REIGNING Premiership champions Peterborough are in town this Bank Holiday Monday, May 2 and Belle Vue No.4 Charles Wright says the ATPI Aces are ‘turning a new leaf’.
The club has the honour of staging the first top flight league fixture of the 2022 season at the National Speedway Stadium with their new-look 1-7 taking to the track for the first time together.
Slovenian start Matej Žagar makes his first team appearance in Manchester since 2016 off the back of a highly successful appearance in Saturday’s Croatian GP, where he made it as far as the semi-finals.
The Panthers, meanwhile, track an almost identical side to that which won the league crown last year, with Benjamin Basso the only change to their line-up in place of retired Bjarne Pedersen.
Wright, who has notched 48 points (plus 1 bonus) from five meetings for Belle Vue, is confident his side can put up a string offensive on home shale with their revamped line-up.
He said: “We have had a rough start to the season but everything before now is irrelevant. We start afresh tomorrow for the league campaign and all the boys are really looking forward to it.
“Having Matej in the side is going to benefit us massively. He’s a former GP rider and a strong heat leader and I think that will make a huge difference for us on track.
“Having that greater strength in depth will take the pressure off some of the other guys, so hopefully they will feel a little bit more relaxed and we’ll start to see what they’re capable of.
“Peterborough have been very clever in the way they have built their team. Because there’s no out-and-out number one they’re also very string all the way through.
“I’m sure they will come to us full of confidence but we’re just as confident that we have what it takes to beat them, and we hope the fans will get behind us and give us that extra boost.”
Belle Vue kick off their Premiership league title bid on bank holiday Monday, May 2 at the National Speedway Stadium against Peterborough, with tapes up at 12pm.
Meeting tickets, hospitality, programmes and parking are available to reserve now at bellevue-speedway.com
BELLE VUE V PETERBOROUGH – MONDAY, MAY 2 @ 12:00PM [SGBP]
Belle Vue ‘ATPI’ Aces: Max Fricke 8.81, Jye Etheridge 5.22, Matej Žagar 7.48, Charles Wright 5.92, Brady Kurtz (C) 7.27, Norick Blödorn 4.00, Tom Brennan RS; TM: Mark Lemon
Peterborough ‘Crendon’ Panthers: Michael Palm Toft 7.17, Scott Nicholls (C) 6.71, Ulrich Ostergaard 7.09, Hans Andersen 7.05, Chris Harris 7.02, Benjamin Basso 4.00, Jordan Palin RS; TM: Rob Lyon