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In a dramatic and incident packed race at Assen in Holland Tim and Tristan Reeves fought their way back from a seventh lap smash to take fourth place in the third round of the World Sidecars championship and retain their series lead although now reduced to 17 points.
The Reeves brothers were concerned about having to carry 30 kg of extra weight which was imposed after their win at Castle Combe in the last round and their concerns were not without foundation when they went out in qualifying to find the LCR Suzuki was unstable and unpredictable on cornering.
“We ended up going out to get a couple of fast laps in with just a gallon of juice onboard to counteract the disadvantage of carrying the extra weight. It was absolutely suicidal of the organisers to expect us to put ourselves and other competitors in danger and we wrote a letter of protest prior to final qualifying. But it all fell on deaf ears and although we did contemplate withdrawing from the race we did eventually decide to give it a go,” explained Tim.
Muldoon lunged across the track and smashed into the side of Reeves who stood no chance of getting out of his way. The Eastern Airways machine was pushed into the gravel but a determined Tim Reeves steered his way through the kitty litter to re-join once again, this time down in ninth position.
As the fuel load diminished Tim was able to gain more control over his outfit and got his head down to chase through the pack and cross the finish line for fourth place.
“I didnt realise we were on the last lap,” said Tim. “I thought we had one more to go, had I realised I may have been able to have a stab at third as I was only a fraction behind him. That move by Muldoon was a bit desperate to say the least, its cost me the price of a new fairing so I am not very amused.
“The outfit will now have to be checked over with a fine tooth comb for vibration damage before the next race at Sachsenring in Germany on July 16. In the meantime we have to sort out this weight restriction. Because we failed to win today we lose 10kg from our ballast but of course Tero Manninen, who won the race is now given a 10 kg penalty as well. |
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“All the sidecar teams agree that this form of penalty should be scrapped as it is potentially life threatening. If my name was Valentino Rossi the organisers might listen to me but as it is they are just not interested. In the interest of rider safety something needs to be done before there is a bad accident.”
Tim and Tristan take a break from racing this week to attend the annual Day of Champions at Donington Park on Thursday prior to the British Grand Prix where Tim will be giving taxi rides around the circuit for the Riders for Health charity.
“We checked the bike after qualifying and found that the vibration from the extra weight had caused everything to come loose. The rear brake calliper and fuel pump mountings were loose and the rear sprocket actually fell off, plus three rivet heads popped off on the rear of the chassis. All in all we found we were in an extremely dangerous situation and were not at all keen to go out there and race. But we were racing alongside the MotoGP boys and the huge crowd had stayed to watch. With ten minutes remaining before we were due on track we decided we could not let the fans down so reluctantly went out to try and make the best of it.”
With a full fuel load on board as well as the 30kg of weight Tim and Tris knew it was going to be tough out there but as the race got underway they immediately took the lead and tried to control things from the front.
But the bike was unstable and they had a huge moment when the outfit veered sideways across the track. Tim managed to hold it but had dropped back to fourth place.
As the laps ticked by the brothers Reeves gingerly fought their way back to the front ahead of Manninen, Muldoon and Laidlow but their progress was halted one lap later when Muldoon tried to take both Reeves and Manninen in one move at the chicane. |
