Shobdon at Downwood Farm
Rd 7 AMCA Sidecar Championships
Report by Wayne James, Pics by Emma Bradford

The 2008 annual Weston Beach race was held on the weekend of the 11th and 12th of October 2008. The Saturday was the quad and sidecar race with Sunday being the day of the huge solo race. Simon Bradford and Neil James of Bradford Racing were entered in the sidecar race with sponsorship from Stewart Lines of Maximum Solutions, and Stewart himself was riding along with new passenger Geoff Wigglesworth.
Weston is always a lottery and everyone knows there is always an element of luck involved in this type of race.  So much can go wrong, a breakdown, get taken out, physical exhaustion, the list goes on. The Bradford Racing duo were pretty confident with their preparation. They had won the tough “Welsh 2 Day Enduro” back in June and more recently they had won “The Simon Rees Memorial Hare and Hounds” in August, which was a 3 hour hare and Hounds at Cwmythig Hill motocross track.

The bike they were riding at Weston was one of their spare KTM VMC 540’s which had been meticulously prepared by Bill Bradford. New guards were fitted around the bike to try to reduce the amount of sand flying up, a large enduro tank was fitted and also a six speed gearbox. Simon and Neil’s bike was also sporting a new livery, the same as Stewart Lines and Geoff Wigglesworth’s Yamaha VMC 480. They were all white with new “Maximum Solutions” graphics, this was due to Stewart’s sponsorship and the fact they will be riding for him next year.
As Saturday morning dawned, the skies were blue and the weather was really nice with glorious sunshine.  There were some good sidecars entered, including GP crews, British Championship MX crews and also British Championship Enduro crews. 

Just before 11 am Neil and Simon ran to get their bike out of park ferme and were in the top thirty or so as the sidecars and quads headed down to the beach. As the clock turned to 11am they released the gates and a mixture of 500 Sidecars and quads roared down the beach. Weston start straight is always a spectacle and this was no different to any other year! As the first bikes appeared around the first turn, Simon and Neil were clearly well up and were the first sidecar. The boys seemed to clear the first dune with relative ease, but then found that the next few weren’t  so easy! They were off pushing and by this time there were others getting stuck around them making it much harder to try to find good lines.

Disaster then struck. While still leading the sidecars, the boys hit about the tenth dune so hard it smashed a “T” off on the radiator and left them go up in a cloud of steam! That was the end of their challenge. Simon killed the engine and the boys pushed their bike back to the pits which was an extremely long way!

The pit crew of Bill Bradford, Emrys James and Paul Morris were ready and waiting for the boys. Simon and Neil entered the pit area and Bill and Emrys got to work on the bike. At first it wasn’t sure if there has been other damage done to the bike but Bill had a quick look and gave the thumbs up for the boys to carry on.

By this time nearly 45 minutes had gone by so any chance of the boys going for the victory had gone. Nevertheless, the boys charged on and put in some seriously fast laps to gain a place or two. In doing that they set the fastest lap of the race which was something the boys were to be later, really pleased about. The rest of the race seemed to go well for them, but they did have one bit of a moment when Simon decided to go over the bars and looked like a pro as he graciously went face first into a deep puddle! Obviously pleased with his efforts Si then got up and bowed to crowd, who were in hysterics and cheering!

After 3 hours of racing the race came to a close, with Simon and Neil pulling their way back up to 13th place, which was a good effort with the troubles they had encountered. They both found it pretty hard but had enjoyed it all the same. The big news was that Stewart Lines and Geoff Wigglesworth had gone on to take a well deserved victory in the sidecar class! Congratulations must go to them!