January – Saw us trekking through the snow to head to the North East Motorsport Show in Augusta, Maine. This was our first year there and a great success with a lot of interest in Sidecars from people who have never seen one up close before. A lot of people stopped by to pick up information and take pictures and we seemed to have a crowd watching the videos we had running all through the weekend. We also picked up an award for ‘Best in Class’ with our exhibitor stand.

April – Our first race of the year was Round 2 at Shannonville, Ontario, Canada, which turned out to be a tough weekend as we struggled to get to grips with suspension and shock settings in both races. We eventually finished up mid pack and took comfort that we did not have any major problems or break anything.

June – Saw us making the long trip across country to Infinion Raceway in Sonoma, California for The Superside America Championship Race, which was part of The Nascar Nextel Cup weekend. Infinion is a great facility and the crowds were amazing, 100 + thousand for the 3 day event. The interest was great as people stopped by to check out the rigs and ask questions. We took it easy during the first practice and tried to work on gearing and set up as well as learning the track. The Saturday session went quick and we learned a lot for Sunday’s race. On Sunday morning for our practice the Nascar teams were all set up on pit road and it was great to see them all leaning over the wall and showing so much enthusiastic interest in our session. We had a bad grid position due to last year’s points. So we needed to get a good start. The race was good and we made some early progress, but the track had changed big time from the morning session due to the Nascar race being before us and all the rubber they had put down made braking difficult and slick if you got off line to pass, but we made steady progress. Mid-race we had a vibration on the front, which I think was due to picking up some rubber. This slowed us for a lap whilst I checked it out. At first I thought it was a puncture. All seemed okay and we pressed on to the end eventually finishing 7th in the F1 class. It turned out to be a big weekend for sidecars. We gained a lot of exposure and new fans.

August – Saw us head back to Canada and Mosport International Raceway. This is a track that I love to race at having raced solo bikes here in the past. It was also where Kyle and I made our debut race last season. When we unloaded on Friday the rig just felt right and we started to go fast right from the start. Saturday’s heat race saw us on Row 7 of the grid. We got a good start and worked out way to the front. It was a great battle all race long. First and second had checked out, but we had a good battle with four or five rigs swapping places all race. We were doing great and had fourth place till the last lap when Kevin got past us under braking, so we finished 5th which gave us a better grid for the Sunday final. Sunday race and practice was strange with rain and wind. The track was very greasy. We managed to get a decent start and battled with the first three rigs, but after two laps I realized I had made a bad call on air pressure as the tires went off. So we had to back off our pace and eventually came home 3rd in F1.

September – Last race of the year and back to Shannonville hoping to build on Comports results. Saturday the weather was great for practice and the heat race, and we had a great race eventually finishing 3rd. But Sunday started wet with torrential rain. We elected to run with cut slicks as the track was still wet in places. Only one team had full wets on and they picked right and just disappeared. We got a lousy start but eventually worked our way up to 3rd, then we spun coming out of the hairpin. Luckily I kept it going and we set off after the pack, sideways most of the way. We caught George with one to go and were up in 4th overall but no time to make up lost ground on the leaders, so we eventually settled for that and came home with a 3rd in F1 class.