- NEWS -

October 2009

Hello to you all,

Well, as our season has now drawn to a close, here’s our final results update for the year.

Team Race – Jauer – Germany



The team for this year was Wilkinson, Keane, Millard brothers and ourselves. Millard’s and Wilkinson took part in the first race – Millard’s finished 9th and Wilkinson finished 16th after having a front wheel puncture leaving Team GB in fifth place after the first race. In the second race it was us and the Millard brothers for Team GB. We gated in the middle of the pack and riding well to move through the field into 8th place after 20 minutes until disaster struck and we crashed off a jump. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on our side this time and Luke had to go to hospital as a precautionary measure for some injuries to his chest. This meant that we were out of our 2 races and also Wilkinson missed his 2nd race due to a wrist injury. This all meant that Team GB had no chance of a decent placing in this year’s team race.

British Championship – Final Round – Lyng, Norfolk



After the cancellation of the final round of the British Championship at Winterpick Farm, we were pleased to hear that a substitute venue had been found and the final meeting would be held at Lyng in Norfolk. Practise went well and the sandy track suited our riding style well. After winning race 1, we’d wrapped up the British title and went on to win the remaining two races. However, during the second race, we had a coming together with a back marker that trapped Stuart’s foot between the 2 bikes. We managed to carry on to take the win but the pain from Stuart’s foot gave cause for concern and we feared the possibility of a broken bone. After taking some strong pain killers to numb the pain from Stuart’s foot, we took the win in race 3 but a visit to hospital when Stuart got home confirmed the worst, his foot was broken and he’s now in plaster for up to 6 weeks. Luckily, this bad news came at the end of the season and Stuart has the winter to recover but this was definitely not the best way to celebrate winning another British title.

So with another season over we are very pleased to have won another British title – Stuart’s 7th and Luke’s 5th. We also moved back into the top 10 in the world championship finishing in 9th place this year and also taking our first ever world championship win. On top of all of that, both of us became the highest ever points scoring driver and passenger in the history of the British Sidecar Championships. All in all, a good season and we cannot wait to get going again in 2010!!

As always, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their help and support this year. We hope that all of you can continue your help into next year and please feel free to contact us if we’ve not already spoke to you about next season.

Yours in sport

September 2009

Hi Everyone,

Well firstly, we need to apologise for the lack of newsletters over the last couple of months. With our busy racing schedule we have struggled to get the newsletters written so here’s a summary of our recent races

British Championships



We’ve had 2 more British Championship rounds since our last newsletter and we have had some good results winning all but 1 of the 6 races and finishing 2nd in the other race due to a clutch problem off the start line. Coming through from dead last after getting off the line at least 10 seconds after everyone else, we raced hard and were within half a second of taking the win when the chequered flag fell. We now hold an 89 point lead with 1 round remaining but with double points up for grabs at the last round we still need a few more points to be crowned British Champions for 2009.

World Championships



We’ve been having a fairly good season in the World Championship rounds this year and we have contested every round again in the hope that we can get back in to the top 10 by the end of the season. We have consistently qualified on the front row and have generally been finishing in the top 10 in most races. In the Belgian round we had 2 really good races finishing in 5th and 6th place but unfortunately in France, Stuart aggravated his wrist injury so we had to pull out of the first race although we managed to finish in 10th in the last race. We have just got back from the last Grand Prix at Rudersberg in Germany where we had an excellent weekend qualifying in 2nd place. With the track suiting our riding style and following on from our qualifying pace, we secured a superb 3rd place finish in the 1st race and going on to WIN our very first WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP RACE by over 20 seconds in the second race, an achievement that we have strived for throughout our racing career and one which we are thrilled to have finally achieved. This excellent result gave us 2nd overall on the day and a final championship position of 9th place.

The Ken Hall International Trophy



Once again, we were pleased to be racing at the Ken Hall International on August Bank Holiday weekend and we put in 3 consistent rides against some of the top GP crews taking 3rd overall on the day.

We had been expecting to race this coming weekend (20th September) at the last British Championship round at Winterpick Farm. However, we have just heard that, at this very late stage, the club has cancelled the meeting. We are now waiting to find out if the meeting will be re-run on another weekend or whether we can once again tell you that we have secured the British Championship for the 7th time (5th time for Luke). We hope to be able to let you know for definite in our next newsletter.

We also have the Team Race coming up which is being held at the Jauer track in Germany. This year, it will be the Millard brothers, Scott Wilkinson and David Keane representing Team GB with us so we will be hoping to have some good results that weekend.

Yours in Sport

May 2009

Hi Everyone,

Well, our season is continuing well so far and here are our latest results

Torrington British Championship - Round 4 - 31st May



Race 1 – Had a terrible start on a very tight and twisty track. Chased down the leading pack and were in 6th place at the end of the first lap. Continued to chase hard and picked off the leading bunch to take the lead by half distance and held on to the flag.
Race 2 – Had a better start this time but still in 3rd place into the first corner. With the hot weather making the track extremely dusty, visibility was a huge problem for everyone but we managed to get to the front and take another race win.
Race 3 – Due to the extremely dusty conditions and for safety reasons, the 3rd race was abandoned and we now hold a 33 point lead in the championship.

