The first round of the ACU Track Racing Sidecar Championship took place at the Scunthorpe’s Eddie Wright Raceway and after 19 action-packed races it was Warwickshire’s Mark Cossar and Andi Wilson who won the sudden-death final.
However, with contact allowed during the entry to bends there was plenty of incidents including in the final when the eventual winners collided with the race leaders, Rob and Gareth Winterburn. They managed to force their way through as the Winterburns ground to a halt.
During qualifying it looked like the Winterburn/Winterburn pairing would go through the card but they got stuck right at the back of heat 11 and could only make it up to third place behind the Ivor Matthew/Rick McAuley and Paul Whitelam/Alan Elliott pairings. It left them tied on 16 points with Cossar/Wilson after defeating them twice and first choice of gate. Picking the inside gate they led from the tapes but couldn’t pull away and the forceful move by Cossar/Wilson proved their undoing.
Afterwards Andi Wilson announced “The track is so wide. There is so much space for passing on the inside or the outside. If every track was like this it would be brilliant”. Ironically the second round is at the diminutive St.Boniface Arena at Plymouth on Friday 17th April with further rounds at King’s Lynn (15th May and 5th June) and Newport (20th June) before the climax to the championship back at the Eddie Wright Raceway on Saturday 4th July (7pm start). With track of vastly different sizes and shapes it is certainly going to be interesting to see who qualifies for the winner takes all final race of the championship.
Grand Final:
1st Mark Cossar/Andi Wilson
2nd Gary Jackson/Carl Blyth
3rd Ivor Matthews/Rick McAuley
4th Rob Winterburn/Gareth Winterburn
Championship Points:
1st Mark Cossar/Andi Wilson 20, 2nd Rod Winterburn/Gareth Winterburn 17, 3rd= Gary Jackson/Carl Blyth 15, 3rd= Ivor Matthews/Rick McAuley 15, 5th Paul Whitelam/Alan Elliott 11, 6th Matt Tyrell/Shaun Yates 10, 7th Peter Lloyd/Tom Cossar 8, 8th Tris Winterburn/Kevin Colbourne 7, 9th Rob Bradley/Neville Armstrong 6, 10th Robbie Wilson/Colin Hill 5, 11th Will Offen/Andy Wood 3, 12th Mick Cave/Ben Goddard 0. Reserve: Craig Smith/Brett Edge 2.
Please note results are unofficial.
