BELLE Vue kicked off bank holiday in the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership in front of a packed-out crowd with a superb 57-33 win over Birmingham, filled with thrilling action right from Heat 1.
And, after overcoming a narrow aggregate deficit, surged ahead to claim to bonus league point to make for a grand total of three at the National Speedway Stadium.
The visitors began with a fierce offence to take an early lead over the ATPI Aces, with the home team trailing by four points after just two races.
But it was Jaimon Lidsey and Ben Cook to the rescue in Heat 3 as they delivered a crucial 5-1 to level the scores and set Belle Vue on the path to victory.
A succession of deadlocks ensued before Lidsey, again teaming up with Cook, produced another race advantage in Heat 5 to take the ATPI Aces two points ahead.
From there, the Brummies struggled to respond and not even their tactical substitute play with Piotr Pawlicki four races later was enough to reign in the rampant Aces.
It only remained for the Belle Vue boys to tidy up the details at the business end of the meeting, and they left little leeway for the visitors to redeem themselves.
Lidsey stormed the score charts for the ATPI Aces with a superb paid 15-point maximum, with Dan Bewley close behind with 13+1 and Brady Kurtz 10.
Club No.4 Ben Cook, who was in the thick of the action for much of the afternoon, said: “There were a few close moments for me, but I’m a racer and that’s what we do: we try to win.
“We didn’t get off to the start we wanted to but after a couple of heats we got the ball rolling and got the job done, but Birmingham didn’t make it easy.
“There was quite a lot of material on the track today and that meant that we were achieving slightly faster speeds than normal, and at times you had to be brave to tackle the fast lines.
“There were some races we expected a little bit more of a challenge from, but those are the opportunities you have to capitalise on and I think we took every chance we were presented.
“On the whole, we can be happy with this result. We’re still disappointed about Perry Barr but that’s done with now, and I feel we redeemed ourselves here at home.”
Belle Vue travel to Sheffield this Thursday, May 9 for our hotly anticipated second leg Knockout Cup Quarter Final clash with the TruPlant Tigers, with the winner on aggregate progressing.
And we return home on Monday, May 13 when we welcome the newly created Oxford Spires for our first encounter at the National Speedway Stadium, tapes up 7:30pm.
Meeting tickets, race day programmes and south stand parking are now available to pre-book, along with race day hospitality, at bellevue-speedway.com
RESULT – BELLE VUE V BIRMINGHAM – MONDAY, MAY 6 @ 12PM [P1]
Belle Vue ‘ATPI’ Aces 57: Jaimon Lidsey 13+2, Dan Bewley 13+1, Brady Kurtz 10, Ben Cook 9+1, Connor Mountain 6+1, Norick Blodorn 4, Connor Bailey 2+1
Birmingham ‘Curtis Sport’ Brummies 33: Tom Brennan 7+1, Leon Flint 7, Wiktor Lampart 6, Vaclav Milik 5, Piotr Pawlicki 4, Steve Worrall 4, Zach Cook R/R
Aggregate Score: Belle Vue 100-80 Birmingham
Image: ©Belle Vue Speedway