Team SaS — the sidecar racing Staintons — claim two race wins at Snetterton

Upton husband and wife sidecar racers Team SaS — Giles and Jen Stainton — recorded two wins, a second place and a fourth in their races with the BEMSEE club at Snetterton.

Following a previous bad crash at Donington, the goal was to try to get the outfit up and running in time for the Snetterton races within three weeks.

Jen commented: “We needed a new radiator and oil cooler, new exhaust system, new fairing and new radiator support panels as well as a thorough check on the engine to make sure there wasn’t anything more sinister going on.

“Big thanks to Ben and Tom Birchall for reacting so quickly right before the Isle of Man TT and to Sam Christie for a beautiful new exhaust done in record time.

“Snetterton was just about testing and checking to make sure everything else was OK before the next British round at Cadwell. Despite the rain that greeted us at the Norfolk circuit, we were just grateful to be back on track again.”

Practice and qualifying on Saturday was completed in very wet conditions and the Staintons achieved a lap time of 3m.01s to qualify seventh overall and third in their class.

The first race was run in drying conditions, but with the track still slippery the pair opted for wet weather tyres. They found it difficult to get a clean lap in as the track conditions changed from sector to sector and were happy to finish seventh overall in the mixed grid of F1 and F2 machines — and brought the little F2 home in fourth place in their class with a lap time of 2m 42s.

An improvement in the weather for race two meant the track was dry and they went out on slicks to enjoy a good race and second place in their class (fifth overall).

In preparation for Sunday’s two races the team changed the suspension settings, so the warm-up was critical to check it was the right choice. They only got one flying lap. but after looking at their lap time data they felt that the changes showed promise.

The first race on Sunday was perhaps the best yet with Team SaS exchanging places with Morphet/Halliburton several times each lap before winning their class and a 2m.16s lap time.

In the final race they fought back after being boxed in at the first corner to win in a hard chase to the line, recording the fastest F2 lap of the race with 2m 16s.