The speedway news over the last few months has been a depressing cocktail of delays, uncertainty and cancellations. But a chance meeting of eight speedway fans online has led to the launch of a Swedish E-Speedway league bringing a smile in the gloom to speedway fans across Europe.

We catch up with Chris Engren, team manager for Indianerna E Speedway, one of the new teams formed to take part in this E-sport league. It has been named Elitserien Speedway Challenge and is sponsored by Po-Bandzie, a Polish speedway portal, who in turn sponsor the game itself which is called Speedway Challenge.

Engren lives in Nyköping home of Griparna and his favourite Swedish rider is Oliver Berntzon (pictured) who featured in the club's championship winning campaign in Allsvenskan in 2019.

He met the other seven founders of the league after responding to an advert for riders on Facebook page Speedwayfans Sverige. The page's manager, Adam Holman, was looking for people to represent Sweden in a match against Poland at Czestochowa. The match was streamed live on You Tube with Polish commentary and has now had over 1400 viewings, giving you an idea of how popular E-Speedway has become in the Corona pandemic.

Sweden gave the hosts a shock before in the end losing narrowly, 47-43. But Engren was pleased with his performance, "you can always do better, of course, but to pick up 6+1 points wasn't bad," he reflects (see link below to watch the match in full).

From that point the eight Swedes hatched a plan to start a Swedish league but had no idea what was awaiting them around the corner - nearly 100 riders got in touch to say they wanted to be part of Elitserien and then chaos reigned as teammates fell out, arguments raged in chat groups, foreign riders threatened to boycott - all before the tapes had gone up for the first heat!

Now three rounds have gone and the six teams, with c 10 riders each, are going head to head in a more orderly fashion. The teams are named after the original speedway clubs in the real Elitserien - Dackarna, Indianerna, Lejonen, Masarna, Smederna and Västervik - who all race on their home tracks within the game.

"Being a captain and a rider can be tough sometimes, but it is mainly fun," he says. The club took their first win of the season in Round 3 away at Gislaved. But Engren is confident, "this is a team that can challenge for Gold," he said.

Just like their counterparts on the shale, E-speedway riders like Engren also have a busy international weekly schedule. He races in Sweden on Tuesdays and in Poland on Sundays with Unia Tarnow - WSCL. He races there with Indianerna's assistant captain, Edwin Lekander who was the first ever Sweden to be signed to a Polish Speedway Challenge team.

"Racing in Poland is completely different from Sweden," he says, "the quality of riders is really high."

And then there is the day to day running of the Eliserien to contend with.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a stop to almost all sporting events, but for speedway fans in Sweden the Elitserien SC has been light in the Corona tunnel, a glint of freedom among restrictions - all from the comfort of your own sofa.

Check out the latest updates on their Facebook page- @elitserienSC - where posts reach out to over 2200 speedway fans.

Elitserien Speedway Challenge is run by Anton Carlsson, Chris Engren, Adam Holman, Felix Larsson, Gabbe Lu, Edwin Lekander, William Jarl Boiardt and Adrian Jervis.

They especially want to thank the league's sponsors, Po-Bandzie, and Indianerna E Speedway are sponsored by cre8ivedesignz design agency.

The TAURON SEC is not just an event for fans, but also for those who know the sport from the inside.

I talk with Daniel Broughton, who is a mechanic with British rider, Ryan Kinsley, who raced with Scunthorpe Scorpions in the UK Championship last year. Kinsley also came 11^th in the U21 British Championships won by Robert Lambert (above) in April 2019.

“I live and breathe speedway, I’ve been a big fan it all my life and, of course, I’ve watched the SEC since it started. It’s another major championship with a host of top riders”.

Houghton’s local team are Kings Lynn Stars and he has had the chance to see Lambert develop since he was 16 years old. So, it comes as no surprise that his favourite moment in the TAURON SEC was seeing the Englishman win in Güstrow in 2018.

And Lambert will be representing Great Britain again this year in Poland.

Another British fan is Wolverhampton Wolves’ supporter, Darren Robinson. He’s another guy who has also worked inside the sport, as manager with German rider, Christian Hefenbrock.

Now 34 years old, Hefenbrock appeared in the U21 World Championship every year between 2004-2006. He also has participated in the SEC in 2006 and 2007 when it was a one-day event. In 2006 he finished on the podium in a well-deserved third - the only German to have medalled in the competition since it started in 2001. Something Kai Huckenbeck will be keen to change this year.

