JUMPING JO

NEWS Monday 8th April 2013, 10:00pm

by Toby Lerone

  Edinburgh Monarchs

He’s almost gone unnoticed but Jozsef Tabaka has made a fine start to the new season with twenty points from his two matches and some dominant looking rides too. Clearly a continuation of that form will quickly take him out of the reserve berth and that suits our young Hungarian just fine.

In his ever improving English Jozsef said, “I am very pleased with the way the season has started. I have had plenty of work done on my bikes during the winter as I know I can do better here. I am hoping that I can keep this good start going and I have no fears of moving away from reserve. I don’t really know who I am racing against. I try to win all my races.”

Jozsef is spending the week in Edinburgh after his meeting in Poland was snowed off again on Sunday. This year he is racing for Lodz in the Polish First Division but bad weather has prevented any official fixtures taking place in Poland so far this season. Jozsef reports that his trainer at Lodz, Janus Slaczka, told him that the show is piled half a metre high on the track so there has been no chance of any racing. Conditions are improving and there were practice matches at a couple of Extraliga tracks at the weekend.

Jozsef's main priority in 2013 will be the British Premier League but he hopes to do as many matches as possible for Lodz although that may prove difficult as the Eagles have one of the biggest squads in Polish Speedway.

Although he likes to return to his home in Debrecen as often as possible and he was very happy at the end of last season when a new air service started to fly from Debrecen to the UK, he is not unhappy to be in Scotland at the moment. He said, “There is no snow in Hungary but there is rain, rain, rain. It is better to be in Sunny Scotland."