THE dramatic reversal of Belle Vue’s fortunes has extended beyond their triple away wins at Ipswich, Peterborough and Leicester as they added a fourth consecutive win on Monday [April 24].
The ATPI Aces snagged a comfortable 56-34 home victory over the Crendon Panthers to claim the two league points on offer, with the aggregate 111-69 score also netting them a bonus league point.
It means the reigning Premiership champions maintain their perch at the top of the league table for the time being, as they continue to build on their powerful for of the past couple of weeks.
The visitors put everything they had into their attempts to deny the ATPI Aces the win on home turf, but they found themselves on the back foot almost immediately.
Far from disgracing themselves, they persisted in keeping the scores to within just four points for the majority of the first half of the evening, until Belle Vue really found their mojo.
A succession of heat advantages in favour of the home team saw their lead increase considerably in a short period, and by the time the Panthers caught up it was too late.
Dan Bewley silenced his early season critics with a flawless 15-point maximum, complimented by Charles Wright’s 12+1 and captain Brady Kurtz’s 10.
Wright said: “We’ve had some great results on the road, and it feels nice to finally have a home meeting and to get our first home win on the board; it’s been a long time coming.
“We’ve managed to turn things around in a short period of time and we’re high on confidence now, which I think has factored into our last few meetings.
“We maybe expected a little more of a fight from Peterborough but at the same time I don’t feel they were weak, they made us work for those points especially in the later heats.
“But everyone got dialled in pretty quickly and you only ride the team that’s in front of you at the end of the day, and on the night I feel we were definitely the stronger team.
“It’ll be nice to have a bit of time off this week to reflect and get ready for Leicester next week. They’re a solid side and with Max leading the way I’m sure we’ll find a strong challenge when they visit us.”
The ATPI Aces have a short break this week before they return to action at home next Monday, May 1 against the Leicester Lions for another big bank holiday bash, tapes up at 12pm.
Meeting tickets, race day programmes, south stand parking and hospitality are now available to pre-book online at bellevue-speedway.com.
RESULT – BELLE VUE V PETERBOROUGH – MONDAY, APRIL 24 @ 7:30PM [P1]
Belle Vue ‘ATPI’ Aces 56: Dan Bewley 15, Charles Wright 12+1, Brady Kurtz 10, Jaimon Lidsey 9+1, Tom Brennan 5+2, Norick Blodorn 5+1, Jake Mulford 0
Peterborough ‘Crendon’ Panthers 34: Ben Cook 8+1, Chris Harris 8+1, Niels-Kristian Iversen 8, Jordan Jenkins 4+2, Hans Andersen 3+3, Benjamin Basso 3, Richie Worrall r/r
League Points: Belle Vue 2 (+1) Peterborough 0
Belle Vue win 111-69 on aggregate
Image: Ian Charles