Isle of Man sidecar star Reeves sees World Championship lead disappear
Wednesday 25 July 2012
TT
Isle of Man TT sidecar regular Tim Reeves suffered mixed fortunes in his latest World Championship outings.
Racing at Schleiz in Germany, Reeves, partnered by Ashley Hawes, won the first race, but failed to finish race two.
After qualifying 5th, close racing was expected, especially with less than a second separating the top six.
Rainfall before the first race added a new dimension to proceedings, but it didn’t matter to Reeves and Hawes as they made a superb start to grab the lead of the 11-lap race.
Reading his pit board, Reeves was able to control the gap to second-placed Jorg Steinhausen and Gregory Cluze and any time the German-French pairing closed up, he was able to pull away almost immediately, eventually taking the chequered flag 1.6 seconds clear for his third win of the season.
That victory increased his lead in the Championship to 19 points, but that advantage was wiped out as soon as Sunday's 22-lap race got underway.
Reeves and Hawes made another great start, but with some bumping and barging at the first corner they opted for the outside line to stay out of trouble - or so they thought! In fact, they fell victim to a late-breaking outfit from the back of the field, punting them out of the race. Hawes was knocked out of the outfit, luckily escaping with bumps and bruises, and the LCR machine emerged relatively unscathed.
Pekka Paivarinta and Adolf Hanni won the race to match the 120points total of Reeves in the championship table.
Reeves said:
“The weekend was really good - and then it was really bad!"
“Prior to that, everything had gone perfect. Fifth in qualifying was spot-on and I didn't want to keep throwing tyres on so was more than happy with our pace.”
“I got a great start in the first race and just went up the inside of everyone at the first corner! Steiny wasn't too far behind, but I was able to control the race from the front and just kept my eye on my pit board. It enabled us to extend our lead further, but that, of course, has now disappeared.”
“It would have been nice to have still had a good cushion going into the last rounds, but, on the plus side, the bike's flying and I'm really happy with how I'm driving so I'm confident of some more wins.”
He added:
“It's a case of winner takes all now and whoever can win races and be the most consistent will win the World Championship. We're heading to Assen now for the Gamma Race Day meeting, where we'll get some decent testing done, and then head to Oschersleben all raring to go.”
“The team did a great job again this weekend so big thanks to everyone involved especially Ash, the Haith family, H&S Contractors and everyone at Dave Hudspeth Carpets.”
The next round of the championship is at Germany’s Oschersleben circuit on August 10-11.