2002 FIM SUPERSIDE Sidecar World Championship
Round 7 Brands Hatch - European Round, UK, 26th , 27th, 28th June

The European round of the championship at Brands Hatch, UK is one of the highlights in the Superbike and Sidecar calendar. Crowds for the Saturday where in excess of 70,000 and on the Sunday touched 130,000 people. It was extremely busy and for a change the British weather played its part in making the weekend a success for the fans, basking in glorious sunshine and high temperatures. The home round is always difficult, with the added pressures of entertaining sponsors and guests, but very enjoyable, nonetheless.

The first free practice session on the Friday lunchtime was held in scorching sunshine and track temperatures where already up around the 40oC mark. After remembering where the circuit went ! the Team put in an impressive couple of laps to post the tenth fastest time of the session, with a 1'36"960min lap, only 5 seconds off the fastest lap of 1'31"935 by Yorkshireman, Steve Webster on his new GSX-R 1000cc Suzuki. The team also used this first session to scrub-in a new set of tyres and to test a new undertray that they had been developing. The tray was seen as a big success and even with the hot temperature, it provided superb ducting to keep hot exhaust gases away from Chris's legs and feet.

The second session and first qualifying also produced a good showing from the boys, who again managed to hold the 10th position. The times where very close however, with only five hundreth's of a second covering 6 teams. With a few more adjustments to suspension settings for the second timed session, the team hoped they could improve on the current tenth position. Now, whether or not the pressure was starting to build, or the boys were just trying too hard, the second timed session on the Saturday lunchtime was a bit of a disaster.!? Improving their time by 0.3 sec was a good achievement, but the other teams also went faster; Chris explains, " I just couldn't put a good lap together, there was either a yellow flag out, or we were baulked, or I simply just got it wrong in places, so we are a little disappointed." The Team dropped back to 15th on the grid.

Anyway the race was a different matter and it was even more important now that the boys put their starting gremlins behind them and made a good start. Saturday was an extremely hot day and the temperature continued to rise as the Superside race approached on Saturday evening. The 19 laps would be a scorcher and thankfully the boys did get a good start, only losing one place by the first corner. The usual first lap scuffles ensued and then the race settled down into various battles throughout the field. The boys got mixed up with the battle for 12th , with five outfits continually swopping places, and paintwork ! for the first couple of laps. After the first five laps, a vibration and shuddering started under heavy braking, at the front end of the bike. Chris reacted quickly and altered his brake bias to the rear wheels. This unfortunately meant that the boys couldn't brake as late, into the corners, making passing difficult. It appeared that the front brake disc had cracked and warped, which meant that the brakes were fading and Chris had to pump the pedal continually to stop the bike. Towards the end of the race, Chris started to learn how to throw the bike into the corners and use the sideways skidding motion to scrub off speed and reduce the reliance on the now non-existent brakes. The boys battled on however and managed to salvage 14th place and 2 valuable points.

Chris explains; " I thought I rode really hard under the circumstances and was annoyed when the brakes went, especially as we had just considered changing the brake discs." Pete continued; " We lapped consistently throughout the race at 1'35" ish with the problems and may have gone faster if the brakes had been good. Fortunately we picked up some points so can't be too disappointed."

Results :

1 Webster / Woodhead GBR Suzuki 19 laps 29'24.46"
2 Hanks / Biggs GBR Yamaha 19 laps 29'39.28"
3 Klaffenbock / Parzer AUT Yamaha 19 laps 29'44.49"

14 Founds / Founds GBR Yamaha 19 laps 30'40.55"

The team would like to thank all those who came to Brands to support them and hoped that everyone enjoyed the hospitality, food and drinks that the team provided. We are now preparing for Oschersleben on the 1st September. See you there……. Or follow the Team's progress @ www.teamfoundsracing.com or @ www.superside.com…………….

Chris Founds
Team Principal, Team Founds Racing