BELLE VUE boss Mark Lemon admits there needs to be some “soul searching” after the shock defeat at Ipswich.
The ATPI Aces went down by 67-23 in Suffolk to crash out of the Premiership KO Cup at the first hurdle on Thursday night.
It was the club’s worst defeat for almost 20 years and Lemon immediately launched an investigation into the manner of the heavy loss.
He said: “First and foremost, we have to apologise to our fans for the defeat. I can assure everyone this was not expected or acceptable.
“We have become accustomed to success at Belle Vue. We are proud to have won the league twice and reached the Grand Final over the past four seasons.
“I think everyone can agree it’s totally out of character for this group of riders.
“I have to say, there’s been something peculiar about the last couple of meetings. Our boys underperformed and I have some theories behind it, but until we do some testing on some equipment and product, it’s hard to know.
“To have all the team not fire and to come away with only one race win is very unusual, so I think we need to have a good investigation through the camp.
“I’m not firing off any alarm bells at the riders, but it just seems a bit of a coincidence that none of us performed.
“I’m not going to take anything away from the Witches, they rode extremely well and they’re a very good outfit. We’ve just got to do some soul searching and work out why the performance has been so poor.”
The ATPI Aces now go to another on-form team King’s Lynn on Monday in the opening ROWE Motor Oil Premiership clash.
Lemon added: “We have had difficult starts to seasons in the past. We lost five on the bounce in 2022 but went onto win the Premiership title. This is the rollercoaster fortunes of form in sport.
“It’s obviously not ideal. But we just have to work very hard before we get to King’s Lynn to iron out the issues.”
RESULT:
PREMIERSHIP KO CUP, Quarter-Final, 2nd leg.
IPSWICH 67: Emil Sayfutdinov 12, Adam Ellis 11, Tom Brennan 10+2, Jason Doyle 9+2, Jordan Jenkins 8+2, Dan Thompson 8, Danny King 7+2.
BELLE VUE 23: Dan Bewley 7, Jaimon Lidsey 5, Brady Kurtz 5, Jake Mulford 3, Norick Blodorn 2, Tate Zischke 2, Zach Cook 1.
Ipswich win 117-63 on aggregate.