ROUND two- east fortune
scottish sidecar festival
20TH - 21sT april
Supported by 1st Call Refrigeration
Words - Raitch Greenwood / Photographs - Sid Diggins
Saturday 20th april
The second round of the First Call Refrigeration Pre-injection series was at East Fortune circuit on 20th/21st April for the Festival of Sidecars. Out of 7 classes in total, 4 were for sidecars, meaning that, along with our few guests who made up our numbers, we were given our own grid. Thanks to Marin Motorsport we also benefitted from heavily subsidised entry and a commemorative Jock Taylor coin for participants, as well as two free breakfasts and a free Saturday evening meal for the teams and their crew!
Following separate free practice and qualifying, a 10 lap race 1 got underway in the afternoon in cold but dry and bright conditions.
Finishing 1st in the F2 class were Redd Gilroy/Alex Ludlow (Windle Thundercat), 2nd place was taken by Steve Woolcott/Tom Saville (Derbyshire 600), and 3rd were Jan Tyrrell/Joanne Thomas (Baker Thundercat).
In the F1 class 1st was Gary Fairhurst/Billy Andrews (Windle Kawasaki), 2nd Mark Burns/Jack Fairhurst (LCR Yamaha), and 3rd were Dave Tibbles/Raitch Greenwood (DDR Suzuki). Ciaran McVey/Bryn Rooney suffered serious engine issues with their Derbyshire Suzuki, which, despite an overnight engine change, left them sadly finishing no races this weekend. Unfortunately, circumstances prevailed and the last 3 races of the day, including our scheduled 2nd race, were postponed until Sunday morning.
Sunday 21st april
A copious quantity of leaked oil on track first thing gave the marshals and officials a big clean-up job, which they followed up with an open sidecar practice session to allow teams to make a judgement on the safety of the surface which was already wet from overnight rain. These important safety measures did unfortunately cause an overall delay of around 90 minutes.
The cold, damp and drizzly skies meant that when our our carry-over race 2 from Saturday did get underway we saw a variety of tyre choices across the grid, although the spillage had been well cleaned up and on track conditions weren’t bad, even on slicks.
In the F2 class, a problem with the chair wheel saw Gilroy/Ludlow having to sit this one out. 1st place was taken by Woolcott/Saville and 2nd by Tyrell/Thomas.
In the F1 class, mechanical issues saw Burns/Fairhurst retire on lap 3. Fairhurst/Andrews took 1st, 2nd place went to McMahon/Ranson, and, making a welcome return to the pre-injection championship, 3rd was taken by Wesley Pettman/Derek Salleh (Baker Yamaha).
After lunch the weather conditions took a turn for the worse, and the rain was set in. On a combined, split grid with the club F1s and classics, race 3 started with nearly everyone opting for wets. Conditions on track were a bit skiddy and visibility was challenging at times, and an incident with one of the club sidecars spinning off had the race red flagged. We all returned to the paddock for a brief time while they checked the track was safe and were promptly re-called to line up for a 5 lap re-start.
Taking another 1st in the F2 class were Gilroy/Ludlow, taking 2nd were Tyrell/Thomas.
In the F1 class, Fairhurst/Andrews were 1st, Tibbles/Greenwood were 2nd, and Pettman/Salleh 3rd.
All in all an eventful but extremely enjoyable weekend, which saw many of us undertaking more tyre changes in one morning than we ever thought possible!
We would like to send a heartfelt thank you to Gavin Browne and all at Melville Motor Club, as well as Boris Stroud and Bonny Hazen (Marin Motorsports) for putting on this great event.
And to all the marshals who stood out in some pretty horrendous conditions and dealt with numerous oil spills and even at one point a deer on the track.
The third championship round will be at Cadwell Park with the British Historic Racing Club, on 11th/12th May.



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