FOUR-TIME Peter Craven Memorial winner Jason Doyle will be back for a bid to further extend his record in Belle Vue’s spectacular season-opener on Monday March 16 (7pm).
Doyle completed a hat-trick of triumphs in the prestige event across 2018-20 and then became the first rider to ever take the meeting honours on a fourth occasion when he was also successful in 2023.
The 2017 World Champion, who will not be racing regularly in the UK this year, has since made the last two Finals at the National Speedway Stadium, only to miss out on reaching the podium, with both meetings being won by ATPI Aces skipper Brady Kurtz.
Doyle is one of two former World Champions to commit to the event as Sheffield’s Chris Holder, who took the sport’s top prize in 2012, is also included.
A strong Danish contingent features fast-starting Nicolai Klindt, who is due to celebrate his Testimonial at King’s Lynn one day earlier, along with his Stars team-mates from recent seasons Niels-Kristian Iversen and popular Czech Republic racer Jan Kvech.
There will also be a rare UK appearance for the classy Rasmus Jensen, who helped Swindon to the Premiership title in 2019 and last appeared in Manchester in the FIM Speedway of Nations in 2024.
And former Belle Vue rider Charles Wright, who became British Champion at the NSS in 2019 before finishing runner-in last year’s epic national Final, will be adding a further local element to the event.
Those seven riders are added to the nine announced last week, with the ATPI Aces’ top six – Kurtz, Dan Bewley, Zach Cook, Norick Blodorn, Peter Kildemand and Tate Zischke – joined by Max Fricke and Fredrik Lindgren to make it five current Grand Prix riders in the field, and GB star Tom Brennan.
The meeting runs over a full 20-heat programme and then boils up to a thrilling climax in a format which has proved hugely successful since its inception in 2020.
The top three riders progress straight to the Final with the next five battling it out for the remaining three places when they contest the semi – leading to a six-rider Final to decide the meeting winner.
Belle Vue CEO Mark Lemon said: “The line-up for this meeting states once again that this is a premium event for British Speedway, and I’m very happy with the way it has come together.
“It has prestige written all over it and although people are looking for track time at this time of year, they’ve all got a competitive nature, and that really comes out in this event.
“We have a great racetrack with plenty of places for the riders to go racing, and this meeting does produce great racing year in, year out.
“Brady is going for three in a row, Doyley wants to make it five, Dan hasn’t won it since 2021, and there are a host of other riders who would love to win it and are capable of doing so.
“The track time before the opening league and Cup fixtures is important of course, because you can practice all you like but unless you’re turning a wheel in anger, you’re not really getting that competitive edge which you need at the start of the season.
“What I like about it is these boys spend the winter training and getting into their best physical shape, but when it comes to putting their helmets on and the green light comes on for them to do four laps, they end up blowing because they’ve not been using the muscles that they need to exert when racing a speedway bike!
“So it’s challenging for some, but to hear that roar and the thunder is great for us all at the start of the season. There’s lots of excitement and anticipation, and it’s also a big meeting for the riders to win.”
Tickets for the meeting are available from https://www.bellevue-speedway.com/tickets . Parking and programmes for collection can also be ordered.
PETER CRAVEN MEMORIAL TROPHY – FULL LINE-UP: Dan Bewley, Norick Blodorn, Tom Brennan, Zach Cook, Jason Doyle, Max Fricke, Chris Holder, Niels-Kristian Iversen, Rasmus Jensen, Peter Kildemand, Nicolai Klindt, Brady Kurtz, Jan Kvech, Fredrik Lindgren, Charles Wright, Tate Zischke.