Motourage

Tim Reeves and Gregory Cluze ended up upside-down during last week’s FIM Sidecar World Championship testing at the Circuit du Val de Vienne in in Le Vigeant, France. Reeves, the three-time World Sidecar champion and his French passenger, Cluze, gave partial credit for the flip to the series’ switch from Yokohama tires to those of British manufacturer Avon, to which many teams are still trying to adjust.

Three-time FIM World Sidecar champion Tim Reeves hopes to improve on last year's third place finish

Testing at the French circuit 35 miles southeast of Poitiers took place from March 15 to 19. Most of the teams present were from Germany, but some big names in the sidecar world including Reeves and Cluze as well as Cluze’s former pilot in the French Sidecar Championship, Sebastien Delannoy also turned some laps.

Gregory Cluze and pilot Mike Roscher finished in 11th place in 2009

For 2010, Reeves and Cluze will be aboard a Honda BCR1000-powered Swiss CRL chassis, a great innovation, which is threatening the monopoly held, until recently, by the Suzuki GSX-R1000-powered machines. Although 2010 FIM rules require the team to run a stock engine, their lap times were still very close to the record held by the 2009 champion Birchall brothers, who ran modified engines.

Reeves and Cluze logged some impressive laps but rolled their rig in the morning session. Their bad luck followed them into the afternoon.
“We went into a slide left,” said Gregory Cluze. “And suddenly the tires hung up without warning. More fear than harm, but unfortunately the engine blew in the afternoon, probably a consequence of the morning’s mishap. ”

Another newcomer to the series, a Swiss-piloted Yamaha R1 rig, impressed onlookers with its power, and now another question has been brought up: When is it BMW’s turn to enter the series?

2009 World Sidecar champions, Ben and Tom Birchall were also present for testing; however, missing were 2008 champion, “the Sliding Finn,” Pekka Paivarinta, and his partner, Switzerland’s Adolf Hanni and their LCR-built Suzuki GSX-R 1000.

In 1990, Frenchman Alain Michel became world champion with a British passenger, Simon Birchall. The question now is, why not a British pilot and a French passenger as world champions in 2010?

Treasure Racing attended Winton Motor Raceway in Northern Victoria recently to continue its bike testing to increase its knowledge of the new LCR Chassis adjustments in preparation for the 2010 FIM World Championship. The main purpose of the day was to focus on suspension.

The Treasure Racing LCR Suzuki of Adam Treasure and Darren Dewhurst

The Winton racetrack has become quite a bit bumpier in the years since Adam or Darren last rode at the track in 2006. The bumpy track created an environment to test the suspension adjustments allowing Adam to focus on obtaining the perfect balance between low impact ripples while still maintaining composure over the harder hitting bumps for the LCR.

Pilot Adam Treasure and passenger Darren Dewhurst at Winton

The day started out slow with each test session becoming quicker as adjustments were made. The Sidecar lap record at this track was set by Stacey Sellar at 1:30.088 in 2006, Adam and Darren managed to go out in their last session and lap consistently in the mid to low 1:30’s until the final lap when the boys posted a new un-official lap record of 1:29.63.

Thanks must go to Mick DeWith and Justin Sheppard for their help throughout the day. We would like to take this opportunity to announce that Treasure Racing now has it’s own official Website. We can be found at  www.treasureracing.com Thanks to our Website designer and Host Bradley Brown for all of his help and input.

Feel free to drop into our website and sign on to the forum and comments page to keep up to date with our achievements throughout 2010.

Adam & Darren

Treasure Racing

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