In the last season, Martin Smolinski got 13 points in 3 rounds of Speedway European Championships. Now, he made a progress by gathering 4 points more (17 points total). However, it led him only to 14th place. Before the season, German was given a wild card. Surely, fans counted on his good performance, especially in front of his home crowd in Landshut, Bavaria. It was a trip to Sweden though, that would bring the biggest smile on Martin's face.
Inaugural round in Toruń did not end well. German got only 1 point in 5 heats and as he admitted, he wasn't satisfied with the engines' work. Martin promised that at the longer tracks, his form will be way better. With these kind of hopes, German fans arrived to Bavarian Landshut. Even though, Martin performed better than in Toruń, it still wasn't enough to advance at least to the race-off heat. A little dose of optimism was poured into Martin's heart after winning the heat with Martin Vaculik, Artem Laguta and Tomasz Jędrzejak.
Third round in Kumla was definitely the best one for German rider. 9 points, advancing to the race-off heat without any problems - that could've been Smolinski's evening. It could, because in the race-off heat, Nicki Pedersen and Grigorij Laguta placed in front of German rider. However, Pedersen gained the advantage from the very beginning and it was simply unable to chase him, fight with Laguta was truly amazing and till the end, noone knew who would succeed and go straight to the final.
Ostrów round wasn't that good and German gained only 2 points. Ultimately in the overall classification, Smolinski was 15th with 17 points gathered. Despite this small progress, "Smoli" counted on way more. Maybe next year?
