With the summer break ending quicker than first expected, the team promptly packed away the Christmas presents, packed down the New Years streamers and began preparation on the sidecar for season 2025.

Round 1 was held over the Australia Day long weekend on the bustling Phillip Island. It seemed like most of Victoria had made their way to the Island beaches, so the team kept well clear of the main drag, keeping to the track and homebase.

Unlike previous visits to the Island, the weather was spot on all weekend. Friday practice was clear sailing and the lads got reacquainted with the outfit.

Come Saturday qualifying, the team picked up where they left off at the final round of 2024 in September by lapping around the 1m52s mark – placing us third on the grid for our F2 class. There was some serious pace in the F1 class, with their 20-year qualifying lap record broken!

It wasn’t competitors holding up the track for the day, but the Cape Barron Geese that decided to keep wandering across the track or hanging out on the ripple strip! This meant officials introduced a new flag combination to warn us if a silly goose was hiding behind a corner. We were lucky not to collect a few, but Leonard could basically slap them on the back of the head when leaning over through Hayshed.

All three races were hotly contested with Mick Alton and Dave Rumble, which gave us somebody to chase and learn from. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a way to get past, but it certainly made the racing more exciting! And, it spurred us on to set a PB of 1m51.1s in race two on the Sunday.

Terry Goldie, who was a clear leader all weekend, frustratingly suffered a DNF in the final race, which bumped us up to second overall for the weekend and gives us a handy bank of points to take to Tailem Bend next month.

We’d like to thank Gav Porteous for his help with set up advice, Locky for his sheet metal fabrication, and Brian for his carbon fibre fabrication.

As for the other South Aussie competitors that made the trip over, the Hutchesson brothers (pictured below) rode consistently all weekend, rewarding their persistence with a first place in the F1 class, while Jock and Jason took home the Best Presented trophy!

After placing a fresh goose feather in his cap, Royce said:

“In the past few months only getting a small dose of going fast on the tarmac, some being on two wheels and some on my bottom, I’ve been hanging out to have a fang around on 3 wheels.

“Last year being our first time racing at Phillip Island which quickly become our favourite track so far to race the sidecar on, Leonard and I were keen to have another crack with some more experience under our belts. With the forecast being a perfect not too hot not too cold and no rain in sight, we remained sceptical due to the Islands unpredictable weather patterns but it delivered the goods, leaving Dad and Locky having no practice for swapping tyres all weekend.

“We got some good practice in with each session dropping our lap times but with qualifying, we didn’t quite get a clear lap in with flags, geese and breakdowns causing a bit of traffic. Come race time we identified that my starts need a bit of practice, bogging down each time trying to get it off the line. We’re thinking either some work needs to be done to the clutch or Leonard needs to have one less donut on the lunch break.

“Luckily the races were 7 laps allowing us time to get to work, making back the time we lost off the start. Catching up to Mick and Dave after working our way through the field during the initial laps. We’re still learning a lot from Mick and his race craft on 3 wheels, whilst we were lapping quicker, Mick just knew where to be at the right time to stop me from getting past. In the process we had some great dicing, with Dave giving me the occasional hand gesture to shoo us away whilst we were hot on their tails. We got some good points on the board for the first round and we are definitely keen for our local round coming up at Tailem Bend.”

Leonard was out of breath after the increase to 7 lap races, so briefly said:

“Track was good, we’re getting faster, I’m finding ways to keep my big head out of the wind more, gotta find a way to catch Mick though. Need to hang on tighter down Lukey Heights – handstand video to come!”

Round 2 will be at The Bend on March 1 and 2, we hope to see plenty of our friends out there supporting the team and motorcycle racing in general at our sole local round for the national series!