Australian Champions win their first SA Championship at Gillman Speedway

March 12, 2018 by Gillman Media

The South Australian Sidecar Championship is rightly regarded as one of the hardest fought events on the speedway calendar, but the news obviously did not get through to Australian Champions Trent Headland and Darryl Whetstone, as they blitzed the event at Gillman Speedway on Saturday night (10 March) to win their first State title with comparative ease.

With most of the twelve seeded riders considered a realistic chance of winning before the meeting, the winner was impossible to pick with any confidence, but Headland/Whetstone made it look easy, clocking the fastest time of the night in heat one as they started an unbeaten run of six starts for six wins.

The four finalists were also relatively clear cut as the other three – Andrew Buchanan/Denny Cox, Mark Plaisted/Ben Pitt and Mark Mitchell/tony Carter – only lost points when they all met in heat five.

At the time it just looked to be an early block-buster as it brought together the first four heat winners, but it also turned out to be a forerunner of the final.

Headland got the early lead and raced away with Buchanan in second being pushed by Mitchell. Plaisted from gate four had chosen to drop back and switch to the inside line but it didn’t work and he was stuck in last place. Mitchell continued to harass Buchanan until he (Mitchell) half spun on lap three, forcing Plaisted to run off the track to avoid a collision. The race was stopped and the result declared with Mitchell excluded, and with all four riders winning their remaining races, the final points were Headland 15, Buchanan 14, Plaisted 13 and Mitchell 12.

That exclusion put Mitchell into the semi-final against Mick Headland/Brenton Kerr (11), Kym Menadue/Eric Melton (9) and Arron Hartwig/Teagan Hartwig (9). Mitchell, Menadue and Hartwig had all met in heat 19 which was the race of the season, with the duel between Hartwig and Mitchell bringing the crowd to their feet. With Mick Headland thrown into the mix suggested another thrilling race in the semi-final but while there was an exciting race between Headland, Hartwig and Menadue for the minor placings, Mitchell won easily to take full advantage of his second chance of a final berth.

The final was a similar race to the semi-final with three riders – Buchanan, Plaisted and Mitchell – in an exciting wheel-to-wheel race for the minor placings, while Headland cleared out for a comfortable win.

The riders return in a fortnight (24 March) for the final round of the Nankang Tyres Super Series, where they’ll be joined by Darrin Treloar, Warren Monson, British riders Mark Cossar, Will Penfold, Americans Joe Jones, Bryan Motis, and Kiwis Jamie and Dylan Moohan, in the last meeting before the FIM Oceania Championship/FIM World Cup double the following weekend.