Nine-times sidecar world champion Steve Webster and his passenger Paul Woodhead lead the 2004 UEM European Championship after a convincing win in the second round of the series at the Hungoring, Hungary, yesterday.
The Easingwold racer won the 15-lap race run in sunny conditions by over six seconds from the fast-starting Tim and Tristan Reeves - but not before Reeves had made the early running.
"We got a poor start and were about fifth into the first corner and we ended up getting knocked about a bit in the pack.
"It took a couple of laps to let things settle down and avoid any trouble. By then, Reeves was away and it took six or seven laps to catch him up," explained Webster, who eventually took the lead on his team Castrol Suzuki outfit with six laps remaining. "But once we got to the front and past him, we were able to pull out a bit of a lead and get the win."
Webster and Woodhead were outdragged from their pole position start by both second on the grid Reeves and third Tom Hanks and Phil Biggs with Martien and Tonnie van Gils close in fourth.
Reeves continued to set the pace despite the close tactics of Hanks and at the end of the third lap, Webster snuck ahead of Hanks to launch his own assault on the lead.
After just one lap, the two front-runners had manufactured a four-second gap and Webster soon settled into the Reeves' slipstream before drawing alongside and on the tenth lap, overtook and rapidly broke off to lay down a blistering fastest lap to put he and Woodhead well clear of the chasing pack for a second successive win.
Webster's surge of pace set a new lap record for the altered 4.38 kilometre circuit, and was also the fastest lap of all classes racing over the weekend. Hanks and Biggs made up the rostrum with a third place.
The Reeves brothers had thrown down the gauntlet to Webster in the final qualifying session with a time of 1-55.622 to put them second overall.
But Webster and Woodhead showed them who was boss with a storming final lap before the chequered flag that knocked off a further half second from their standing pole time to dominate the front line with a time of 1-54.133.
The results put Webster on 50 points and into a useful 14-point lead of the joint second-placed Reeves and Biggs. In joint third place though are Tonnie van Gils and Swedish veteran Billy Gallros both on 24 points.
Therein lies an interesting twist. Webster, Reeves and Hanks will all miss the third round in Rijeka in Croatia in two weeks after electing to race in the fourth round of the British championship at Silverstone. That leaves the way for Gallros or Van Gills to win and the 25 points gained would then put them just one point behind Webster.
The next round of the UEM championship after Rijeka is at Most in the Czech Republic on July 10.
Updated: 11:05 Monday, May 31, 2004
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