West Horsley's Hook Woods was the venue last Sunday where twenty-three sidecar crews battled for points in the final event this year of the ACU.
The Normandy Motor Cycle Club staged the trial. Mathematics did play a major role in the Expert class! Yate brothers Josh and Luke Golding held an eleven-point lead over current champions Jon Tuck and Matt Sparkes, also Yate contenders. With an almost invincible points lead twenty-two-year-old electrical engineer Josh and his twenty-year-old brother plasterer brother Luke rode to finish knowing full well that that was essential to win the title and deprive Tuck and Sparkes of the expert title.
Bradford's Nigel Scott and daughter Gracie -Mae won the strong Inter class from Tony Jones and Jamie Howe and Dave Tuck and Joe Newman. The Scotts closed the eleven championship trials with a sixty-six points margin over Jones and Howe. All twelve class contenders have dropped scores. The Clubman class was two horse race. Manx contenders Jack Corlett and passenger Beth Thomas were in control of the Clubman category and missed the last two trials. That left Paul Fishlock and Peter Pesterfield to close up the points table to uphold mainland honours. John Corlett and Harry Gell missed the D.K Mansell trial but took third place on Sunday scoring fifteen points which elevated them to third placed in the class. As far as the Newcomers category went Elliott and Graham Tickner. One major surprise though on Sunday was TRS importer Steve Saunders and his son James unloaded Phil Sparkes's TRS sidecar outfit, and compete. The ten times British solo trials champion lives at Bishop Cleves, Cheltenham won the Newcomer class with his son riding passenger.
Steve's daughter Izzy rides passenger with Mick Treagus in all championship events. The Wessex Plant Hire director and sidecar trials competitor Phil Sparkes, sponsor of the championship series, and also sponsor in 2019 again through the Wessex Plant Hire company, has loaned his TRS outfit to Steve Saunders. And the footnote, Steve returned the sidecar outfit to his owner unmarked or damaged.
Report by Barry Robinson
Photo courtesy of Tom White