The penultimate round of the 2019 Pro Clean British sidecarcross championship was held at Little Loveney Hall, Wakes Colne yesterday. Despite strong winds and heavy rain on Saturday race day was dry and warm with a fair amount of sunshine leaving the track in perfect condition for racing. The changes the Halstead club had made to the track seemed to be welcomed by the riders and the three races confirmed it was an improvement.
Unfortunately defending champions Brett Wilkinson / Ryan Humphrey were unable to ride because Brett was still sore after his recent incident in Latvia. Even so the racing was competitive throughout the day and produced some unexpected results by the end of the day.
In timed practice Stuart Brown / Josh Chamberlain set the pace posting a time over two seconds quicker than George Kinge / Lewis Gray with Jake Brown / Joe Millard third fastest.
Before the gate dropped for the first race there was a short delay to allow S.Brown to top up his fuel tank. When the gate dropped Hodges / Horton were side by side with Kinge into turn one with both Browns, Etheridge / Snell and Foden / Bijenhof in close attendance. A first corner incident involved about six crews including Moulds / Adair and Peters / Wilkinson.
By the end of lap one Kinge was leading from J.Brown and Foden but the man on a mission was S.Brown who started in eighth but was now up to fourth. J.Brown held the lead for a couple of laps but was overtaken by his dad at about half distance. Two laps later the roles were reversed when J.Brown took the lead whilst negotiating a tail ender. He went on to take the win with S.Brown, now slowed by a damaged front wheel, second and Kinge third. Leading the experts class were Jack Etheridge / Zac Snell. This was J.Brown's first race win and by finishing tenth Dave Keane's passenger, John Chambers, became the oldest passenger to score points in the British championship (we think).
After the finish of the race the stewards imposed a five place penalty on S.Brown for outside assistance (refuelling on the track) dropping him to seventh.
The second race was much less eventful at the front with S.Brown leading from the gate to the flag with J.Brown holding second for the duration. Foden held third for the first three laps until Kinge got past. Etheridge crashed on lap one and damaged the front end of his bike. He got going again in last place but continued and finally finished in twentieth place. The leading Experts in this race were Dave Keane / John Chambers.
The last race of the day saw Gary Moulds / Brian Anthony take the holeshot from Kinge with Foden in third. By lap three S.Brown was leading from Kinge with J.Brown now up to third. On lap five J.Brown overtook Kinge and from then on the leaders remained unchanged. The top six were the only teams not to be lapped by the race leader. The leading Experts in this race were Grahame / Ide.
With one round left S.Brown now leads his son by thirty six points with Kinge a further thirty nine points adrift in third. In the Experts class Grahame leads Georges / Simpson by sixty nine points.
The supporting three groups of solo races saw each group cut to two races only,as there was a lengthy delay following a hold up due to a racing incident. Ipswich teenager, Ryan Allison,won both group A races after battling with Harry Clark and Todd Ritchie. Allison's sixteen year old sister, Bethany, battled well in the B group, and took third place behind Josh Fullalove and Joe Phillips in the first leg. Race two saw Bethany and Fullalove crashing whilst disputing the lead, but both recovered well to claim second and third behind young Joe Phillips, before the race was stopped due to a fallen rider. Phillips, the grandson of the late Ipswich football legend, Ted Phillips, was the overall winner on the day.
In the C group of allcomers, Lee Scott took the win in the first race after a hectic battle with Gareth Robertson, and Robertson led race two for five laps until he was beaten by Harry Peck with two laps remaining. However, his two second places were enough to take overall victory.
Results.
Round five British Sidecarcross championship overall.
1st Jake Brown/Joe Millard, 2nd Stuart Brown/Josh Chamberlain, 3rd George Kinge/Lewis Gray, 4th Dan Foden/ Roy Bijenhof, 5th Michael Hodges/Paul Horton
Solo allcomers group A overall.
1st Ryan Allison, 2nd Todd Ritchie, 3rd Harry Clark, 4th Reece Martin, 5th Sam Mitchell
Solo allcomers group B overall.
1st Joe Phillips, 2nd Joshua Fullalove, 3rd Bethany Allison, 4th Joseph Henthorn, 5th Sean Kettlewell
Solo allcomers group C overall.
1st Gareth Robertson, 2nd Lee Scott, 3rd Kenny Russell, 4th Robert Lock, 5th John McDonald