It all started very well at Brands Hatch, we had a straight forward run down, with only minimal delays at the Dartford crossing.
We set everything up very quickly in the sidecar paddock, ably supervised be Obersturmfuhrer Christine and ate a leisurely dinner.
Later in the evening, the On The Edge Racing crew bravely hiked up to the Kentagon bar to help Kerry find her beer coat.
With this daring mission accomplished, we all retired for a good nights sleep.
Practice on Saturday morning was great, and Shelli quickly got to grip with the varied delights of Brands Hatch, and we had a load of fun dicing with the Harley-engined outfit of Dutch visitors Richard Pouwels and Kim Van Goch.
We checked the bike over, and then went out for the first race. We drew 5th place on the grid, and Shelli said she was happy to start from there, as it would be "exciting".............if only she had known!
The flag dropped and 26 outfits rushed into Paddock Turn, then the problems began. Two of the leading outfits came together on the way into the corner and both of them ended up spinning back onto the track, causing mayhem. the out-of-control outfits collected others as they veered across the track, all in all, six or seven outfits were caught up in the mess, and unfortunately Ian Johnson and Kevin Roughan's Banshee Imp ended up "on it's roof". Ian broke one leg and one ankle, and Kevin broke an ankle and injured a hand. Get well soon lads. Unbelievably. no-one else was seriously hurt.
In the re-started race, which was delayed until after lunch, we had a great race including a frantic drag race down the start/finish straight with Grant and Ian Tapsell's Triplebrew Trident. Towards the end of the race, the gearchange on our bike became very stiff, as the clutch was dragging. This resulted in me missing a gear as we tried to hold off Keith and Dave Latheron's Weslake on the line.
We attempted adjustment of the clutch before race 2 but it was all to no avail. The gear change was as bad, if not worse in this race, but we still managed to finish 9th in class, but it was a bit of a boring and frustrating race.
After racing for the day was finished, we stripped, cleaned a readjusted the clutch ready for the Sunday races.
Saturday evening was the night of the Gristwood and Tom's sidecar party, and what a do it was! With Dave Gristwood plying everyone with drinks, and Den and Christine's karaoke, the evening flew by as everyone had enough to eat and drink, although Ben Gray may have taken the latter to extremes. To be fair, have blown his brand new engine to bits on the first lap of practice, he had plenty of sorrows to drown.
The first race on the Sunday was, literally, a non-starter for us. It became apparent that even on the sighting lap, the clutch was slipping under load, so we retired before starting the race.
We raided Dennis Etheridge's trailer for some spare clutch friction plates and fitted these before race two, but the steel plates in the clutch were also damaged, and although we finished the race, the clutch was slipping badly, and to be fair if the race hadn't been stopped early because of an accident involving Grant and Ian, it is unlikely we would have finished. Grant broke his arm in this accident and has gained some metal plates in it. Hopefuly they are titanium, so they won't add to much weight to the Trident. Obviously, we send our best wishes to Grant.
The clutch is now repaired and the engine is out of the bike awaiting new big end bolts and bearings, and we will test at Mallory Park before the next race at Snetterton.
All the best
Nick.