Speedway: Ipswich suffer heavy 58-26 loss to Belle Vue

The match was abandoned after a crash

Author: Sian RochePublished 2nd Jul 2024

Ipswich remain top of the Premiership table despite a heavy 58-26 defeat away at Belle Vue.

The meeting was abandoned after a rider for the Aces was injured during heat 14.

18 year old Tate Zischke is said to be in a comfortable condition in hospital.

Witches team manager Ritchie Hawkins was unhappy with his team's performance: “It was a really bad night, and we did not perform.

"As a unit I suppose it is good that we all have it on the same night and get it out of the way and we will regroup for Thursday.

"I don’t think we need to dwell on it at the moment because it is a very important meeting coming up on Thursday, even more so now.

"Let’s look forward and then we have 10 days off and we can reflect on this and where we are going wrong at Belle Vue.

“The boys certainly didn’t throw the towel in, and we fought very hard and got in good positions, but we have said it before and it was the case again today, we were not quick enough.

"There is a lot of head scratching going on as to why and if we end up coming here for the play-offs it is something that we certainly need to massively improve.

“If I knew the answer, we would have solved it by now, but we look lacking in speed and that has not been the case anywhere else, just Belle Vue. We need to get our thinking caps on and improve that.

“The meeting was a great result for Belle Vue but was overshadowed by Tate’s crash and all of us at Ipswich wish him a quick and speedy recovery. Our thoughts are with him tonight and he looked impressive before his crash.”

The Stars will be looking to bounce back after their third defeat of the campaign when they face Oxford on Thursday.

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