A thrilling night at the National Speedway Stadium saw the Belle Vue ‘ATPI’ Aces commence the second half of their ROWE Motor Oil Premiership campaign with a 48-42 win over Leicester.
As Manchester sizzled in some of the hottest temperatures of the year, the ATPI Aces smouldered for the Eurosport cameras producing an excellent advert for British Speedway.
Club boss CEO Mark Lemon declared he was putting his riders to the test after their defeat at Sheffield to see how they responded under pressure, particularly still being without Brady Kurtz.
The Aussie top gun is targeting a return to action on July 1, but Belle Vue elected to run rider replacement at No.1 with all ATPI Aces riders eligible to take his races.
And despite a hiccup in Heat, 1, the home team proved they could perform both under pressure and without one of their key riders when it counted and soon established their dominance.
A succession of deadlocks mid meetings were soon broken by a brilliant ride by Jaimon Lidsey and Ben Cook in Heat 9 which proved to be Leicester’s downfall.
Triple British Champion Dan Bewley produced another classy performance to top score with 14 points while Jaimon Lidsey was back in the double figures with 11+1 and Ben Cook added 9+4.
Bewley said: “It wasn’t the biggest of wins tonight. We weren’t making the best of starts and had we done that I think we could’ve made it a bigger win, but we still got the job done.
“It’s good to get a win on the board at home, it’s been a while since we’ve been here so it was nice to get that monkey off our backs and get the two league points.
“Leicester put up a tough fight and we knew we’d have to step things up to cover the rides at No.1 but I think that’s something we managed to do.
“The next challenge will be to get the bonus point at Leicester. We’ve had some close meetings there before and it feels like we’re closing in on an away win, which is overdue at this point.
“Hopefully at that point we will have Brady back with us. It’s tough having to cover No.1 with R/R and it’ll be nice to have our full team together again.”
The Belle Vue ‘ATPI’ Aces take to the shale at the National Speedway Stadium on Monday, July 1 against the Ipswich Witches, with tapes up at 7:30pm.
Then the club prepares to stage the biggest team event in the world with the 2024 FIM Speedway of Nations kicking off in Manchester on Tuesday, July 9.
Meeting tickets, race day programmes, hospitality and south stand parking are now available to pre-book online at bellevue-speedway.com/events.
RESULT – BELLE VUE V LEICESTER – MONDAY, JUNE 24 @ 7:30PM [P2]
Belle Vue ‘ATPI’ Aces 48: Dan Bewley 14, Jaimon Lidsey 11+1, Ben Cook 9+4, Norick Blodorn 8, Connor Bailey 5+1, Connor Mountain 1, Brady Kurtz r/r.
Leicester ‘Watling JCB’ Lions 42: Max Fricke 16+1, Sam Masters 7, Ryan Douglas 6, Richard Lawson 5+1, Luke Becker 3+1, Luke Killeen 3+1, Craig Cook 2
Image: ©Belle Vue Speedway