Robin and Sam Luscombe ended their association with the British Sidecar Championship series on Sunday with a fighting second place but that finishing positions yielded a record sixteenth British title for the fifty two year old Cullingworth garage owner and his twenty two year old son Sam. The icing on the cake was the partnership with his son.
Robin started riding sidecar in 1980 encouraged by the late Donald Bridge. He won his first championship in 1986 and added three F.I.M. world events. His company Luscombe Suzuki Leeds sponsors the sidecar and youth national championships. Robin commented on completing the Yeadon-Guiseley event-“I am not retiring completely, just cutting back on my riding. I will ride selected events and the Manx Two day Trial which is really a social weekend” His record will never be matched but don’t count on it. With the Peak Trial future in doubt the results of the new look Mel Harrison trial was crucial in the expert ranks.
Rupert and Chris Kimber had an eventful year but have consistently been near or better than Team Luscombe or so it was on Sunday when they came up on the rails after Robin and Sam dropped fifteen marks in Browns Wood where section twenty five to the thirty five trapped the scores. Dob Park featured ten sections with five to seven tracking the stream right up to, but not up it, the Waterfall. The muddy half through the first section stopped Peter Dale and Harriet Shore then added Keiran Hankin and Andy Cripps, the latter does the talking, to the list. The Luscombes failed the long ditch with its muddy exit line but Robin and Sam ran clean through Clifton Quarry, Wave Rocks and the sixteenth section down in Crabtree’s.
Up to that point the early sections in Dob took the marks while the Quarry and Wave Rocks were friendly, even Crabtree’s proved mild. Tuck and Sparkes emerged from Dob on a heady twenty marks but cleared the last fourteen sections on seven but it was a bridge too far for the former British champions. Lusky muttered about a slack five when he surfaced from the dense undergrowth at section thirty in Browns. That stop at previous section provided a sound base for another two stops after he cleaned the really awkward step and turn at the thirtieth section.
The double twisting mud and rock bank really called for some gymnastics on the part of drivers and passengers. In the Inter class Daryl Dale and Hannah Etherington fought back after where only Steve Radford and Kevin Morley went clean. For Steve it was an eventful visit to Dob Park when he braked and hit a rock in the long grass that stopped the Jotogas dead in its tracks hurling Steve headfirst onto a projecting foot peg that gashed his eyelid. A nasty dangerous wound but a ride back to the parc ferme and sticking plaster later and he was ready to continue, to third place!
The Clubman battle was a treat. No matter how hard Nigel Scott and Jay Ashley-Hall rode their permanent shadows were Mark Kemp and Ian Allaway. Ian seemed always in the right place and at the right time of the JAM Beta. Uncanny but brilliant. The pair gapped talented Robbie Head and Aaron Jacobs where deprived of a podium spot by Paul Churchill and Kevin Parnell.
Luke and Josh Golding ran off with Newcomers but were deemed ineligible for points as they were transported between sections, for a good reason, fifteen years of age is a bit young without a driving licence. As they were credited with twenty points at the Clee Hill and Tuck Cross championships were these events totally off-road?