Sidecar survivors retire in style

Sport

20 Mar

**The Lawrance brothers – Richard (right) and Chris - celebrate third place in the second race of the weekend with second-place getters Barry Smith and Stu Dawe.**

by Dan Hutchinson

Chris and Richard Lawrance marked the end of an era in sidecar racing on the weekend, wrapping up 38-years together in the sport.

Their last outing ended with three podium finishes at the NZ Superbikes Championship at the Taupō Motorsport Park – their home track.

It’s been a hard road for the brothers who have raced Isle of Man seven times, including a horrific accident in 2003 which saw them both helicoptered off the mountain, in bad shape.

In fact Richard – who sits on the sidecar – has broken 38 bones in his 38 years of racing.

The bike from that fateful days was also on display at the park this weekend along with photos of it being pulled back up the side of the mountain they crashed off.

“My brother broke his shoulder, his arm, a few ribs, punctured lungs, blew an eye socket out as well. I just broke a leg,” Chris said of that incident.

They vowed not to go back again but they did in 2015 and again in 2017.

“It takes three months to recover the body from that because it’s rough and that’s if you don’t get injured or killed because people get injured or killed every year. It’s dangerous.”

Chris has won a NZ Championship twice previously but this weekend’s event – the final round of the season – was the first round they had entered this year.

“I wanted to get on a podium for my last NZ Championship meeting. We did finish the Auckland series in November and we won that. We won that the last three years.”

They placed third, third and second in their three races over the weekend.

Taupō is home for Chris so it was good to be able to celebrate in style, with a few extra sidecars in town to honour the occasion and a big barbecue celebration with 50 guests on the Saturday night. Richard was also brought up here but now lives north of Auckland.

The weekend marked the official retirement for the brothers.

“We said we were going to retire and we would keep racing till (the bike) sells and somebody bought it within the few days. We said, ‘well the deal is we have one more meeting to do, my home track.”

Chris is retired these days but works on a casual basis at the Motorsport Park so was not short of a few fans on the weekend.

And they were treated to some exciting action with Chris and Richard just pipping the eventual Championship winners – Burt Wolland and Vaughan Maine - by one bike length in the first race of the weekend.

“The bike behind us we only got him on the last lap and he got us back and then we got him back.”

So it was smiles all around on the weekend as the Lawrance brothers put an end to one of the most enduring partnerships in New Zealand motorsport.

MotorsportTaupo Motorsport Park

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