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Gavin Foster
When the World Superbike circus lays on its first matinee of the year on Sunday, motorcycle fans at Kyalami will get to see a brand new act – for the first time in South Africa, the Sidecar World Cup will be part of the superbike show.
After half a century of playing poor cousin to the Grand Prix brigade, sidecar racing shifted camp to the World Superbike stable in 1999, and rewrote the rules to allow thundering 190-horsepower (138kW), production-based, 1E200cc four-stroke machines to compete with the existing 500cc two strokes. The result? An exciting formula, with marvellous sounding machines pulling over 300kph on the longer circuits. This year the rules have been amended again, to ban the more expensive 500cc Grand Prix-based engines altogether.
Multiple world champion Steve Webster leads the pack at Kyalami on a Suzuki, but this year he’s taking a new partner along for the ride – David James, who won the 1997 and 1998 titles with him on a 500cc two- stroke before repeating their achievement on to a big four-stroke last year, has retired to devote more time to his new wife. His place in the hot seat has been taken by fellow Briton Paul Woodhead, who claimed fifth place in the 1999 championship with rider Stuart Muldoon. Muldoon has this year teamed up with Chris Gusman on a Honda.
The World Sidecar Cup rules are designed to keep the machines reasonably affordable. The outfits use aluminium chassis and steel brake discs, and must weigh in at a minimum of 375kg with the driver and passenger aboard after practice, super-pole and the race. They’re capable of accelerating to 100kph in 2,8 seconds and, given a long enough straight, will reach over 300kph top speed. They have to run on unleaded fuel, and prototype and exotic experimental machines are specifically excluded.
The net result is an exciting new class with as many as 26 machines lining up on the grid.