Top three finish for Cossar in Kent; Lester Goodwin International Memorial Meeting

A POOR quality batch of fuel hampered Mark Cossar's performance at the opening round of the 2008 Buildbase Sidecar Championship in Worcester. Despite the set-back Cossar rallied to finish an impressive fifth at the rain-affected meet on Sunday. Cossar suffered problems from the first race when his 1,000cc Suzuki appeared to spin with too much power, but still managed to battle to a third place finish.

The 21-year old worked furiously to change the gearing and ignition in time for his second outing and it seemed to do the trick as Cossar jetted away from the start line, but more misfiring sent him back to fourth as the sidecars came out of the second bend. It looked as if his engine was suffering from fuel starvation, but as the power kicked back in Cossar fought his way past Andy Gribble to take third, and then just as he piled the pressure on Pete Lloyd as the final lap was about to commence his opponent's machine gave up the ghost putting him in second.

Perplexed by the erratic behaviour of his Suzuki Cossar again worked furiously to get to the root of the problem, only for his bike to die at the line in his final heat. Roared on by the crowd Cossar, knee deep in thick mud and aided by track officials, pushed his machine relentlessly to get the engine running. Finally, and just seconds before being excluded by the referee for exceeding the time allowance, the machine growled into life. Lesser riders would not have tried so doggedly or would have been too exhausted from all the heavy pushing, but determined Cossar made an excellent start in second.

He then set off in hot pursuit of the unbeaten Rob Bradley, and on the penultimate lap chose his moment superbly, sweeping under Bradley - the eventual meeting winner - in breathtaking style.The rain, that had threatened all day, then descended on the circuit giving the organisers no option but to call a halt and denying Cossar the opportunity to go forward to the semi-finals. Instead, overall standings were awarded with each rider having completed three races. Frustrated Cossar said: "I can’t really believe it about the fuel, and I’m definitely not happy about it."We tried changing and fine-tuning almost everything so it was really painful to find out that it was the fuel, not the bike. But at least we got there in the end, and of course I was dead chuffed to be the only rider to beat the winner, Rob Bradley."

Collier Street 20/4/08

When excluded for ‘unfair riding’ in his first race at Collier Street (near Tonbridge in Kent) Mark Cossar could be forgiven for thinking that the gods are against him in 2008 - but Rugby’s highly promising sidecar rider fought back to capture a brilliant runner’s up place on the podium.

Having already suffered serious bike and fuel problems this year, as well as a multitude of injuries, the 22-year-old found himself thrown out of his first ride by the referee when he inadvertently ‘t-boned’ eventual meeting winner Paul Whitelam.

“I didn’t do it deliberately,” said Cossar. “Whitelam slowed up right in front of me and I had nowhere to go. I guess I can’t moan too much about the referee’s decision, but it was as real downer”.

To make matters worse, Cossar had to, for the first time in his career, carry out an impromptu welding session in the pits to repair his badly damaged 1,000cc Suzuki. Luckily, neither he nor his hard-working sidecar passenger Tris Winterburn were hurt in the smash.

Next time out, Cossar’s hastily welded-up machine zoomed out of the start as he dominated the race to take the chequered flag in impressive style. But best was to follow in his third ride when he drove past one of the pre-meeting favourites John Hiscock to record his second win of the day.

Another of the country’s top riders, Myles Simmons proved to be the next notable scalp for Cossar. But after skilfully overtaking his more experienced opponent with a vintage move around the outside, Simmons crashed, causing the race to be stopped. Undeterred, Cossar duly won the re-run to gain his third consecutive victory of the day. This put him into the final, where he was undoubtedly gaining on the fast start made by Paul Whitelam, but Rugby’s popular young rider had to settle for second.

“This is more like it,” said an upbeat Cossar. “It was great to get on the podium, especially in such a high class field, and I got a lot of satisfaction from my fourth ride when I beat Myles Simmons from the back”.

Cossar’s passenger Tris Winterburn agreed: “Simmons is on the same type of machinery as us, so it really proved a point that together we could get the better of him. We’ve taken a few knocks this season, but this result has shaken up the big boys and shown them that we mean business”.