Sunday showdown in Germany for Harris world title bid

​The Peterborough Panthers skipper goes into the final round of this year’s World Long Track Championship at German track Muhldorf, with a one point lead over former Coventry Bees teammate Martin Smolinski.

Whoever comes out on top of Sunday will be guaranteed the world crown.

Harris said: “It all comes down to five or six rides on Sunday – and we both know we are the only riders who can become world champion.

“We have been good friends for a long time, but that doesn’t mean we will give each other an inch. We are both going to be flat out for the title.

“Martin and I rode together at Coventry for five years. We had workshops next door to each other at Brandon Stadium so we saw a lot of each other almost every day.”

The duo were also members of the same Birmingham team in 2013 and the only time during Smolinski’s seven-season career in Britain when they weren’t colleagues was in 2012 when Harris was still with the Bees and the German star moved to Birmingham.

Added Harris: “Some people think Martin was arrogant because he spoke his mind, but he is never that.

"He’ll want the title as much as I will and he will probably have almost all the German crowd behind him, but that won’t worry me.

“My goal this season was to becomes world long track champion. It’s the title I wanted. And ‘Smoli’ is now the only rider standing in my way.

“We are both there to win. I don’t think he goes to the start thinking, ‘I can’t do this or that sort of move’. He doesn’t do anything dirty, and I don’t do anything like that back.

“We are both hard on each other, but fair. During the two rounds this season that I won on the trot. I dive-bombed him in the first one, but left him room, and the following GP at Marmande I went around him, and he could have put me in the fence if he wanted, but he didn’t.

“When you get one over your mate, you have the bragging rights at least for the rest of the day.”

This time, whoever gets one over the other, those bragging rights will last for more than a year, never mind a day!

There’s been little between them in the first five rounds of the championship.

They have faced each other nine times and ‘Bomber’ has won on five occasions.

Smolinski has the added advantage of knowing how to win a World Championship, but does that outweigh Bomber’s knowledge of what it takes to win an important meeting like the 2007 British Grand Prix at Cardiff when he came out on top against the planet’s best shale racers, including four world champions, Greg Hancock, Jason Crump, Nicki Pedersen and Tomasz Gollob?

Smolinski (38) said: “It was a wonderful moment to be able to call myself World Champion in 2018. Can I reclaim the title this year? Yes!”

In 2018, Smolinski trailed France’s Dmitri Bergé, whose father Philippe rode for the Panthers in 1998, by three points going into the final round at Muhldorf and still came out on top.

He’s now in a not dissimilar situation but the two rivals for the gold medal know all they have to do to be crowned world number one is finish ahead of the other – even if that’s down to deciding fifteen and sixteenth position!

But if ‘Bomber’ can get the better of his old friend and foe he’ll be able to give Panthers their first world champion in what looks like being their final season and add class and a glittering trophy to a final day parade.