Robinson’s favourite TAURON SEC memory was being at the first Grand Finale in Chorzów in 2018, “The stadium was full, about 55,000 spectators. The atmosphere was amazing,” he reminisces.

That night Leon Madsen scored a maximum and took home the TAURON SEC trophy in impressive style. And after last year’s third-place, the Dane is one of the favourites to take home Gold in Torun on 25 July this year.

(Special thanks to Facebook groups Continental Speedway and Speedway Friends for help with this article).

The TAURON Speedway European Championship 2020 will take place this year but has been completely re-organized in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the world’s elite riders already gathered in Poland for the Ekstraliga season, which is due to start on Friday, the TAURON SEC has made the smart decision to have all the events in the country but avoid Fridays and Sundays when the top league usually races.

All except the first Round will be on a Wednesday and the series will kick off on Saturday 4 July in Toruń where is will also finish just 25 days later.

15 riders will take part in this year’s event:

1. Mikkel Michelsen
2. Grigorij Laguta
3. Leon Madsen
4. Kacper Woryna
5. Bartosz Smektała
6. Andzejs Lebedevs
7. Nicki Pedersen
8. Vaclav Milik
9. Krzysztof Kasprzak
10. Michael Jepsen Jensen
11. Robert Lambert
12. Andrei Kudryashov
13. Kai Huckenbeck
14. David Bellego
15. Peter Ljung

Rounds:
Toruń (July 4th)
Bydgoszcz (July 8th)

Gniezno (July 15th)
Rybnik (July 22nd)
Toruń (July 29th).

Today, 3 June 2020, marks 20 since the Speedway Grand Prix last made a visit to Linköpings Motorstadion in East Sweden.

The winner that night was Australian, Jason Crump, whilst in second was eventual World Champion for 2000, the Brit, Mark Coram.

Of great interest to the home fans was third place rider, Tony Rickardsson, pictured above on that night in Linköping. He who would also finish third at the end of the SGP season, collecting the Bronze medal.

This was the era of the Swede’s now legendary dominance in the sport. 2000 was the only year the Avesta born rider did not win the world championship in a five year period from 1998-2002.
Having already won it in 1984, when Rickardsson won the Championship for a final time in 2005 it would mark a record equaling six wins, a record he still holds with New Zealander, Ivan Mauger.

That night 20 years ago saw a 23 year old Dane called Nicki Pedersen receive a wildcard on the track where he had raced for Swedish club, Linköping Filbyterna in 1997 and 1998. It was the first year he would participate in the competition he would go on to win four times from 2003 and onwards.

However, whilst Pedersen is still racing today, he is unlikely to race again at Linköping. That is primarily due to economic issues around the air fence. The current one does not reach contemporary health and safety standards and the cost of upgrading it to modern requirements is out of reach for the now amateur Filbyterna, who nevertheless maintain the track to a high standard.

The sport as a whole is under financial pressure and last year Motala Piraterna nearly went bankrupt, the Elitserien club that is closest to Linköping. And with the Coronavirus affecting this year’s racing, the league has said it will not be able to run on TV revenue alone but will need people to come through the turnstiles to work economically. So whilst speedway will continue in Sweden after Corona, it seems unlikely that Linköping will see another World Championship for the foreseeable future.

The last few weeks has seen a change in regulations across Europe, allowing for some sporting events to take place, with the German Bundsliga football one of the first to renew its' season.

In Sweden from 14 June the football season will finally start - although no fans will be present in the stadiums and the clubs will have to rely on TV and sponsor revenues.

However, for speedway this option is not economically viable. Both in Sweden and in Denmark, despite changes in the government's position, everyone is in agreement that the sport cannot run without supporters in the stands. Both the Elitserien and the Metal League have published announcements on their website that despite the changes, there will be no changes and the racing is still on hold.

In the UK, the SGP Premiership have not gone as far as saying that they cannot run without the fans in the grounds and has struck the "we're hopeful some racing will occur this year" line. But surely the reality is that the top division will be unable to run without money tickets sales.

It means that Polish leagues is probably the only club speedway we will see this summer and all eyes will be on the Ekstraliga, which starts a week on Friday, 12 June 2020, featuring Maciej Janowski, among others, in the yellow helmet above.

