The battle for supremacy in the 2023 FIM Long Track World Championship continues this coming Saturday (17 June) with the Municipal Stadium in Ostrów in Poland the venue for the second of this season’s six Finals.
A total of seventeen riders – fourteen permanent, one local wild card and two track reserves – will assemble in the city just over two-hundred-and-fifty kilometres west of Polish capital Warsaw for an evening of all-action racing.
Following last month’s opening Final it is the Czech Republic’s Josef Franc who leads the way after his impressive performance at Herxheim in Germany. The forty-four-year-old came out fighting in the Waldstadion and was a very popular winner after finishing first in three of his five heats and crossing the line second in the other two before storming to victory when it mattered most in the Final.
France’s reigning champion Mathieu Trésarrieu withdrew from the series in December which means there will be a new Long Track king this year, but while Franc is currently in pole position to add the crown to his five national titles it is by no means a foregone conclusion.
Among the riders queuing up to wrestle the series lead away from the charging Czech is Britain’s Zach Wajtknecht. The twenty-five-year-old construction engineer – who won the last two Finals of 2022 – was second in Herxheim and will be determined to go one better this weekend, but there is real strength in depth in this season’s field and no shortage of title contenders.
Among them is Germany’s Lukas Fienhage who won the championship in 2020. Although forced to qualify for his home Final via the Last-Chance Heat, the twenty-three-year showed experience that belies his young age to end the opening afternoon of action on the third step of the podium.
France’s Gaétan Stella was another rider to progress to the Final via the Last-Chance Heat and he will be hoping to post more consistent results in Poland to ensure a direct transfer to the programme’s main race.
Although he came home fifth in Herxheim, the results do not tell the full story for Germany’s Martin Smolinski who was in impressive form to win his first four Heats. This guaranteed him a place in the Final, but the 2018 champion suffered the incredible disappointment of a rare machine failure which dropped him out of contention.
After losing his title to Trésarrieu last season, Romano Hummel from the Netherlands has a point to prove, although the twenty-four-year-old will start on Saturday playing catch-up after he was eliminated in Germany when he ended the Last-Chance Heat in third.
The wild card will be veteran home hero Stanislaw ‘Stan Storm’ Burza while track reserves will be the Polish pairing of Dawid Lampart and Mateusz Pacek.
The full series is available as a Pay-Per-View broadcast via a livestream package on the Tapes Up TV channel with the opening Heat scheduled for 19:00 CET.