Round 2 of the Australian Sidecar Championships were held over the first weekend of July, which meant a drive to Sydney Motorsport Park. Although the Hay Plains become tiresome, the record for travel goes to Morgan Marshall’s team who drove from Perth to Sydney in three days!

The track facility in Sydney was world class and the St George MCC put on a great meeting (and thanks to the Australian Racing Driver’s Club for letting us out on Friday during their track day for practice and to work out which way the track went).

Unfortunately, Lenno couldn’t make the trip so our backup passenger, Jess Watson stepped up to the plate.

Early signs were promising after some great dicing with the Marshall outfit. The challenge was to try and catch ‘Dags’ Rayner and Evelyne, but Jess injured his ribs in race 2 (as a result of being thrown into the fairing under brakes), forcing the team to slow down.

In race 3, Royce was black and blue from Jess hitting him on the back to slow down even further, ending up with lap times dropping to a manageable pace.

Jess hadn’t told us how much pain he was really in until after race 3 had finished, that way we could gather more points for the Championship. When the pair came back into the pits, Jess hobbled to the Medical Centre, where they confirmed broken ribs and wanted to send him to hospital by ambulance fearing he might puncture a lung. Underlining his determination and grit, he declined the ambulance, but agreed to being driven to hospital by team member Deb Lock, where he spent the next two days.

After spending 5 hours trying to explain what a sidecar is to the nurses and why Jess wasn’t ‘wearing a seatbelt’, Royce killed some time in the waiting room with reflection of the weekend that was…

“I was really keen in the lead up to the Eastern Creek round as it’s a track I hadn’t been to since I was a junior on the 150 Honda about 15 years ago.”

“Flying to Sydney like a factory rider, I wondered which hot beverage Dad would be choosing between – a hot chocolate or his tenth coffee – at an outback truck stop. I had the particularly difficult decision of deciding between having three or four ice cubes in my rum and coke whilst waiting in the Qantas Lounge.

“With the late passenger swap as Leonard was no longer being able to make it, Jess and I were going over old laps of The Creek trying to get him up to speed. Coming across footage featuring the likes of Gavin Porteus and Andre Bosman, the racing line has probably only changed slightly since 1991.

“Both Friday and Saturday gave Locky and Dad plenty of practice in changing tyres from slicks to wets. It was also some good practice for us on a wet track. Each session we got a bit quicker and I got a bit ballsier turning into a very fast turn 1. Making sure we could finish each 7-lap race without Jess falling off the back, we had bit of a tap on the back system for easing up, speeding up or needing to come in. Sometimes ignoring the slow down taps, to Jess’s credit he never signalled for me to come in.

“We had some great dicing with Morgan and Matthew in Race 2, also getting a chance to test out the new 360 degree Go Pro. (will post a video once I’ve figured out how to edit it all!)

“Unfortunately, in race 3, with the slow down taps frequenting a bit more and no go faster taps I knew something wasn’t quite right and slowed the pace right down. The trooper Jess ensured we got some points to stay up the pointy end of the championship, which is commendable.

“With a bit of a dampner on the end of the trip, we still looked at the positives of learning a new track, tweaking the sidecar a bit and having fun! (When all our ribs were intact). Keen to get out for our next race at Phillip Island. 😁”

The final round for the Aussie titles are at Phillip Island in September, which is also an SA/VIC championship round like The Bend round was earlier this year. Then, we wrap up the racing calendar at Mac park in October for the final South Australian Championship round.