Death mars great season for brothers

THE death of a young sidecar racing competitor at Pukekohe cast a pall over what was otherwise a great season for Masterton brothers Burt and Tim Wolland.
They were on the circuit when the sidecar on which 20-year-old Jack Thompson was competing crashed.
He was swinger for his father, John, when the machine went out of control and crashed into a safety barrier during the final round of the national championships.
He was taken to Middlemore Hospital with critical head injuries but died the next day after his life support was turned off.
"It's hard to come to terms with," said Burt. "Ray Lovell in 1997 was the last death we had."
"The worst thing," said Tim, "was that his 15-year-old brother was standing right beside where they crashed. He saw the whole thing."
He was full of praise for Thompson, a good motocross rider and "nice, genuine kid".
The sidecar racing fraternity is a very close one, with several father/son and brother/brother combinations.
While competition on track is intense, there's a family atmosphere off-track, with teams helping each other with labour and parts. So an accident like the Pukekohe one is devastating to all the competitors. Jack Thompson's funeral was held last week.
The brothers are at their best in the cut and thrust of street racing, and the Paeroa round of the Battle of the Streets was a career highlight for them.
They finished second in this series, after a huge dice with the eventual winners, brothers Chris and Richard Lawrance.
The organisers mounted a camera on the cowling of Burt's homebuilt, Honda Blackbird-powered sidecar, expecting to see lots of action ahead of the Masterton entry.
They would have been disappointed, with the Lawrances winning race one and the Wollands leading for 5? of the six laps of the second.
But then it was all on.
"Chris and Richard slid through between us and another bike and finished up sideways in front of us," said Burt.
"I had nowhere to go and tee-boned him, punting him 20 metres up the track, unfortunately in the direction he wanted to go. We caught right up to him at the line, but he beat us by .008 of a second.
"I don't mind losing when the racing's that close," he said.
And the crowd, as they say, went wild.
Earlier, the season had been a mixed bag.
It began with Wanganui's cemetary circuit on Boxing Day.
"In the first practise I couldn't steer, so we came in and fixed that," said Burt.
They were stunned to qualify third in the second session. "I couldn't believe it ? it was the first time ever that we've been on the front row of the grid."
They held third to the first corner, and were 4th overall for the meeting. There were a lot of accidents, says Burt. One rider misjudged an overtaking move, slid into the haybales and bounced back onto the track, the swinger suffering crushed vertebrae. There were 34 sidecars at that meeting, compared with 20 or so at the other venues.
Taupo was another good meeting, with 3rd overall despite the fact that it was their first time there. The circuit consisted of 2/3rds of the A1GP track.
"It's the most technical track in New Zealand," said Tim. "It's hard work."
Timaru was hardly worth the travel, with two DNFs and an 18th. After a broken steering in practice they rolled the front tyre off the wheel in race one and shot off the circuit. "After that we were just along for the ride," said Burt. And in the last race the cable of his "dead man's throttle", a device that cuts the ignition if the rider comes off, became detached and flicked up into his face, capping an unhappy weekend.
Ruapuna was much better, a 6th and two 7ths, bringing them up to 10th overall.
That improved to 8th overall at Manfeild, where they finished all their races, despite the bike overheating, belching flame and burning Burt's knee
Paeroa made the whole season worthwhile, while Auckland will be remembered for the fatal crash. The brothers had a DNF in race one, race two was stopped after the big accident and they were 11th in race three after some very close racing.
At that last meeting Burt Wolland organised a meal for 70 ? 80 people, a big effort from the Masterton men.
The brothers' success ? 9th overall in the national series and 2nd in the Battle of the Streets ? clearly indicate they've made the step up from also-rans to leading bunch.
Where to from here?
Burt has his eye on a New Zealand version of the all-conquering Swiss LCR chassis.
They sell for $25,000 (compared with $75,000 for the real thing) and combined with the Blackbird engine would be a potent force. Hopefully a significant chunk of the cash will come from the sale of his current race-proven chassis.