Eight Qualfiers For The Australian Sidecar Championship Decided - March 2013

March 30, 2013 by Gillman Media

The final eight riders to contest the K Trans 2013 Australian Sidecar Championship were determined in a Qualifying Meeting at Gillman Speedway tonight (30 March).

While there were the inevitable surprises, by-and-large most of the expected riders qualified.

The meeting was won quite easily by the Cairns flyer Wes Jenkins and his teenage Adelaide passenger Damian Egan. Jenkins finished with a 15 point maximum score from his five rides and will be tough to beat tomorrow night (31 March), as will tonight’s runner-up, Mark Drew.

Drew and passenger Steven Blair were only beaten by Jenkins and finished with 14 points.

Third place went to the other Western Australian in the meeting, Russell Mitchell (passenger Don Morris) with 11 points.

Fourth qualifier was Mildura’s Byren Gates/Michael O’Loughlin with 10 points. They were looking borderline with only 5 points from their first three rides, but then finished with two very impressive wins against several riders who were also in contention for a berth in the championship meeting.

Fifth was the first of the local riders, Jason Hardy – Geoff Langdon, also with 10 points.

Sixth was Rick Stephens/Dale Knights with 9 points, and seventh was Trent Headland/Jesse Headland on 8.

The eighth and final place went to 17-year-old NSW duo Hayden Bond/Brady Cox on countback from Dad’s Army rider Neale Hancock (passenger Lachlan Greenhalgh) after both finished on 7 points.

The other non-qualifiers were:
Damien Niesche/Mitchell Spear 5, Clint Mayes/Andrew Summerhayes 4, Shane Hudson/Lionel Cornwell 4, Malcolm German/Steven Stagg 3, Chris Dess/Kyle Laverty 2, James Hinton/Jack Summerling 1, Mark Mitchell/Tom Golding 0, Arron Hartwig/Teagan Hartwig (reserve) 8, Tim Bichard/Adam Pfitzner (reserve) 1, Aaron Sily/Matthew Barkla (reserve) 0.

Niesche started well with a close second to Mark Drew in heat 2, but his bike was smoking badly at the start of his next ride and after finishing third his bike was out for the night. He took his final two rides on Brodie Cohen’s bike but could only manage another two points.

German also started well with a win in heat one, but like Niesche, his bike was smoking badly in his next ride and he was out for the rest of the night.

The biggest surprise of the night was the failure of 2009 champions Mark Mitchell-Tom Golding, who were hit by mechanical problems and failed to score a point.

The opposite was the case for teenage reserves Arron and Teagan Hartwig. They scored 8 points from just three rides but as they only came into the meeting in the third round they were not eligible to qualify despite scoring enough points to do so.