BELLE Vue’s stunning form in the Premiership continued on Thursday night after the ATPI Aces dug deep in tricky conditions at Ipswich to seal a 44-46 victory at Foxhall.
The reigning league champions established a slim lead in the early heats before racing was paused after Heat 5 to allow a series of showers to pass through the area.
Conditions were not ideal when the action resumed in Heat 6 and the TruMix Witches took full advantage to go 8 points ahead with a pair of 5-1s and 3-3s after eight races.
But having regrouped, the ATPI Aces responded with equal strength and identical results in the following four heats to reclaim their lead with three to go.
Jason Doyle and Emil Sayfutdinov took maximum points in Heat 13 to return the lead to the home team, but again the tenacity of the visitors came through in Heat 14.
Team boss Mark Lemon made a reserve switch to bring in Tom Brennan in place of Connor Bailey and, teaming up with Charles Wright, the pair bagged a vital 5-1 to force a last-heat decider.
And it was Wright who got the nod, along with Brady Kurtz, to face off against Doyle and Sayfutdinov for the final time and it was the Aces skipper who secured the win for Belle Vue.
Tom Brennan top scored for the ATPI Aces with a fantastic 11+2 while Kurtz added 9 points and Wright finished his night with a credible 8+1.
Aces CEO Mark Lemon said: “To win on the road as much as we have done this season is a real credit to the boys and tonight’s performance was exceptional.
“After the rain came down, conditions were levelled for all the riders but Ipswich responded better than we did, but the boys didn’t panic and we soon got back on a roll.
“What I like about this team is how when one has a poor night the rest step up to compensate, as they did for Dan [Bewley] who had a poor night by his standards.
“Seeing Tom Brennan go out there and do what he did was simply brilliant to watch. He’s really come of age recently and is finding composure on the bike.
“This result, I would say, all but consolidates our position in the play offs but we can’t roll off the throttle. There’s still meetings to be raced and anything can happen in Speedway.”
The ATPI Aces return to the National Speedway Stadium on Monday, July 17 for the return fixture against the Ipswich Witches, tapes up at 7:30pm.
Meeting tickets, race day programmes, hospitality and south stand parking are now available to pre-book at bellevue-speedway.com/events.
