Monday night saw the Belle Vue Aces maintain their
100% home record with a 51-39 win over the lowly Birmingham Brummies this past
week with Scott Nicholls scoring 13+1 and helping the Aces onto victory as the
7 times British Champion played a key role in the win dropping only one point
to a visiting rider all night.
However the meeting itself was closely contested
for the first half of the meeting, with the visitors from Birmingham holding
the Aces level up until heat 8 when Scott Nicholls and Richie Worrall scored a
match changing maximum and it was from that point on that they never looked
back from.
Belle Vue welcomed back Matej Zagar from his first
ever Speedway Grand Prix victory this past Saturday, with the Slovenian rider
taking the inaugural Grand Prix in Tampere, Finland.
The opening heat though saw the Slovenian squeezed
out by Daniel Nermark to the fence in the first run and was brought back for an
unsatisfactory start, the re-run saw the Slovenian miss out again as Nick
Morris off the massively favoured gate 4, saw the guest rider for the
Birmingham Brummies fly out of the traps and take the opening race with the
home pairing securing the minor places for a shared heat.
Stefan Nielsen in the reserves race made an equally
fast start from gate 4 and saw the Aces rider fly away into the night with the
Birmingham pair unable to catch the youngster and saw him secure the race win.
The meeting itself was a fairly frustrating one for
the riders and fans as gate 4 proved to be a completely unfair advantage for
whom ever was starting off it and it has become a common occurrence this year
due to stock cars events that are held at the stadium and it tends to make the
gates uneven and give gate 4 a huge boost.
Ben Barker won yet again from the outside gate, but
he had to fend off the advances of former Coventry team mate Scott Nicholls as
the Belle Vue man chased him down for the whole four laps. But the former GB
international was just unable to get by the Birmingham rider and saw a third
consecutive shared heat.
Heat 4 saw Daniel Nermark get out and keep Richie
Worrall at bay and also saw the first heat advantage of the night going the way
of the Brummies, with Simon Lambert making the most of Stefan Nielsen mistake
on the first bend to see a 4-2 to the away side and give them a 13-11 lead.
The hosts responded with two straight 4-2`s of
their own when Craig Cook took the race win in heat 5 and saw Zagar struggling
in the meeting so far, but he managed to keep third spot and level the match at
15-15.
Heat 6 saw Scott Nicholls make the start and this
time, showing Ben Barker the quickest way round the 'Kirky lane' circuit with
Worrall doing well to hold off the quick Nick Morris for third position.
Birmingham levelled it back up though in the next
race, with Nico Covatti looking comfortable out in front and with Michael Palm
Toft unable to get close to the Italian rider it saw a 3-3 shared heat and all
square at 21-21.
Belle Vue then scored a 5-1 after the first run saw
Scott Nicholls charge up the inside of Nermark and then Richie Worrall went
round the outside of him, before Danny King then fell off nearly taking
Nicholls off and instead clipped his team mate for a re-run. The re-run itself
saw Nermark lead the race till both Aces passed him with ease and flown away to
a 5-1 maximum and saw the home side kicked on from that point onwards.
Stefan Nielsen took the second reserves race of the
night and his team mate guesting from the Leicester Lions in former Belle Vue
mascot Max Clegg, saw Clegg hold off Lambert to help the home side extend their
lead to six points in the match.
Matej Zagar then found his gating boots finally and
took the race win in Heta 10 with ease, as Danny King and Barker couldn`t get
near to the Slovenian rider at all and saw Zagar looking like a proper number
one rider flying round the track.
Heat 11 saw Covatti and Nicholls both get out at
the start and had Nicholls come up the inside of the Italian and force him out
wide, giving captain Craig Cook the chance to come up the inside as well
and see the Belle Vue pair on a 5-1 and from then on it was good team riding by
the British duo as they made it 38-28.
Heat 12 saw Stefan Nielsen make a nice move on
Daniel Nermark with both Aces passing the Swedish rider, but then saw Nermark
take Nielsen wide and put him into the fence which saw the move seeing him
kicked out of the race. Nielsen was down for a bit as his left arm dangled a
bit from the nasty looking crash he had, but he dusted himself down and took
his place in the re-run and saw Paul Starke for the Brummies typically take the
win the race win after the home side had been on a 5-1 in the original race.
Nick Morris got the jump on the Belle Vue pairing
in Heat 13 which saw another 3-3 and with Heat 14 seeing the Brummies take a
4-2 heat win, it made the score going into the final race of the match 46-38
with the home side needing just a race win to collect all 3 points.
The final race of the night saw both home riders in
Scott Nicholls and Craig Cook breeze by Ben Barker down the back straight to
which the Aces picked up a 5-1, seeing them take all points on offer and see
off the challenge of the Brummies in the match to keep up their 100% record at
Kirkmanshulme Lane this season.
Belle Vue = 51
1. Matej Zagar 1', 1, 3, 1' = 6+2
2. Michael Palm Toft 2, 2, 0, 1' = 5+1
3. Scott Nicholls 2, 3, 3, 3, 2' = 13+1
4. Richie Worrall 2, 1, 2', 2 = 7+1
5. Craig Cook 1', 3, 2', 2, 3 = 11+2
6. Stefan Nielsen 3, 0, 3, 2, Fx = 8
7. Max Clegg (G) 0, F, 1 = 1
Birmingham = 39
1. Nick Morris (G) 3, 0, 1, 3, 0 = 7
2. Daniel Nermark 0, 3, 1, X = 4
3. Danny King 0, 2, Fx, 2 = 4
4. Nico Covatti 0, 3, 0, 3 = 6
5. Ben Barker 3, 2, 1', 0, 1 = 7+1
6. Paul Starke 2, 1, 2, 3, 1 = 9
7. Simon Lambert 1', 1, 0 = 2+1
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