A tough night at the office for Belle Vue saw them leave Ipswich empty-handed after their Premiership rivals held on for a 50-40 victory at the Foxhall Stadium.
The ATPI Aces went into this top-of-the-table league clash two men down, with both Jye Etheridge and Charles Wright side-lined due to injury.
Wright crashed in Belle Vue’s televised fixture on Monday while Etheridge suffered a hand injury while racing for Championship side Berwick on Wednesday.
A slow start to the evening saw the TruMix Witches take control of proceedings and establish a 10-point advantage after just three races.
But in true ATPI Aces style, Max Fricke and Matej Zagar battled back with a 5-1 in heat 5 to bring the deficit down to just six.
A succession of shared races maintained the gap to within Ipswich’s favour, with Jason Doyle and Troy Batchelor extending the lead to 46-32 with two to go.
But Belle Vue’s Tom Brennan and Norick Blodorn hit back with a 5-1 of their own in Heat 14 to put the visitors within striking distance of a league point.
Unfortunately, that was as close as they would get as Batchelor delivered a final shared heat and three league points to Ipswich.
Aces Rising Star Tom Brennan said: “Losing both Jye [Etheridge] and Charles [Wright] at the eleventh hour did hinder us, but it didn’t lose us the meeting.
“We felt good going into tonight and we all knew what we were capable of but unfortunately, we just came up short against the better team who, on the night, was Ipswich.
“On the whole everyone dug deep and did the best we could, and I don’t think the score reflects that; Ipswich had to work hard for their points.
“Max [Fricke] was on fire and it was great for me and Norick to team up in Heat 14 and put the us in a great position going into the last race.
“But even with both Max and Brady [Kurtz], it was going to be a tough ask against Batchelor. We’ve just got to take this one on the chin, regroup and come back stronger.”
The Cool Running Colts pick up their league campaign in Manchester tonight, July 15 when they host the defending NDL champions Mildenhall Fen Tigers; tapes up 7:30pm.
Meeting tickets, race day programmes and parking are now available to reserve at bellevue-speedway.com.
