Last Saturday the Maxxis British sidecarcross championships got under way with the opening round taking place at the excellent Desertmartin circuit in Northern Ireland. The North Armagh club had worked extremely hard in the run up to the event in preparing the track which was in prime condition for the days races. In addition the sun shone nearly all day and unusually there was no rain!
Sadly the number of entries was down on last year with fewer riders making the trip across from the mainland but even so there was plenty of action to keep the crowd happy.
In timed practice defending champions Stuart Brown / Joe Millard took their AMS powered WSP machine to pole position posting a time nearly half a second faster than Brett Wilkinson and his new passenger Josh Chamberlain ( his regular passenger, Dan Chamberlain, had to pull out because of injury). Third fastest was Stuart’s son Jake with Zac Snell in the chair and in fourth place was the leading Irish team of Neil Campbell / Craig Parmenter.
When the gate dropped for the first race of the year Wilkinson took the holeshot from Pelling / Pannell and Horton / Horton with S. Brown just behind in fourth. By the time the riders came back past the signalling area Wilkinson led from Gary Moulds / Adair and just behind was S.Brown. At the end of lap two S.Brown had taken second place and was catching Wilkinson. Brown very soon caught Wilkinson and at half distance Wilkinson made a mistake in the deep sand and Brown was through. These two held on to finish in first and second places. Moulds held on to third while J.Brown pulled through from seventh to finish fourth.
The second race after the lunch break was headed by Hodges / Ide from Horton and Moulds. S.Brown was in seventh place and Wilkinson had a disaster off the line and was last into turn one. By the end of lap one Hodges was comfortable in the lead with Moulds second and incredibly Wilkinson was third just ahead of S.Brown. Just before half distance Brown was ahead of Wilkinson but an incident with a back marker soon dropped them back to fifth. With five minutes to go Wilkinson caught and passed Moulds and one lap later Brown was past as well. Just before the two lap board went out Wilkinson passed Hodges to take the lead and on the last lap Brown got past to take second with Hodges finishing third.
The final race of the day saw Moulds take the holeshot from Brown and Wilkinson. Moulds’ lead only lasted one lap when he made a mistake and dropped to fifth. Wilkinson then held the lead for the next two laps before Brown overtook him. Campbell held third place for the mid part of the race but was eventually taken by J.Brown just after half distance. Brown went on to win from Wilkinson with J.Brown third.
In the Experts class Scott Balsillie / Josh Haynes took the overall win from Danny & Lewis Gray.
The second round of the championship will take place at Blyth near Newcastle on 27
th May.