King’s Lynn fell to a 57-27 defeat at Belle Vue on Monday in a meeting curtailed one race early due to rain.
Conditions began to worsen at the National Speedway Stadium from midway through the meeting and it was no real surprise when after another heavy downpour, the match was abandoned with the result standing.
It was a tough night for the MacInnes Stars who were limited to three race wins – two of them from returning No.1 Robert Lambert.
Those victories came after a last place in his first ride when the Aces opened with a 5-1 from Brady Kurtz and Tom Brennan, and whilst Lambert overtook Charles Wright for second place in Heat 5 he couldn’t catch the flying Jaimon Lidsey.
Lambert did take the flag in Heats 11 and 12, the former seeing him get the better of his GB colleague Dan Bewley, and he then beat Lidsey in the latter, although by that stage the Aces had the points well in the bag.
New skipper Simon Lambert was the Stars’ other winner in Heat 2 when he held off the challenge of German star Norick Blodorn.
But the hosts dominated otherwise with Kurtz scoring a paid maximum whilst Bewley and Lidsey dropped their only points to Robert Lambert.
Stars manager David Hoggart said: “Conditions didn’t help although it was the same for both sides, and obviously the Belle Vue guys have got a bit of home track advantage – they go really, really well here.
“I don’t need to kid anybody, we turned up with an under-strength team and we missed Nicolai (Klindt) terribly. If he’d been here, he would have been in double figures as he has been consistently all year really.
“We were keen to keep going, in theory we could have called a halt after Heat 10, but we wanted to keep going and give it our best shot.”
The Stars are back at the Adrian Flux Arena this Thursday for Lambert’s homecoming in the return fixture against the Aces.
Belle Vue 57: Brady Kurtz 11+1, Dan Bewley 11, Jaimon Lidsey 11, Tom Brennan 7+2, Charles Wright 7+1, Connor Bailey 6+2, Norick Blodorn 4+1
King’s Lynn Stars 27: Robert Lambert 9, Connor Mountain 5, Simon Lambert 5, Michael Palm Toft 4+1, Anders Rowe 3, Emil Breum 1, Nicolai Klindt r/r
Abandoned after 14 heats due to rain – Result stands
