SIDECAR RACE B

Today’s second sidecar race was won by Dave Molyneux and Daniel Sayle, breaking the lap record but staying tantalisingly outside of achieving the first sub-20 minute lap. For Molyneux it was his tenth victory, equalling the record of Cumbrian driver Rob Fisher.

On the first of the three laps, first race winners Dave Molyneux and Dan Sayle took their new Honda outfit round in 20 minutes 15.1 seconds, an average speed of 111.78mph, to lead fellow local crew Nick Crowe and Darran Hope by 28.9 seconds, with Steve Norbury and Scott Parnell third a further 4.2 seconds back.

The top three were the same as the finishing order of the first race, and Roy Hanks and Dave Wells continued the sequence by running fourth, with Greg Lambert and Ivan Murray fifth and Gary Bryan and Steve Hedison sixth.

Lap two saw Molyneux and Sayle extending their lead at the rate of a second a mile. At the halfway point in the race they headed Crowe and Hope by 47 seconds, with Norbury and Parnell holding on to third place.

At the end of the second lap, Molyneux and Sayle broke the lap record by 4.3 seconds at 113.17mph to lead Crowe and Hope by 51 seconds, but were one-fifth of a second outside the 20 minute barrier! The latter lapped at 110.61mph but had no real reply to the Regaby pair’s stupendous pace. Norbury and Parnell retained third, 21 seconds ahead of Hanks and Wells, but 21.3 seconds behind the second crew.

Fourth were still Hanks and Wells, fifth Lambert and Murray and sixth Bryan and Hedison. Former world champions Klaus Klaffenbock and Christian Parzer were going great guns in their debut year and worked the second lap up to 104.14mph to run 14th. However, not long afterwards they retired at Glen Vine with mechanical trouble but vowing to return next year when they will go for Honda power rather than Yamaha.

Molyneux and Sayle dutifully knocked off the third and final lap in 20 minutes 48.9 seconds, averaging 108.75 and finishing at 111.20mph, winning by 37.4 seconds from Crowe and Hope. The first four places were a repeat of Saturday’s first race, with Norbury and Parnell third and Hanks and Wells fourth. The reliability of the leading outfits was remarkable.

The first change to the second lap order came when Bryan and Hedison displaced Lambert and Murray for fifth , with John Holden and Jamie Winn getting the better of Ben Dixon and Mark Lambert for seventh place.

Allan Schofield and Mark Cox were ninth and veteran Bill Currie, passengered by Philip Bridge the tenth placemen.