The TAURON Speedway European Championship series was due to start in Vojens, Denmark on 20 June and conclude in Chorzow, Poland on 19 September. However, this week has seen the postponement of the two events with no new dates published as this stage. No announcement has been made about the second and third rounds due to take place in Lodz, Poland on 4 July and Gori can, Croatia on 22 August.

The Chorzow event was the first to be cancelled and came as a surprise to many following on of the first positive announcements in speedway this year when the Ekstraliga’s announcement that they will run in June. The final round of the SEC was also scheduled to take place over four months away.

However, on Friday the inevitable was made official when the Danish event, due to take next month, was called off with the pandemic still holding sway over the majority of the world.

However, Piotr Szymanski at the Polish Motor Association has hinted that the series will begin in July and take place during that month in Poland, according to an article on Polish website, Sportowefakty.

This could mean that the event in Lodz will become the first round of the competition and many of Europe's top riders are already going to be based in Poland, like last year's winner, Mikkel Michelsen, pictured above. The SEC also has sold TV rights for the whole continent maybe making it possible for the Individual European Speedway Championship to continue without supporters in the stands.

An announcement from the SEC about how it will work seems imminent.

https://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/881879/zuzel-oficjalnie-final-tauron-sec-w-chorzowie-zostal-odwolany

On Friday 15 May Mikael Holmstrand the deputy chairman and Press Secretary for Elit Speedway Sverige (ESS) announced that the Bauhaus Elitserien will not start on 2 June as previously announced in the wake of the Corona pandemic. The statement has been released in conjuntion with SVEMO, the Swedish Motorsports organisation and the ESS had also said eariler that they have been working with the clubs on five different alternatives as to how the league could run this year.

Last week’s news was dominate by the news that Polish Ekstraliga will go ahead from 12 June, but without fans in the stadiums. However, Holmstrand’s statement confirmed that that was not an economic possibility in Sweden. That means the sport must wait until the current ban of more that 50 people gathering in one place is lifted.

This week the Swedish government extended its restriction on non-essential travel to 15 June, which may also be a reason behind the ESS releasing the statement at this time.

Of the three Swedish riders who were signed with Ekstraliga clubs for 2020, it is only Filip Hjelmland (Vetlanda/ Gorzow) who has not declared that he will ride in Poland next month. Fredrik Lindgren had already decided not to race in Sweden in 2020 but Antonio Lindbäck was forced to break his contract with Masarna and go against SVEMO's attempt to prevents a Swedish exodus to Poland.

The eWinner 1 League is set for go ahead on 11 July, if given permission by the Polish government, but nothing has been said about what riders will need to do nor has any dates been released in regard to the eWinner 2 League.

On Tuesday the Swedish Elitserien was due to start. But the week's discussions have been dominated by Poland’s Ekstraliga's plans to try to have a season despite the Coronavirus challenges.

Ekstraliga to start without fans

On Thursday 30 April the world’s richest speedway league outlined a plan to start its season on 12 June but with no fans at the stadium. With the majority of the matches selling out their 7000-10,000 seater stadiums the challenge of covering their cost looms large.

However, it looks like it might be possible due to riders accepting a 50% cut in wages and the clubs relying on sponsorship and TV revenue.

With the financial details worked out there remains the problem of the riders.

Riders will have to remain in Poland

Poland’s lockdown means limited travel across the borders. Ekstraliga have confirmed that this means riders will have to stay put in Poland, foreigners only able to mix with others once they have completed a mandatory 14 days quarantine.

It all means that import riders have to make a quick decision as to compete in the first round they need to be in Poland by this Friday 8 May.

Danish rider Leon Madsen, the 2018 European Champion, is already based in Poland and is one of several riders who have started a trend to only compete in the nation and the SGPs. So it is no surprise that Madsen signed up to the new deal straight away.

Jason Doyle and Fredrik Lindgren are some of the others international riders who also gone for the deal, but Danish three times world champion Nicki Pedersen refused to re-sign blaming the paycut whilst Emil Sayfutdinov is also thought to be wavering.

No Polish riders likely outside their home country

Doyle's decision means he will not be able to ride for Swindon Robins (UK) or Västervik Speedway (SWE) and will leave his family behind in England for the 3-4 months of the Polish season.

