Shane Rudloff and Scott Morris win the Sidecar Super Series at Gillman
February 25, 2020 by Gillman Media
As they did in round 2, the Spear brothers, Mitchell and Jack, won the third and final round of the Sidecar Super Series at Gillman on Saturday night, but while they were again impressive in winning the meeting, series leaders Shane Rudloff and Scott Morris were equally impressive as they concentrated on accumulating points to seal the overall series win.
With 11 out of a possible 12 points in the heats, Rudloff and Morris had the series won before the final, and so took more risks in the final which resulted in the race of the night, with only 1.081 seconds between first and fourth at the finish.
Rudloff and Spear exchanged the lead several times before Spear regained the lead for the final time in the last corner to win by just 2 one-hundredths of a second from Rudloff with Kym Menadue/Eric Melton third and Aaron Silvy/Jaron Silvy fourth.
The final would have been a fitting race to end the series but there was one more race to come as Spear/Spear and Neale Hancock/Brendan Johnson had tied for overall third place. The subsequent run-off was another good race with the bikes wheel to wheel until the final lap when Hancock clipped the fence on the back straight and lost some ground.
Mitchell Spear is usually the passenger for Damien Niesche and has only been riding the bike because Niesche has been unavailable, but in just two meetings he has stamped himself as a genuinely good rider, not just because of his results – which saw him drop points in just two of the eleven races he was in - but because of his smooth and controlled style. Results-wise in round two he was only beaten by former World Cup champion Mick Headland, while on Saturday night he only dropped points when he was filled in while close behind Menadue towards the end if the back straight on the last lap of a heat and cut the corner (and was excluded) when he went to clear his vision.
Like series winners Rudloff and Morris, Mendue and Melton had a good series, reaching the final in every round which enabled them to finish second overall.
As mentioned Spear/Spear finished third and Hancock/Johnson fourth after a run-off, with Rick Stephens/Nick O’Brien fifth and Dean Hobbs/Glen Zaworski sixth. After impressive returns in the first two rounds, Hancock, Stephens and Hobbs all had disappointing nights which prevented them challenging for a higher finish.
Conversely Aaron and Jaron Silvy, and Nathan Fleet/Ayrton Canning, after just missing the semi-finals in the first two rounds, both made the semi-final on Saturday night and Silvy/Silvy went one better by winning and going in the final. Silvy’s points haul enabled him to finish equal sixth with Hobbs, while Fleet finished two points behind in eighth.
In the division 1 Solos, Seth Hickey won the first heat by half-a-lap with Fraser Bowes struggling on a rough track, but with a smoother track after the first track grade, Bowes won the other four heats ahead of a hard-chasing Hickey.
Darryl Christopher, Nicholas Possingham and Teagan Pedler had some close races in the division 2 Solos, particularly the final heat where they finished wheel-to-wheel with Possingham passing Pedler on the run to the line and just failing to also pass Christopher.
Some of the closest Solo races of the night were between Jake Mitchell and Doug Hayden in the Flat Track Solos, although Mitchell come home first in every heat, and between Harry Sadler and Ashley Jansen-Batchelor in the Under 16 125cc Solos.
Full heat results are on the Gillman website under the Results tab.