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Reigning World champions Tim and Tristan Reeves rode to a win and a second place at Salzburgring in Austria to extend their series lead in the 2006 Sidecar World Championship to 42 points over nearest rivals Tero Manninen and Pekka Kuismanen who crashed out of the sprint race and completed Sunday’s Gold race in third place.
Tim and Tristan were already carrying a 20Kg winners penalty weight which slowed them slightly but they made no mistake in qualifying and posted the fastest time of the session to claim pole position for the weekend’s set of two races.
In Saturday’s 10-lap sprint race Tim and Tristan were held back in second place by the French pairing of Sebastian Delannoy and Remy Guignard at the start but Tim was not taking no for an answer and brushed them aside to take command on lap three.
Although chased all the way home by Paivarinta and Karttiala the current champions crossed the finish line with over a second to spare to claim the 25 championship points and the race win.
With the race win also came a further 10Kg of ballast for the Kent brothers bringing them back up to a maximum penalty of 30 Kg which was to prove a bit of a disadvantage.
The race was delayed because of torrential rain and when the outfits finally set off at the start of the 20 lap Gold race Tim was having trouble controlling the LCR Suzuki.
He was down in fourth place but rapidly homing in on the top three machines when he spun off at the chicane. |
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“The problem was that I was using a new engine and was having difficulty with the brake bias which took ages to adjust,” explained Tim. “By the time I had it sorted the top three had got away.”
As soon as he got the machine settled Tim got his head down and slowly began to reel in the front-runners. By the midway stage of the race he had moved ahead of Delannoy and set his sights on Manninen some way ahead and as the race progressed he inched his way nearer and nearer to the Finnish outfit eventually making a clean pass on the penultimate lap.
Although it was evident that Tim and Tristan could not catch the race-leader he needed to get some distance between himself and Manninen and pulled out a small but significant gap, which he held to the chequered flag.
Paivarinta took the win with a 20 second advantage over the Brothers Reeves who in turn were 1.6 seconds ahead of Manninen.
“Despite the fact that I was unable to claim the double victory I am more than happy with that result,” said Tim. “With Manninen crashing out of the first race and then finishing behind me in the second race I find I have extended my series lead to 42 points and on top of that I have shed my extra 10Kg ballast and head into the next round with 20Kg which is a little more manageable.”
The next round is on Sunday at Rijeka in Croatia where round six of the series will comprise of three points scoring races.
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