Tuesday April 24, 2018 at 11:22am
The second round of the ACU / F.S.R.A. British Formula Two Sidecar Championship heads to the Cadwell Park circuit this weekend, held with the host club BMCRC. This venue seemed like our second home last season - visiting the Lincolnshire circuit three times, this weekend will be our only visit this season. Three weeks ago, the first round took place at the 2.1 mile North Yorkshire circuit of Croft. The Anglo / Scottish pairing of #17 Lee Crawford / Scott Hardie of Team ARC on their Suzuki powered LCR took their first double win in contrasting conditions. The pair dominated the whole field in the wet in race one to come away with a twenty-one second win. With much better conditions the following day and starting sixth on the grid (for this season the grid positions are taken from race one result with top six finishers of race one have their grid positions reversed for race two), they had a blinding start and were up to second at the end of lap one and gradually pulled away to an eight second advantage at one point to win the race by four seconds. Team ARC will be looking for another solid performance this weekend, as last season was blighted by reliability problems. They hold a ten-point lead after round one to reigning champions Team Founds Racing #72 Peter Founds / Jevan Walmsley aboard their new Dave De Mott (DDM) Suzuki powered chassis. With no prior testing of the new chassis before the first practice session at Croft, their prospects were very much unknown. They went out and immediately put the new machine on pole and came away with two second place finishes, and so were delighted! They decided to enter the Hyundai Construction Equipment British Sidecar round which runs alongside BSB for further setup, development and testing. In wet conditions Pete and Jev took their DDM sidecar from thirteenth on the grid to win the race by five seconds against the F600`s and the F1`s. The next two teams in the championship are separated by just three points and had a few close battles last season and at the series opener at Croft, namely #33 Sean Hegarty / James Neave on their Honda powered Baker and #3 Conrad Harrison / Andy Winkle also using Honda power in a Bellas chassis. The pairing of #11 Mike Jackson and Harry Payne from the Isle of Man gave a strong showing at the last round in their first British Championship meeting together, with a fifth and sixth place finish on a twenty-year-old Windle chassis powered by a Suzuki engine. Rounding off the top six and looking for improvement from the first round are #99 Steve and Matty Ramsden on their LCR Honda. Whilst they had two finishes and gained some valuable points they will be hoping the little niggles they suffered in the first round will have been ironed out. The teams of Lee / Scott, Conrad / Andy and Steve / Matty would have liked further track time at Oliver’s Mount Scarborough the week prior to this round but unfortunately the meeting had to be cancelled. Onto the F2 Cup, and at their first British Championship round together #7 Daryl Gibson / Ashley Moore took the spoils with two impressive races to take both wins on their Shelbourne Suzuki. After what was a dominant performance, the pair hold a fourteen-point lead over #95 Ralph Remnant / Samantha Tilley on their Kawasaki powered Lumley outfit. The next four teams are separated by just six points, that being #32 Richard Lumley - who had Andy Haynes in the chair for the first round - but will be joined by regular passenger Ray Whitnall on their Kawasaki powered Lumley chassis; series newcomers #71 Chris Schofield / Derek Taylor on their Ireson Honda; #8 Brian Ilaria / Sarah Stokoe on their DDM Suzuki and #161 Paul Downes / David Hainsworth aboard their MRE Suzuki. With twenty-seven registered riders set to take to the grid and interest shown from a few “Wild Cards” including a couple of French teams, this promises to be a very busy round with plenty of healthy competition throughout the field. With two qualifying sessions as per last season with Bemsee; and then a race over twelve laps on Saturday and fifteen laps on Sunday the teams will be hoping for reliability and to add points to their tally. This will be a baptism of fire for the six newcomers to the championship having not raced these distances before, but the new teams last year thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of the longer distance races. Let's hope for a weekend of warm weather as its long overdue! The F.S.R.A. Super F2 lap record for Cadwell Park is 1:37.32, established back in 2010 by Simon Neary / Paul Knapton; while more recently the F.S.R.A. F2 Cup record of 1:38.1 was set by Pete Founds / Jevan Walmsley in 2015 The Super F2 teams have a white number on a red background, and the F2 Cup teams have a yellow number on a red background. You can follow the live timings from the meeting http://www.tsl-timing.com/ Preview by Mark Dennis - FSRA Press Officer