The Extraliga’s decision and the Polish lockdown effectively means no Polish riders will be available outside the country- a serious issue for the Swedish Elitserien where every team has riders from the country. Gislaved Lejonen is practically an all Polish club that would have been led by double U21 World Champion Maksym Drabik. Meanwhile, Vetlanda Speedway will lose world champion, Bartosz Zmarzlik who rode an almost faultless season in 2019 with a 2.791 heat average.

On the other hand, a rider like Pawel Przedpelski will probably be glad to not ride in Sweden and like Madsen, Doyle and Lindgren has signed for Eltrox Wlokniarz Czestochowa. The Pole would has raced for Motala Piraterna and was the only rider signed by Stefan Andersson Skill in his short lived tenure as manager of the club before they admitted to financial difficulties at the 2019 season came to an end.

Will Elitserien be able to run?

The issue with Piraterna points to a major problem that the Swedish clubs are going to face with the COVID-19 affected season - are they actually going to be able to finance it?

Piraterna blamed their crisis on having 500 fans less at every match and partly solved the problem when riders accepted a loss of earnings for the 2019 season. Just this week they have said that they have been able to make the 2020 season by having a 40% reduction in rider costs and even manager and former rider, Daniel Davidsson, has reduced his hours by 75% to cover the lack of income due to no racing at the moment.

Simply put, there is no way they can race the season without fans coming to the match and paying for it.

Swedish TV money not enough

Unlike Poland, the Elitserien cannot run on TV revenue sales alone. The clubs have regularly complained about the poor deals that they received through the owner of the TV rights, Spring Media, in 2018 and 2019. Morgan Andersson, the manager at Västervik Speedway claimed that the club did not receive a single kronor from the TV deal in 2018 when he was interviewed by local Swedish newspaper, Dagens Hultsfred in June 2019.

The new deal for 2020 with CMore, the agency who broadcast top divisions of Sweden's major sports - football and ice hockey- is believed to be much more beneficial for the clubs.
However, this revenue stream was due to work alongside the c. 300,000 SEK (27,000 EUR) the clubs would have received for each match (with c. 2000 spectators present).

Almost all clubs in Sweden have launched a "fictive ticket" campaign where they have asked fans to a buy one or more imaginary tickets in order to support the club during this time. Kumla Indianerna have, for example, sold 700 tickets at 100 SEK each.

SVEMO refuses to allow Swedes to race in Poland

Further drama in the 2020 season, which has not even started yet, is that the Swedish motorsports authority, SVEMO, has responded to Poland's statement by moving to protect their own interests. They have said that all riders with Swedish licence cannot compete in Poland.

It is a move that does not just affect the SGP riders, like Antonio Lindbäck, but also the likes of Kim Nilsson or Linus Sundström and all the others who would have competed in Nice 1 or Nice 2.

Vetlanda and Nyköping Griparna's Peter Ljung (pictured) is one such rider affected by the week's turmoil. The Swede has decided not to sign for Poland and said he had just a few days to make a difficult decision, not knowing if he has swapped a definite season in Poland with a season that will never happen in his home country.

We are living in uncertain times and it is no different in the European speedway world, which is has been built on the premise that riders can freely travel around the continent racing in two to three countries every week. This model is simple not functional under the current circumstances and only time will tell if any speedway is actually going to happen in 2020.

Jakub Miskowiak will only be 19 years old in August 2020, but last year was his first season in the bright lights of the top tier of world speedway. He raced as a junior in the PGE Ekstraliga with forBET Wlokniarz Czestochowa, was a wildcard for the Speedway European Championship and finishing just out of the medals at the U21 European Championship won by Viktor Lampart.

But his highlight was U21 Polish national championships in Tarnow in August just 12 days after his 18^th birthday. “On the start line for this meeting there were much more experience riders than me, but I managed win the Gold medal,” he says with pride.

He was up against an elite field featuring double U21 World Champion, Maksym Drabik and one-time U21 World Champion, Bartosz Smektala. But that did not daunt Miskowiak and he lost just two points on his way the U21 national title with one of his best totals for the whole year.

And whilst this was undoubtedly his best performance of the year, he also made a good account of himself in Round 2 of the SEC in Torun. He twice beat the Czestochowa teammate, Adrian Miedzinski, and finished the evening above riders of the calibre of Vaclav Milik and Antonio Lindbäck who both have previously medalled in the Torunament. “My start in the SEC was a new experience for me,” the young Pole says, “I was really satisfied with my race in this competition. I think the SEC is a difficult competition where you ride against many top riders,” he summarised.

