(SPEEDWAY 1)
BIRMINGHAM made it 12 wins on the spin with an excellent 53-37 triumph at the Isle of Wight on Tuesday.The result saw the Brummies mathematically confirm their National League play-off place with four points – but boss Graham Drury insists they cannot take their foot off the gas as they now aim to secure their spot at the top of the table.Guest No.1 Dan Halsey top scored as he stepped in for Zach Wajtknecht, winning his opening three rides on his way to 12 points, whilst Danyon Hume added 11+1 and reserve Jack Parkinson-Blackburn picked up 9+2 for the Brummies. Mark Baseby led the way for the Warriors on 13.Drury said: “It’s nice to know we are in the play-offs, because we were never taking anything for granted.“The boys have done a remarkable job to get it wrapped up at this stage, and we’ll keep striving now to finish top of the table.“From the very beginning our aim was to finish top, and we’ve still got a lot of work to do. We want to get first choice of opponents for the play-offs and we’ll be looking to keep our momentum going to stay at the top.”(SPEEDWAY 2)
BELLE Vue boss Mark Lemon is keen to see his side re-enforce their position at the top of the Elite League table.The Aces host King’s Lynn at the National Speedway Stadium on Wednesday and Lemon wants them to maintain momentum with a play-off place all-but certain.British Champion Danny King makes a guest appearance for the home side with Max Fricke racing in Denmark, whilst Fredrik Lindgren substitutes for Niels-Kristian Iversen for the Stars.Lemon said: “King’s Lynn have a handy guest in Fredrik Lindgren. We’ve seen how well he goes around our place before, so he’s definitely an adequate replacement.“At this stage in the season it’s vitally important that we push on. Our goal at the start of the year was to reach the play-offs and barring any drastic changes I’d say we’ve pretty much secured that.“But we’re not one to count our chickens. We know we’ve got to keep up the pressure if we want to stay there. We’ve still to face some pretty big hitters who are just as keen to enforce their position.”King’s Lynn star Troy Batchelor said: “We’ve had some pretty good results but a lot of bad ones recently. We just haven’t seemed to be able to get a full team for whatever reason, and it’s been tough for us.“Hopefully we can get the team together over the rest of the season and we can try and end on a high. We’ve got a lot of meetings to go over the next couple of weeks, and we want to win as many of them as possible.”Poole are the Aces’ nearest challengers, and the Pirates are at home to Leicester on Wednesday in an event being billed as a Celebration of Speedway evening.Admission prices have been dropped to £10 for adults, with accompanied children free, and both sides are set to be at full strength.Pirates promoter Matt Ford said: “We were disappointing at Swindon, the lads were far from happy with the performance and they are keen to make amends. “Hopefully we can do so in front of a good crowd on Wednesday when we stage the first of what I intend to be an annual event, our Celebration of Speedway.“I am aware a lot of the people in the area will not have seen live speedway and hopefully we can attract some of those and treat them to a Poole victory.“Anyone who thinks that it is just a case of just turning up on Wednesday is seriously mistaken. We need to go into every meeting taking absolutely nothing for granted for we all know speedway is a strange old game.”
(FIXTURES)
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 24:ELITE LEAGUE: Belle Vue v King’s Lynn 7.30, Poole v Leicester 7.30
THURSDAY AUGUST 25:ELITE LEAGUE: King’s Lynn v Wolverhampton 7.30PREMIER LEAGUE: Redcar v Ipswich 7.30, Sheffield v Scunthorpe 7.30
FRIDAY AUGUST 26:ELITE LEAGUE: Coventry v Lakeside 7.30PREMIER LEAGUE: Peterborough v Newcastle 7.30, Somerset v Plymouth 7.30PREMIER LEAGUE KO CUP Q/F 2nd leg: Edinburgh v Glasgow 7.30TRAVEL PLUS NATIONAL LEAGUE: Belle Vue v Kent 7.30, Coventry v Mildenhall (follows EL fixture)