Reims International meeting - 21st May



As we’ve now had a few DNF’s in the Grand Prix and no longer running in the top 10 of the championship, we decided not to make the long and expensive journey to Ukraine Grand Prix this year and instead decided to enter the French International meeting at Reims. In timed practice we were quickest with a 4 second gap to second place.
Race 1 - We gated in around 6th place but moved up to take the lead by the 4th lap but a broken rear wheel bearing kept forcing the chain off and put us out of the race.
Races 2 & 3 went much better with us taking the victory in both races but we were disappointed with the first race DNF depriving us of the title "Kings of Reims"!

Poland World Championship - Round 3 - 17th May



Qualified in 6th place
Race 1 – Gated in the top 10 and holding that place until half way round the first lap when the chain came off. Managed to restart but the deep ruts and big stones on the track damaged the sprocket and put the chain off again ultimately putting us out of race 1.
Race 2 – Had a reasonable start rounding the first corner in the middle of the pack. Raced hard on the very rough and rutted track coming through to take 10th place at the flag.
15th overall on the day and now holding 13th in the championship.

Switzerland World Championship - Round 2 - 3rd May



Qualified in 4th place so on the front row for the start
Race 1 – Had a bad start and well down the field into the first corner. Raced hard to fight our way up to 11th place at the flag.
Race 2 – Had a much better start this time and running in 6th place in the early laps. Held this position until 10 minutes into the race when the mousse in the rear wheel broke up forcing us out of the race.
16th place overall on the day and holding 11th place in the championship.

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April 2009

So far the season has started pretty well for us and we’ve some good results in both the British and World championship rounds that we’ve raced in.

Frome British Championship - Round 3 - 13th April



Race 1 – Took the hole-shot for the first race and managed to extend our lead each lap. At just over half distance the race was stopped though as an accident had blocked the track. As the race had gone over half distance though, the race result stood so we had our first win of the day
Race 2 – Got the hole-shot again and held a comfortable lead through to the flag.
Race 3 – Quick out of the gate but caught behind an accident on the first corner which held us up leaving us in 7th or 8th place. After a couple of laps we were able to move up to 2nd and then passed the leader and held on to take another comfortable win, our 3rd of the day and now holding a 23 point advantage over 2nd place in the championship.

Canada Heights British Championship - Round 2 - 5th April



Race 1 – Gated in second place but managed to take the lead before the end of the first lap and went on to win the race by over half a minute.
Race 2 – Again, gated in second place and as with race one, took the lead before the end of the first lap which we held to take another comfortable win.
Race 3 – Gated just inside the top 5 off the start but was able to pick off the riders in front to take the lead by half race distance on a narrow and now very rough track. Held the lead to the flag taking a 3rd straight win and a healthy lead in the championship.


France World Championship - Round 1 - 29th March



Qualified in 6th place giving us a front row start
Race 1 – A good jump out of the gate but got pushed out wide on the first bend which left us towards the back of the field around 20th place. Came through well to finish the race in 10th place.
Race 2 – Similar start to race 1 leaving us around 20th place again but raced hard to come through the race and finish in 9th place giving us 9th overall on the day.


March 2009

Hello Everyone,

Talsarn British Championship - Round 1 - 8th March



We’ve had our first British Championship round at Talsarn in Wales. Unfortunately, due to very bad weather in the run up to the meeting, the track was extremely wet and muddy. After a difficult practice session, the first race went off and we gated in 2nd position but had moved into first place by midway round the first lap and held this position to the flag despite having to find our way past several outfits stuck in the very muddy conditions. After the race though, the organisers decided that the conditions were too bad to continue and abandoned the meeting.

We were recently invited to do an interview and photo shoot for Superbike Magazine so on Monday 16th March, Luke travelled up to Macclesfield to be interviewed and photographed for the magazine with Stuart. The interviews went well and we are looking forward to people having the chance to get an insight into our sport. The interview will be published in the May issue which should be on sale mid April.

As part of our continued preparation for the 2009 season, we went for a practice session at Market Harborough to work on our race fitness prior to the first of the World Championship rounds. During this session, we were happy to have plenty of riding time and managed two 40+ minute sessions simulating 2 full world championship races. This has been good for our race endurance and we were also pleased to run problem free for the whole day.
We now have 3 consecutive weekends of racing so here are our upcoming races:


February 2009

Hello Everyone,

The new season is fast approaching and our preparations are well under way for what we hope will be a great year for us.
We are pleased that all of our sponsors from last year have been able to continue their sponsorship into 2009 and we are also pleased to welcome a number of new sponsors for this year. We cannot thank you all enough for your support into this 2009 season.

Our new 2009 bike will be a VMC Husaberg 650cc machine and it is almost ready for us to get on the track with so we can work on our race fitness before the new season gets underway on 8th March. We have both been working hard on our fitness over the winter but are now keen to get out on the new bike as we prepare to defend our British title and improve on last years World championship position.
Check out our 2009 fixture list below and we hope that some of you will be able to come and watch us racing this year.

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