SPEEDWAY is a very exciting form of dirt-track racing where stripped down motorcycles race round an oval track. Each meeting consists of 20-25 individual heats (in average) with 4-6 riders racing to finish 4 laps as fast as possible. Average lenght of track is 300-400 meters, and motorcycles used for this sport are usually Czech Jawa or Italian GM.
This type of dirt-track racing took place in early years of the 20th century in North America, but it is widely acknowledged that the present sport originated in New South Wales, Australia. Speedway is now a global sport attracting large crowds in many countries. Meetings are held in a few disciplines: speedway on a "regular hard" track (kind of shale), grass speedway, long track speedway, speedway on ice etc.
To this day, top riders of all nationalities compete in Great Britain (great meetings with a good prize money), Poland, Sweden, Germany etc. The most prestige competition in this sport surely are the Grand Prix meetings which like Formula 1 GP or MotoGP events concentrate a world "cream" of this sport at one place.
The nearest Grand Prix meeting to Croatian speedway fans was in Slovenian town of Krsko from 2002 to 2009, but FIM gave an opportunity to Croatian speedway club "Unia" Gorican to host the very first FIM Croatian Speedway Grand Prix event on the Milenium stadium in Donji Kraljevec on 28th of August 2010!

History of speedway in Croatia begins in the middle of 20th century, with races on oval stadiums being organized in Zagreb, Crikvenica, and other Croatian towns. The first official speedway meeting organized by Speedway klub Prelog took place on 15th May 1964.

There are two speedway teams active in Croatia today:

SK Unia Gorican

Speedway klub "Unia" Gorican, founded in 2004, with a brand new speedway stadium "Milenium" which has hosted the first speedway meetings on 13th August 2005.

Track info:
- Lenght = 320 metres (inside this main track there is a smaller track around 150 metres long, used for 80cc bikes),
- Stadium capacity = 2100 seats and around 3000 standing places),
- Track record holder = Jurica Pavlic (Croatia), who made a time of 59,46 seconds at the European Individual Junior Championship Finals on 19th of August 2006.

Milenium Stadium in Donji Kraljevec

SK Prelog

Speedway klub "Prelog", the oldest Croatian speedwayclub, whose well known stadium in Prelog (northwestern Croatia, near Hungary and Slovenia) had been a venue of great sport events for more than 40 years, but has been closed in the middle of 2008 because of an new track building plans.

Ex-track info:
- Lenght = 342 metres,
- Width = 10 metres on a straight parts and 14 metres in bends,
- Track record holder = Nikola Martinec (Croatia), who made a time of 62,2 seconds at the Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian-Hungarian Individual Junior Championship Round 4 meeting on 2nd of September 2007.

Stadium "Mladost" in Prelog before closing in 2008

During history filled with numerous activities, riders from Medjimurje County, as well as others from northwestern Croatia, have successfully presented their region as well as their country across the European tracks.
Speedway stars with great career were born here: Josip Francic, Duro Fleten, Zvonko Pavlic (national selector), Zlatko Krznaric, etc.

Due to a slow, but continuous development of this sport in Croatia during the last decade, a new team have been founded with a track built in a place called Gorican, almost on the Croatian-Hungarian border. It was founded by a national speedway legend Zvonko Pavlic, being a well known construction company owner today.

Youthful riders are surely basic characteristic of present speedway scene in Croatia. National speedway team is led by a great young talent (not only Croatian, but European as well), 20-yr old Jurica Pavlic. Under the supervision of father Zvonko, individual national champion in year 1986 and successfull private company owner, popular "Jura" shows that he owns a great capabilities in this sport even while being so young. Absolutely the most significant Jura's results ih his career so far happened in 2006 as he earned a title of the european junior champion, in 2007 when he took a title of the european individual champion, in 2008 by taking third place in the individual world junior championships and in 2009 by taking a title of vice champion in the individual world junior championships.
He achieved brilliant results in professionnal league competitions in 2008, in Poland (vice-champion of the strongest Extra League with Unia Leszno and in Great Britain (taking part in play offs of the Premier League with Swindon Robins). Beside those mentioned teams, Jura joined to Elit Vetlanda team in Sweden in 2009. as well.

Jurica Pavlic in action

SK Prelog speedway riders in a season 2010:
Marko Vlah, Kreso Petkovic, Patrik Raspet

SK Unia Gorican speedway riders in season 2010:
Jurica Pavlic, Dino Kovacic, Ivan Vargek, Renato Cvetko, Jasmin Ilijas, Dario Vugrinec


Till 2005, and a foundation of a new club, there was only one speedway track in Croatia, run by Speedway Klub Prelog as a host of 4-5 meetings per year. Present meetings vary from the official FIM qualification rounds for world and european championships to traditional open meetings.
Very important traditional event with great crowd and well known international riders is open meeting named the Prize of Prelog (usually held in early July). SK Unia also hosts their open meeting, called Golden Apple, having a lot of famous international riders at their stadium complex in Donji Kraljevec.
A new track in Gorican, as well as the one in Prelog, will host european riders at a few significant meetings in a season 2010, giving a great boost of adrenaline and smell of methanol to speedway fans in Croatia.

Milenium Stadium in Donji Kraljevec

A competition system that joined speedway teams from 4 neighbouring countries in this region, being successfully introduced in the last couple of years, brought even bigger loads of excitement to speedway fans in Medjimurje region and its surroundings. After a few years of having joint Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian senior championship, senior riders from Croatia and Slovenia competed in their joint national competition in 2009 on tracks in Ljubljana, Krsko and Lendava in Slovenia and in Croatian centers Prelog and Gorican. Young Hungarian riders joined to their colleagues from mentioned countries in 2007.


