2016 AUSTRALIAN SIDECAR TITLE DECIDER

AUSTRALIAN SIDECAR TITLE DECIDED AT WEEKEND

The Riordan’s Paint & Panel, 2016 Australian Speedway Sidecar Championship will be decided over two thrilling nights at Mildura’s Olympic Park Speedway on Friday and Saturday, 8th and 9th April.

The sixth time that Mildura has hosted the Australian Sidecar Championship, this year will see the conduct of the Qualifying meeting on Friday night where sixteen teams will be reduced to eight teams, who will go on to the Saturday night Championship Final to ride against eight “seeded” riders who have been selected into a preferred final position by the Motorcycling Australia, Speedway Commission.

The Commission have considered the top four teams from last year’s Australian Title and have added the State champions, or the best finishers in the major Speedway States to make the eight riders who have been seeded directly into the Championship Final.

A large number of nominations, the largest number for many years, were considered by the Commission, based on the recorded performances over this current speedway season.

The defending Champions, Justin Plaisted / Sam Harrison, SA, are a direct seeding and they had their first ride at Olympic Park last weekend and did well, making the Final, but losing to Darrin Treloar / Blake Cox, NSW who have been in scintillating form. Treloar / Cox won the Mildura Invitational last week after taking the Oceania Sidecar Championship held over two meetings at Gillman and Undera but better than that, they won the FIM Sidecar World Cup before the start of that series with an authoritative performance against riders from USA, UK and New Zealand.

Treloar, who is the best Sidecar speedway rider in the history of the sport, has won eight Australian Championships as well as a World Championship and, just two weeks ago added the FIM Sidecar World Cup to his mantelpiece. Treloar won his first Australian Title way back in 1993 at the Northline Speedway in Darwin and since then had added to his collection, including twice winning in three consecutive years in a row.

Plaisted / Harrison will be right on the pace from the start of the Saturday night Championship event. They make great starts and ride hard in the corners, which is a trait of all the good riders.

Mildura’s Warren Monson / Matt Morgan and Neale Hancock and Brendan Johnson have both been seeded directly to Final night with Monson being the second placed team last year and Hancock / Johnson being ‘best placed” Victorians in the Victorian Championship, where they finished behind another seeded rider in Rick Howse / Adam Commons from Broken Hill.

Monson / Morgan have good speed and have massive acceleration from the corners, so they will match it with the very best as they did at Alice Springs last year. They put in some strong rides to be into the “A” Final in a well deserved position, riding against the best in Australia.

The Broken Hill duo have been right on the pace for some time now, with only a severe injury about three years ago to Rick Howse causing a hiatus after such a good second place at the Australian Title at the Newcastle Showground in 2010. The direct seeding of Howse and Commons will be of great interest to the folk of the Silver City, with many Broken Hill folk expected to cheer their favourite riders on. They will be a strong podium chance.

Dual World Champion, Mick Headland, SA, has also been seeded, originally with his World Championship winning son, Jesse, in the Sidecar. However a nasty crash at the FIM World Sidecar Cup two weeks ago has seen the severely injured Jesse hospitalized, so British passenger, Liam Brown will take over the duties beside the very fast Headland patriarch.

Brown has been in Australia riding in International events in recent weeks on the side of British Sidecar ace, Robbie Wilson. Brown’s experience will see him settle well with Mick, so the team should still start the Championship with confidence.

Fellow SA riders seeded are the family combination of Arron and Teagan Hartwig, who have done a lot of travelling for not much riding in the World meetings which have been going on. They are a fast and skillful young pairing and form a major part of the future of Sidecar speedway in Australia.

The remaining seeds are the Queensland Champions, Wes Jenkins / Hagan Campbell, who have not been partaking of the recent top level meetings, but are known as being hard riders, so they should handle the pressure of a tough Championship.

The riders who will meet this top eight selected riders will provide the major fight on the Friday night after the Official Practice, which will start at 4:00pm.

The Qualifying meeting also reads as a “who’s who” of Australian Sidecar speedway with many riders bringing good form to the meeting.

Great recent results have come the way of Trent Headland / Daz Whetstone SA / UK, with some consistent second placings in the large meetings of the last few weeks. This young combination have gelled well as a team and they have the very experienced and four times Australian Champion, Glenn O’Brien in their corner offering sage advice where required.

Former Australian Champion, Mark Mitchell / Dale Knights, SA, are another good and strong team, with Mitchell winning his Title at Mildura when the Club hosted the Championship for the last time in 2009. Trent Headland and Mitchell head up a strong representation from SA, with Mark Plaisted / Darcy Risstrom, Luke Puddy / Damian Egan, Damien Niesche / Mitch Spear and Shane Rudloff / Scott Morris showing the depth of the Gillman based group of Sidecar teams.

