On a well prepared but significantly altered Asham Woods track, the Frome club hosted the opening round of the 2016 MAXXIS British Sidecarcross Championship as well as the Hadrian Marine Experts Championships.
Defending champions Stuart Brown / Josh Chamberlain took the overall win on the day but after being beaten in race one they had to work hard in the two subsequent races to fend off the challenge from last year’s runners up, Brett Wilkinson / Steve Kirwin.
With an excellent entry of 36 teams the racing was going to be fast and furious from first to last and the reasonable sized crowd were certainly not disappointed.
In timed practice Brown was quickest by nearly three seconds ahead of Wilkinson with the leading Expert crew, Jack Etheridge / Scott Grahame in third place.
When the gate dropped for the start of the first race it all went wrong for Brown and by the time he got going he was nearly last. The early leaders were Wilkinson with Etheridge and Pelling / Pannell in attendance. It wasn’t long before Brown was in the top six and challenging Pelling. By half distance Brown was up to second but Wilkinson was so far ahead it looked like mission impossible to catch him. Etheridge was holding third but was under real pressure from Pelling and with three laps to go Pelling made his move and was up to third. Etheridge tried to get past on the last lap but got in trouble and dropped to sixth place instead. Wilkinson took the win from Brown.
In the second race Brown made no mistake this time and took the holeshot and then went on to lead every one of the eleven laps to take his first win of the year. Wilkinson kept in his wheel tracks for a number of laps but then at about half distance crashed. Both Brett & Steve were bruised but able to carry on but their challenge for the lead was over. Etheridge held third place after taking the position from Gary Moulds / Alan Gardner on the second lap. On the third lap Moulds was overtaken by Neil Campbell / Craig Parmenter and almost immediately came under attack from Pelling. Brown took the win from Wilkinson with Etheridge third.
The final race of the day saw Brown take the holeshot again but this time he didn’t have it all his own way as when they came back out of the quarry Wilkinson had taken the lead. Brown pushed Wilkinson for lap after lap until on lap seven he made his move and then slowly pulled away. Etheridge held onto third place for the whole race but for the last couple of laps Pelling closed right up on him but at the flag Etheridge just took third.
Brown now leads the championship by just three points from Wilkinson with Pelling third and Etheridge fourth.
In the Experts class Etheridge leads from Ross Bowers / Dan Phelps with George Kinge / Zac Snell third. The next round is at Foxhill on 17
th April