it's a real track. "The track in Lodz is a little bit like Eastbourne was - just a bigger version of it. It's similar in a way. The kerbs are a bit funky.If you put a third on to the size of Eastbourne, it probably wouldn't be far off this. A lot of tracks in Europe are more technical than people think."

Bewley seems pretty adaptable wherever he goes, as a SP bronze medal in 2025 suggests. A famous win at Manchester's first event, coupled with second spot in Landshut, third places in Gorzow, Malilla and Wroclaw, and fourth at the finale in Vojens, earned him a first-ever podium.

 

[Bagpuss]

Thanks for that, interesting stuff.

A good insight into how the Polish tracks (and all tracks) differ in shape and size can be found on the Speedway Challenge (SC26) game which can be downloaded on your phone, all tracks on there are based on the actual circuits and you have to 'ride' them differently on the game. The Polish tracks in particular all vary quite significantly.

[Whitelinehugger]

I know what he means about different tracks. My back garden is different to my neighbours

Edited 2 hours ago by Whitelinehugger

[PersonalResponsibility]

Interesting to read. I'm sure you'll still have someone saying Zmarzlik only wins because of a lot of Polish tracks.