Plaisted / Risstrom, have been very quick this year and have had some good podium placings to their credit. A new combination for the season, Plaisted / Risstrom have gelled into a slick team, with Mark being good from the line with most starts, which gives the team good opportunity into the first turn. Niesche / Spear are probably the next best credentialed of the SA teams apart from Headland and Mitchell, so they are expected to feature in the top half of the field. All SA riders selected have deserved their places in the field which reflects the standard of racing at Gillman over recent years.

The NSW teams are strong with the evergreen Grant Bond / Glenn Cox, heading the stack. Bond, Senior will be riding his twenty – second consecutive Australian Championship and the laconic man from the Hunter Valley will be riding hard and tight as usual. Bond and Cox, the elders, will ride the tightish Olympic Park as well as any, so a Title berth could be right for the taking. They are a good pair, now with a lot of experience as a top team.

The other Bond / Cox team are the sons of each of Grant and Glenn, with Hayden Bond / Brady Cox, growing into a formidable team, commanding respect from many more experienced riders. These two families are amongst the most respected families in the sport and to see two fathers and their sons as opponents, with Glenn Cox having his lads ride against him at some time, must give him a deal of pride.

Also from NSW is the regular visitor to Mildura in Shane Hudson / Eli Wright, who have impressed with good speed and some podium finishes during this present season.

Hudson is fast and aggressive, but can stray from the set tasks on occasions. Since pairing with Wright, Hudsons performances have become more consistent. The NSW representation is solid, with good performances expected from all teams.

The Sunshine State has some good riders in the Qualifying with Brodie Cohen / Josh Sinnott,

Tyler Moon / Adam Lovell, Rob Patterson / Don Morris, Dave and Chris Bottrell and Dylan Blain / Hamish Golding all expected to have an impact on the Qualifying result.

The Cohen / Sinnott team have visited Mildura and raced a couple of times this season with a view to doing as well as possible in the Qualifying meeting. Cohen was unlucky to spin while leading the final of the Mildura Sidecar Spectacular, but his place in the Final was well deserved and his form was good.

The first visit of Tyler Moon / Adam Lovell last weekend was drama filled with the young Moon blowing up his best machine. He has a style which reminds many fans of his late father, Gary, who took two second placings in Australian Championships at Mildura in 1996 and 2001. Maybe Tyler can make it through the Qualifying meeting and into the main event.

Dave and son, Chris Bottrell, have had a wretched visit south this year, but their luck must change, as the only luck they have had has been bad. Bottrell is a class performer and has taken second place twice in previous Championships, so he will be expecting to do well on Friday night.

Blain and Golding have had plenty of racing over recent weeks and should have ridden into some form, while Patterson has not had such a good time recently.

The Victorians who have made it into the Qualifying field is local teams, Clint Mayes / Sean Coleby, who have had a brilliant season thus far and the evergreen Byren Gates / Mick O’Loughlin, who have been putting some very good meetings together towards seasons end. Mayes has had a sabbatical for a couple of years, but a newly built machine and taking on the experienced Sean Coleby as his new passenger has revitalized the Mayes crew and they have shown wonderful for this year and could expect to be well in contention on Friday night.

The Gates / O’Loughlin team is sound, with good track skills on their home track. No rider in the field will have completed as many laps at Gates and his machine has been working well of late. O’Loughlin is a tenacious passenger and will work overtime to ensure that they get the best opportunity on the track. They should be a big chance to make it to Final night.

The Qualifying meeting will just be over twenty heats with the top eight points scorers taking their allocated places in the Saturday Championship event. Qualifying positions will be decided on count back should any teams finish on the same points.

Whoever the eight teams who make it through the Qualifying will well deserve their place in the Riordan’s Paint a& Panel 2016 Championship, but they will need to be mindful that another high quality eight teams will be waiting for them for the Saturday night Final event which will be conducted using twenty quality heats and then a “B” and “A” Final to decide the top seven positions for 2016.

Gates will open to the public at 4:00pm on Friday, just in time for the Official Title Practice to begin. Practice will be from 4:00pm until 5:00pm with racing set to commence at 7:30pm.

Saturday, gates will open at 4:00pm with the 2016 Junior Title to commence at 5:30 pm. A rider parade will begin at 7:10 pm which will include the Official Opening at 7:20. Racing will follow at 7:30pm.

Patrons are reminded that Olympic Park has a full and excellent catering service and that there must be No BYO by law. Patrons too are able to avail themselves of the excellent, well positioned Free Grandstand facilities which are provided around the Stadium for your enjoyment. Spectators are asked to refrain for taking chairs onto the Grandstands and are asked to not reserve big portions of the stands for later in the night. The Grandstands are for the enjoyment and viewing for all and adults are asked to keep their children under control on the stands.

Olympic Park Speedway is straight out 11th Steer West and at the end of Winton Drive.

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