The Birchalls on pole

With sun baked crowds all round the circuit, 20 sidecar teams were egger to get going and try and improve on their qualifying one session. Right from the green flag, the Birchall Brothers Ben and Tom on their “Mitchells of Mansfield” LCR, Suzuki, made it obvious to the rest of the teams that they wanted that pole position, with no problems with their machine they set a blistering time of 1:28.275. Ben and Tom were really pleased with the time for pole, and the bike was working really well. Not far off the Birchalls time was Pekka Paivarinta and Adolf Hanni on their “Team Suzuki Finland” LCR, Suzuki, only 0.517 off the pole time. Both Paivarinta and Hanni were happy, but they did have a lot of sliding with tyres, all in all though were looking forward to the race. Once again Jorg Steinhausen and Ashley Hawes will finish the front row of the grid with a time of 1:29.792. They managed to sort the problems from Q1 on their “Steinhausen Racing” LCR, BMW, but have a small problem with the sidecar wheel lifting on certain corners, and this is making it hard for passenger Ashley to control sometimes, but they hope to sort this problem before the race. Starting from fourth position on the grid is “Team SLR” Scott Lawrie and James Neave on their LCR, Suzuki, with a time of 1:30.884. They went faster by nearly 3 seconds from Q1 to get this time. Both Scott and James are happy with this, and sitting just behind the Birchalls and Paivarinta on the grid might be a help at the start of the 22 lap race. A great qualifying session from Mike Roscher and Uwe Neubert on their “Roscher Racing” LCR, BMW, they will start the race from fifth on the grid with a time of 1:30.941, Mike did say though “ I had big problems with tyre grip, the bike was sliding around a lot, but we hope we can sort this for the race”. Heading the third row of the grid is Kurt Hock and stand in passenger Maik Ziegel on the “Hock Racing” LCR, Suzuki; they had a steady qualifying session but still went 1.224 faster than qualifying one, both happy and looking forward to the race. Middle of the third row is Michael Grabmuller and Manfred Wechselberger on the “Polizeisportverein Wels Motorsport” LCR, Kawasaki with a time of 1:31.040 from the first qualifying session. Next to them on their “Streuer Racing” LCR, Suzuki, is Bennie Streuer and Geert Koerts. Both are happy with how things went, no problems with the bike and looking forward to the race. Heading the fourth row of the grid is Petri Makkula and Timo Karttiala on their “Makkula Racing” LCR, BMW; they only managed seven laps before encountering an electrical problem. Timo said “I have new leathers after the crash yesterday, and they are rubbing on my bruises, I got a fair old battering, but once I had two laps in, I felt a lot better, then we have this problem, we are a bit disappointed but we will see haw the race goes” Starting from tenth on the grid is Andre Kretzer and Jens Lehnertz on their “AKW Kretzer” LCR Suzuki, with a time of 1:31.927. All the teams are looking forward to putting on a great show on for the spectators, and the 22 lap race will be starting at 4.35 local time. Texte et photos Mark Walters