The Diss MCC hosted the second round of the ACU British Clubmans Sidecarcross championships at their Wattisfield Hall circuit yesterday. Also incorporated in the three races was the Taffmeisters East Anglian championship in which any rider can score points whereas in the Clubmans only registered riders can score.
Once again the club had done an excellent job of preparing the track and although there had been an amount of heavy rain in the preceding few days conditions were still good.
The leaders in the championship after the first round, Steve Pannell / Chris Pannell, were non starters as Steve is out of action with a damaged knee.
In timed practice Simon Bradford / Luke Peters were fastest from Stephen Parr / Ian Sheppard with David Keane / Paul Horton third. (Keane / Horton would only be eligible for points in the Taffmeisters championship).
When the gate dropped for the opening moto Bowers / Eastman got the drive up the slope and were into turn one just in front of Pannell / Bishop and Bradford / Peters. Keane was back in fifth place but quickly passed Walton / Barnes to take fourth.
By half distance Bradford had passed Pannell and Keane was also past on the next lap. Bradford was now really pushing Bowers but try as he did he couldn’t quite make the pass. But on the very last lap he finally got past and went on to take the win from Bowers with Keane third and Pannell fourth.
Because of time constraints the second and third races were shortened to twelve minutes plus one lap.
In the second moto Bradford got the holeshot from Bowers with Parr / Sheppard third and Keane in fourth. Pannells race did not last more than one lap as he was forced to pull out with a nasty cut on his forehead.
Bradford did not put a wheel wrong and went on to take the win fairly comfortably. The real race was for second place with Keane, having displaced Parr on lap two, all over Bowers. Just after half distance he saw his chance and was past. He went on to finish second with Bowers third and Grey / Grey fourth.
The final race of the day saw Bowers take the holeshot from Keane with Bradford third. Keane took the lead on the first lap and Bradford also got past Bowers to take second place. In fourth place were Walton / Barnes but they were coming under pressure from Blackman / Maguire. By lap two Blackman was up to fourth but Walton wasn’t finished yet and got fourth place back on lap five.
Keane went on to take the win from Bowers with Bradford having to settle for third place.
Bowers now leads the Clubmans championship on 102 points with Bradford just five points adrift in second and Lawry / Mitchell third on 78 points.
In the Taffmeisters championship Bradford leads on seventy points with Keane second just one point behind and Bowers third on 64 points.
The next round of the Clubmans is next weekend at Long Buckby and the second round of the Taffmeisters is at East Hanningfield on 15th June.