Another remarkable performance from Maryport ace Dan Bewley helped Belle Vue win their second top-flight title in three years.
They beat Leicester 49-41 in the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership Grand Final last night to tie-up an emphatic 26-point aggregate success of which Bewley was a central figure.
World No 4 Bewley completed a sensational unbeaten Grand Final performance with his second 15-point maximum in succession, quite an effort from the west Cumbrian who has finished a busy season on a high.
Captain Brady Kurtz was also unbeaten with 11+1 in the second leg and the visitors had the title in the bag with four races remaining when Kurtz and Norick Blodorn took a 4-2 in Heat 11.
They went on to win on the night thanks to 5-1s in Heats 13 and 15 with Bewley involved in both.
Kurtz said: “It’s been tough all season, but the boys really stepped things up at Leicester and did the business. I mean, what a club and what a team! It really has been a team effort.
“I think a lot of people maybe wrote us off before the play-offs and there was that feeling of us being something of the underdog, but I think that just spurred us on to step things up.”
Great Britain star Tom Brennan has been called up for the Grand Prix Challenge at Pardubice today.
Four qualifying places into next year’s full GP series are available from the Czech Republic venue, with Brennan seeking to join Robert Lambert and Dan Bewley in the 2025 World Championship.
The Birmingham and Poole rider had finished one place adrift of qualification for the Challenge when he rode at Abensberg in May, but the line-up has since been amended with other riders already securing their GP place via other means.
Belle Vue’s Australian duo Brady Kurtz and Jaimon Lidsey are included along with Leicester skipper Max Fricke, King’s Lynn’s Jan Kvech on home territory, and Edinburgh favourite Paco Castagna.
Oxford youngster Luke Killeen was the highest-placed Great Britain rider in Thursday’s FIM European Under-19 Final at Herxheim.
Killeen put in a gritty performance with a score of seven points for a 10th place finish, whilst former Workington rider Luke Harrison and Ashton Boughen finished with scores of three and two points respectively to finish the evening in 14th and 15th places.
Ukraine’s Nazar Parnitskyi was crowned the new European Under-19 Champion after facing a run-off with Denmark’s Bastian Pedersen after both riders had tied on 13 points.
The three British riders now head back to the UK in a bid to add their own British Championship to their CV over the weekend, as they all compete in the British Under-19 Final at Oxford on Sunday afternoon.