In the Ekstraliga his club Czestochowa came away with a bronze medal from the 2019 season beating FALUBAZ Zielona Gora with an outstanding home match in Round 18. Miskowiak played his own small part in that victory, notably coming second in Heat 4 beating Matej Zagar.

“The most difficult thing for me in 2019 was adapting to my first season in Ekstraliga. There it is really hard to get a point. In this league if make a little mistake you cannot win any points at all,” he says with brutal honesty about the challenges of competing in the world’s best league. But the young Pole can come away with his head held high with a 0.902 average and know he has time to develop. “I'm still learning and improving so I don’t put any pressure on myself,” he says.

Whilst no one knows quite how the 2020 season is going to pan out, he has given himself a realistic goal for the year, “My aim is to be in all the finals for U 21 World Championship and for now I have the Polish league and a lot of junior meetings”.

I ask him if he wants to follow his mentor and uncle Robert Miskowiak and come to the Elitserien, “I’m not looking for that right now. But when I get an offer to start in a club then I'll think about it. Why not?” he says optimistically.

36-year-old Robert was himself U21 World Champion in 2006 and whilst he only raced two full seasons in Sweden, he was a regular stand-in with several Elitserien club, last with Rospiggarna in 2017 (in blue helmet, above). He spent 2019 in Nice 2 with second placed Power Duck Iveston PSZ Poznan.

Jakub Miskowiak is a less well-known name at the moment, but if he can continue to develop as he has done in 2019, he could be a name we become very familiar with. He has three more years to win the U21 World Championship and to perform as a junior in the Ekstraliga so watch out for Miskowiak as a name for the years to come.

Sofia Löfberg Szöges is a young woman trying to make a break in the male dominated world of professional speedway. She will be 18 yrs this summer and, if the coronavirus allows it, will be racing her first season in the 500cc class for Avesta Masarna - the club of Swedish SGP rider, Antonio Lindbäck. She will be starting in their Division 1 team - the third tier of Swedish speedway behind the Elitserien and Allsvenskan.

Last year was her one and only season in the 250cc class where she raced with Rospiggarna on the track that hosted the Norbill Swedish SGP in Hallstavik. "It was great to train and compete for the first time on 250cc," she says, but is already looking ahead to the step up to senior level, "I m looking forward to developing as much as I can and enjoying every heat in 2020".

But as a young rider she is also wanting to take a broad view of what it involved in racing at senior level, "I want to learn about sponsorship in 2020 and how it works," being realistic that advancing in her career also means paying for better equipment so she can compete with the best.

Löfberg Szöges might be young, but she does miss a trick when it comes to learning and growing. When we discuss the Speedway European Championship she reveals, "I always look out for how the different riders race the track - you can learn a lot from just watching".

Last year saw women's speedway take an important leap forward when German, Sindy Weber became the first woman to race in Poland when she participated in Nice 2. Not surprisingly, that is something Löfberg Szöges also wants to do, "I've only raced in Sweden so far, but I'm keen to try any of the other tracks across the world". Not only that but she is already eyeing the biggest prize in speedway, "One of my biggest dreams is to race in a GP," she says. And you can be certain that ultimately she'd like to follow in the footsteps of her favourite rider, 2017 World Champion, Jason Doyle (below), who raced with her home club Rospiggarna between 2016-2019.

Weber has broken the glass ceiling in the speedway world rightfully taking her place as one among equals on the starting grid, something Löfberg Szöges is keen to emulate. There is no doubt that sport should celebrate its unique role of enabling women and men to compete side by side. This will only come about by developing young talent like this Swede so that more women can take their place at the elite level of the sport.

If the example of the two most popular sports in Sweden (football and ice hockey) are anything to go by, this will not happen without a concerted effort from the national board. Now is the time for SVEMO to grasp the opportunity and begin the process which will see Sweden being the first country to have a woman race a GP, perhaps as a wildcard at the Swedish or Scandinavian Grand Prix.

Löfberg Szöges will be happy to oblige and hopefully we will soon see a host of talented women joining the men in competing together in this fantastic sport.

With thanks to Facebook page - Speedway det är grejer det - who published their interview with Sofia Löfberg Szöges on 3 March 2020.