BELLE VUE captain Brady Kurtz has vowed to make up for the heartbreak of losing the Sports Insure Premiership title.
The ATPI Aces revealed their new side for the 2024 season at the National Speedway Stadium on Friday night.
Kurtz, Dan Bewley, Jaimon Lidsey Norick Blodorn and Connor Bailey all stay with the club and are joined by hot prospect Australian Ben Cook and young Brit Connor Mountain.
Having won the league title after a 29-year-wait in 2022, the ATPI Aces lost the semi-final to Ipswich in an epic last race shoot-out back in September.
Kurtz, 27, told the Humans of Speedway podcast: “We will be looking at a few things at where we went wrong last year and try to improve that for the coming year.
“But we have a similar team so we can carry our form straight into March hopefully.
“There’s no reason why we can’t be at the top again. If we can pick up where we left off then we’ll start off in a pretty good spot.
“Obviously we’re all going to need to improve a bit if we are going to push the strong teams. I think we will be there or thereabouts that’s for sure.”
Kurtz believes that the strong team spirit at the club can be the inspiration to success in 2024.
He added: “The last couple of years we’ve had really good teams, last season was no different.
“Dan and I are really good friends, always together during the week, mountain-biking and doing whatever else we can get up to.
“Me and Jaimon have been friends for many years as well. It’s been cool to have all us three together.
“We’ve had great teams and I’ve really enjoyed being at Belle Vue the last few years.”
Kurtz has also been encouraged by the amount of top stars returning to British speedway. Tai Woffinden, Jack Holder, Chris Holder, Jason Doyle and Emil Sayfutdinov will all be on track next season.
He added: “The more big names the better. I think British speedway has been crying out for some big guys to come back.
“I think it was a bit of a trend to not want to race in England anymore. All the top guys kind of palmed it off and tried to focus on Poland.
“I think when Emil Sayfutdinov came back for Ipswich last year, it’s kind of turned a corner for British speedway. It made a lot of people look at it and take the UK a bit more seriously again. It could be a way to make them improve again.
“I’ve heard a lot of rumours and spoken to a lot of people who want to come back and would like to race in England again.”
Words by Holeshot Media.
Images by Taylor Lanning.