Devils On The Road Again

PREVIEW Friday 20th August 2021, 10:34am

by Graham Muncie

While the What the Fork Monarchs take to the track at Armadale a mere 227 miles down the road (according to google maps anyway) the Stellar Devils will be back on track as they take to the shale at the National Speedway Stadium to take on the Belle Vue Colts in National Development League action.

It has been a truncated spell for the Devils with matches few and far between and with only Archie Freeman and Nathan Greaves (although he of course will be in attendance at Armadale) riding regularly elsewhere the rest of the team are desperate for the laps and looking to impress.

The Colts are no easy mark though as shown by their home record with only one blip so far this being a defeat to Kent. The Colts have a solid outfit with a good mix of youth and experience with plenty of Championship laps in the form of Jack Parkinson-Blackburn, Jack Smith and Connor Coles at the top end of the team.

Ben Woodhull and Paul Bowen also have plenty of nous round the NSS, Bowen in particular a fans favourite due to his effervescent character and anyone who saw the highlights video he put together of his performance at Armadale earlier in the season knows how much he brings to the pits as well as the track.

The stars of the season so far for the Colts have no doubt been the McGurk brothers, Sam and Harry. Starting the season at reserve both have catapulted themselves to the top 2 of the averages for the Colts more than doubling their averages along the way and both look to have a big future in the sport.

For the Devils as mentioned Nathan Greaves misses out with former Colts man Kyle Bickley stepping in, elsewhere the team is as per usual with Danny Phillips and Tom Woolley both citing the Manchester arena as a former home track so will be looking to score well.

George Rothery will look to get rid of any ring rust early and the wide-open bends of the NSS should suit him down to the ground while the Millar brothers will look to build on probably their best meeting of the season at Mildenhall the other week while Archie Freeman looks to get back among the points after a tough few weeks with Newcastle in the Championship.

The Devils currently sit second bottom of the pile but with less than half of their league fixtures raced so far there is still time for this situation to improve and their was frustration in the camp that no points were gleaned from that visit to Mildenhall anything gained tonight would be a good way to get over this disappointment and no doubt Alan Budzynski and his men will head south looking to make this happen.

Live updates will be available on the Devils website for those not in attendance.