Calendar of speedway meetings in Croatia in 2010:

Speedway league (Round 1): Croatia - Czech Republic, Gorican, 27th March 2010
results
Croatian-Slovenian Individual championship, Round 1, Gorican, 10th April 2010
results
FIM Individual Speedway World Junior Championship - 3rd Qualification Round, Gorican, 15th May 2010
results
FIM Individual Speedway World Championship - Grand Prix 2011 Qualifications, Round 5, Gorican, 12th June 2010
results
UEM Individual Speedway Junior European Championship (U-19), Finals, Gorican, 24th July 2010
results

FIM Individual World Championship - Speedway Grand Prix 2010, 8th event of the 2010 series, Gorican, 28th August 2010


Speedway league (Round 6): Croatia - Slovenia, Gorican, 8th October 2010

Croatian-Slovenian-Hungarian Individual Junior Championship, 6th Round, Gorican, 9th October 2010

Results of speedway meetings in Croatia in recent years:

Season 2009:
Croatian-Slovenian Individual championship, Round 1, Gorican, 18th April 2009
(results)
Croatian-Slovenian Team Championship (League), 1st Round, Gorican, 29th of May 2009
(results)
World Individual Championship - Grand Prix 2010 Qualifications 4, Gorican, 27th April 2009.
(results)
European Individual Championship, Semifinals 3, Gorican, 25th July 2009
(results)
Croatian-Slovenian Team Championship / Prize of Prelog (open meeting - celebration of the 45th anniversary of the club's foundation), Prelog, 1st August 2009
- not organised because of reconstruction of the "Mladost" stadium
Croatian-Slovenian Individual championship, Round 2, Gorican, 15th August 2009
(results)
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian-Hungarian Individual Junior Championship, 5th Round, Prelog, 6th September 2009
- not organised because of reconstruction of the "Mladost" stadium
World Individual Junior Championship, Finals, Gorican, 4th October 2009.
(results)

Season 2008:
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian Individual championship, 3rd round, Prelog, 13th April 2008
(results)
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian-Hungarian Individual Junior Championship, 1st Round, Gorican, 27th April 2008
(results)
World Individual Championship - Grand Prix Qualifications 2, Gorican, 31th May 2008
(results)
"Prize of Prelog" (open meeting), Prelog, 29th June 2008
(results)
World Individual Junior Championship, Semifinals 2, Gorican, 19th July 2008
(results)
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian-Hungarian Team Championship, 3rd Round, Gorican, 15th August 2008
(results)


Season 2007:
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian Individual championship, 2nd round, Prelog, 15th April 2007
(results)
World Individual Junior Championship, Qualification round 1, Gorican, 12th May 2007
(results)
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian Team championship, 3d round, Gorican, 22nd June 2007
(results)
Prize of Prelog (open meeting), Prelog, 1st July 2007
(results)
European Team Championship, Semifinals 1, Gorican, 21st July 2007
(results)
European Individual Championship, Semifinals 3, Gorican, 18th August 2007
(results)
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian-Hungarian Individual Junior Championship, 4th Round, Prelog, 2nd September 2007
(results)
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian-Hungarian Individual Junior Championship, 4th Round, Gorican, 23rd September 2007
(results)
Test Match --- SK Unia (HR) - Unia Leszno (PL), Gorican, 20th October 2007
(results)

final classification in all competitions

Season 2006:
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian Individual championship, 2nd round, Prelog, 9th April 2006
(results)
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian Team championship, 2nd round, Gorican, 23rd April 2006
(results)
World Individual Junior Championships, Qualification round 1, Gorican, 13th May 2006
(results)
Prize of Prelog (open meeting), Prelog, 2nd July 2006
(results)
"Golden Apple" (open meeting), Gorican, 22nd July 2006
(results)
European Championships - 80 cc, Gorican, 28th-30th July 2006
(results)
European Individual Junior Championships, finals, Gorican, 19th August 2006
(results)
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian Team championship, 6th round, Prelog, 10th September 2006
(results)
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian Individual championship, 4th round - finals, Gorican, 30th September 2006
(results) + final classification

Season 2005:
Prize of Prelog, Prelog, 2nd July 2005
(results)
Semifinals of the European Individual Junior Championships, Prelog, 30th July 2005
(results)
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian Team championship, 3rd round, Gorican, 14th August 2005
(results) - Milenium Stadium Opening!
Croatian-Austrian-Slovenian Individual championship, 4th round, Prelog, 28th August 2005
(results)

Season 2004:
Croatian-Austrian Individual Championship, Round 3, Prelog, 25th April 2004,
(results)
Mitropa Cup, Round 2, Prelog, 14th May 2004,
(results)
Prize of Prelog, Prelog, 25th June 2004,
(results)
Croatian-Austrian Individual Championship, Round 7, Prelog, 18th September 2004
(results)

Season 2003:
Croatian-Austrian Individual Championship, Round 2, Prelog, 27th April 2003,
(results)
Mitropa Cup, Prelog, 14th June 2003,
(results)
Prize of Prelog, Prelog, 5th July 2003,
(results)
Croatian-Austrian Individual Championship, Round 6, Prelog, 14th September 2003
(results)

E-mail: Stefo@dvd.hr

All contents of this page were taken from public media sources.
Their further use is welcomed if it is taken in order to popularize this great sport.