This week six of the teams had matches on Tuesday, whilst Rospiggarna are due to travel to Kumla on Thursday to face Indianerna.
Lejonen v Smederna
It was a warm and beautiful night for speedway as the top two teams in the league met in Gislaved. Smederna had a four-point cushion coming into the match after winning their home tie 47:43.
From the start it was the league leaders from Eskilstuna who took control of the match when Kasper Woryna and Michael Jepsen Jensen (pictured) took a 1:5 in the very first Heat.
They never let up and it was not until Heat 9 that the home team managed to get a heat advantage when Rohan Tungate and Jaroslaw Hampel took a 4:2.
It was this pairing that would get Lejonen’s only 5:1 in the match. But that was in Heat 15 and it was already too late as Smederna took the win and the bonus point with ease. Final score was 43:47 (86:94 on aggregate).
TOP SCORERS:
Jaroslaw Hampel LEJ 12+1
Michael Jepsen Jensen SMED 11+1
------------------------
Masarna v Dackarna
Dackarna travelled to Avesta with a much-weakened team without their Wroclaw SGP riders and having to use Rider’s Replacement for Jason Doyle. That meant the first match of the season for Finnish rider, Tero Aarnio but the good news was that captain Jacob Thorssell was back after injuring himself at the Swedish national championship.
For the home side, Antonio Lindbäck was back in the team, but had a lot to do to win the bonus point having lost 55:35 in Målilla.
However, the Brazilian born Sweden and former SGP rider put in his best performance of the season. He was joint top scorer with 12+1 delighting the 1000 fans and humiliating the visitors with a 61:29 home win. Masarna scored five 5:1s in a row in the last five heats in the match! That meant that the 2020 Swedish champions took the bonus point as well 96:84.
Dackarna may have three world class riders in Doyle, Maciej Janowski and Tai Woffinden on their roster. But tonight, they showed that without them they are vulnerable. Behind the big names, it was only American Luke Becker and Thorssell (10+1) who stepped up in an otherwise extremely disappointing meeting for Dackarna.
TOP SCORERS:
Antonio Lindbäck MAS 12+1
Piotr Pawlicki MAS 12+1
Luke Becker DAC 13
--------------------------------
Vetlanda v Piraterna
In the first match of the season Vetlanda won a close match in Motala, 42:48. But Piraterna travelled to Vetlanda with just six riders and were without Oskar Fajfer or the British rider, Adam Ellis. However, Mateusz Tonder started only his third match for the visitors.
Vetlanda had a full-strength team lead by Bartosz Zmarzlik fresh from his double win at Wroclaw in the SGP series at the weekend.
Piraterna were certainly happy when the match was stopped after Heat 4 because of rain. They had scored just 5 points and were behind 19:5 when the weather paused the meeting.
But with nearly an hour’s break it made no difference, Vetlanda totally dominated the meeting. Piraterna were hopeless as Vetlanda won every single heat and took 14 heat advantages on the night to run out winners by an embarrassing 69:21.
Zmarzlik scored a maximum and both Brady Kurtz (14+1) and Peter Ljung (12+3) took paid maximums in what was the Swedish veterans best match of the season.
TOP SCORERS:
Bartosz Zmarzlik VETS 15
Peter Kildemand PIR 7
