The 5th round of six of this year’s British F2 sidecar championship which takes place at Cadwell Park on 5/6 September. – The latest confrontation in the Founds/Peters versus Holden/Sayle battle for the title. John Holden, three times British champion partnered this year by Dan Sayle, led after each of the first three rounds, but a storming double win by Alan Founds and Tom Peters at round four in contrasting conditions – dry and sunny on the Saturday, torrential rain on the Sunday – sees them lead the title chase by 7.5 points, 158 to 150.5. Unsurprisingly, they’ve won between them 7 of the 8 races so far, with Alan’s brother Pete taking the other victory. He was unavailable for the Anglesey meeting and dropped to fourth in the table behind Ian and Carl Bell. Ian, also a three times champion, has been on the podium four times in the last four races, lies third in the championship, albeit 52 points behind Holden. Sean Reeves and Mark Wilkes are fifth from last year’s runners-up, Conrad Harrison and Lee Patterson, with Steve and Mattie Ramsden in seventh.
In the F2 Cup, the class for the less experienced teams, the aforementioned Reeves, Pete Founds and Ramsden are leading the way but all three teams have led at some stage of the championship. The winners of the first F2 Cup race at Anglesey though were Tom and Thomas Quaye, fourth in the Cup but in race two they were involved in a nasty crash with John and Jake Lowther – both outfits were damaged and all four competitors shaken up – hopefully all 4 and both machines will be on the track this weekend.
Also this weekend, the overall top points scorer in the two races will win the Steve Norbury Trophy, in memory of the 2006 British Champion. Thanks to the Norbury family and also to Bill Barraclough for donating a set of trophies for the Saturday race.
So, all to play for with just this weekend and the final round at Croft in three weeks time to decide matters. Enjoy the spectacle!
Preview by John Newton
Photo by Gary Hesketh.