The second Sure Mobile Sidecar race of the 2008 Isle of Man TT was the amazing duel between two greats of the sport everyone had wanted to see.
Dave Molyneux, the 13-times winner, and passenger Dan Sayle were locked in battle with lap record holder Nick Crowe and passenger Mark Cox throughout the three lap race on Wednesday afternoon.
But it was Crowe and Cox who took the win, just over 10 seconds ahead of Moly and Sayle. Crowe’s Honda-powered outfit had trailed Moly’s Suzuki-engined machine on the road on lap one, but at the start of lap two Crowe snatched the lead on the road and looked to pull away.
Moly and Sayle may not have been able to take the lead back, but they stayed with their rivals for the rest of the race – with both outfits showing signs of some close encounters around the famous TT Mountain Course.
Behind the leading outfits, by 34 seconds, it was the TAS-backed machine of John Holden and Andrew Winkle which took third, the pair’s second podium finish of the 2008 TT.
There was a close battle for fourth with Steve Norbury/Rick Long taking the position ahead of former World Champion Klaus Klaffenbock and Christian Parzer by less than one second.
Three-times World Champion Tim Reeves, partnered by Patrick Farrance, finished in sixth, another great result for his TT debut after taking third in race one on Saturday.
Speaking afterwards Crowe said:
‘I said if both our bikes were going it would be a close race.’
'I think both of us could have gone faster if we wanted to, but I didn’t want it to blow up again, so I kept checking the instruments.’
He also paid tribute to friend and rival Molyneux.
‘When you are running a race like that, you know each other’s abilities. He (Moly) could run within yards of the back of the bike and he’s safe. That makes it safe as well as interesting racing.’
Moly admitted second was the best he could do, but stayed with Crowe’s outfit because they ‘had to make it a bit interesting’.
He added:
‘It’s a new bike and usually that brings some gremlins. I knew I was taking on a challenge. It was harder than I thought it would be.’
He also wouldn’t confirm whether this would be his final TT
Moly said:
‘I would like to come back, but there are a lot of things happening in my life so we will see.’
Holden said:
‘We tried the best we could with what we had.’
Download the provisional results in PDF format below. The Official results and report will be posted later.
To download the times you will require Adobe Acrobat Reader from Adobe.com
