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Kirkup/Hickey Sidecarcross Team, Cadwell Park Circuit, Louth (2026)

22/04/2026

Can’t wait for a bit more of this at the weekend, round 1 of the Nett championship and round 2 of the British championship at ironworks moto park Middlesbrough. Racing Saturday and Sunday
Have a day out with the family watching some action packed Sidecar and Quad racing. Come down cheer us on. Kettles always on at the van so come say hi if your down.

15/04/2026

Next round of the British sidecarcross championships for me and Rishon Hickey next weekend. Come down and support us at our local round at Iron Works Moto Park Middlesbrough, right next door to Teesside Karting. Racing both days, nett championship Saturday, British championship Sunday

05/04/2026

Our first real outing on the outfit after a couple small tests was a dive in at the deep end with an entry into the British sidecarcross championship at Culham mx in Oxfordshire. Just a 1 day event but comprising of practice and 2x 25 minuite plus 2 lap races alongside the best in the country, an awesome 27 teams entered.

Practice/quallifying went well, the team settling into learning the track, the bike and each other, although didn’t get a time or qualification place due to a transponder error.

Race 1 we got a great start and were sitting in 7th place for the first 5 laps until we had a minor altercation with a soft berm, the bike stopped absolutely dead, tipped over and we both went for a lie down in the mud 😂 totally uninjured we got the bike back on 3 wheels and got away again finishing our first ever race in p19

Race 2 didn’t get the best of starts, but had a great ride, battling the whole race with other outfits bringing it home p15

Absolutely over the moon to come away with these results in our first outing never mind in a British championship meeting, with lots more to come

05/04/2026

Following my retirement from sidecar road racing iv moved disciplines, still on 3 wheels but now on the dirt. The page is now rebranded Kirkup/Hickey Sidecarcross. Hopefully you will all continue to follow, enjoy and support us in our new venture.

22/09/2025

It’s not quite over for us yet but What a year it’s been for team MKR, firstly this weekends east fortune race report.
Saturday warmup went without hitch, straight into 1:05 times, bike handling and going great
Quali ended up pole position with a pb time of 1:04.3
About an hour before our race the heavens opened, torrential rain, then stopping just as quick as it started meaning tyre choice was going to be dicey for our race with the possibility of destroying a set of £1100 wet tyres 😩 the track was wet but drying so we made the risky decision to go with dry tyres, which turned out to be totally the wrong decision. With the slicks in the wet we couldn’t hold on to the leading 2 but very scarily still managed to bring it home in 3rd position in a field of over 20 bikes all on wet tyres.
First race on Sunday was red flagged twice before we finally got it away, in the first start Matti’s shoulder dislocated and popped back in 👀 leaving him in absolute agony for the restart, however the absolute machine that he is, struggled through to take the win with another pb time into the 1:03’s and clinching the Scottish championship. To make it a little sweeter (also emotional), with the chance of the championship win in that race I decided to take my dad with us on the bike, a little urn with his ashes was secured to the bike, that one’s for you dad! I know you’d be proud
Last race of the day came, with matti now in absolute agony the decision was made to drop the pace slightly into the 1:05’s/1:06’s and settle in to take 2nd place to get a solid finish, this all went to plan until heading into the last lap I looked at him to just to check he was doing ok, and was told to push on to try and take the win 😂 unfortunately too late, we bashed in a 1:03 pb again lap time, closed the gap to 1st but just not enough laps
All in all a cracking weekend.

Secondly
Over the moon to come back into the sport this season after a 5 year break and with a brand new, never even sat on a sidecar before passenger Matti Golightly.
We’ve had some cracking racing, and some good variation in racing with Scottish sidecar championship rounds and real roads at Oliver’s mount and the southern 100 in the Isle of Man on the f2 and dipping our toes into the f600 long bike at the British championships.
By our reckoning we’ve come away with a clean sweep in all 6 championships in Scotland
🥇 2025 outright Scottish sidecar champions
🥇Ssrc club champions
🥇Ssrc F2 champions
🥇Marin cup champions
🥇Melville f2 champions
🥇Melville open champions
A credit to our little bike and our dedicated team we’ve not had a single DNF this season, finishing every race that we started, multiple race wins and podiums, even missing the first round at knockhill due to the new bike preparations, we’ve managed to clinch the titles with still a round to go at knockhill in 2 weeks time. Massive thanks to my little team who we couldn’t do it without
Myles kirkup, Phil Knowles, Darren Yelland, Geoff Knowles, Andrew golightly.
Plans for the rest of the season are, we’re going to fit our brand new “next years” engine into the bike and go to knockhill for the final round of the Scottish with the sole aim of running it in ready for next season and having a chilled, no pressure meeting, just having some fun, then onto Brands hatch in the f600 for the final round of the British sidecar championship.
Massive thanks to Mkr’s 2 passengers that have stepped in for the real roads this year due to Matti’s novice licence not allowing him
Josh Smith and myself did 1 of the 2 Oliver’s mount meetings this year, getting a win, a 2nd and a 3rd giving us 4th overall in the championship, having only done 1 meeting and also getting into the sub 2 minuite lap time club
Me and Mark Gash travelled to the Isle of Man for the southern 100, had a cracking time, although had some problems both came away buzzing with good finishes and both faster than we’d ever been before around the circuit.

2025 you’ve been epic
2026 plans fully in motion, updates to follow

18/08/2025

Back from another cracking weekend up in Scotland at east fortune.
Arrived and set up Friday afternoon in the sun ☀️
Saturday warmup was meant to be quick spin around to get settled into the bike for the weekend, however we discovered after feeling handling issues that we had knocked the alignment out on our sidecar wheel at the last meeting when we caught the awful sausage kerb at knockhill reverse. Thanks to Geoff bell and Tony baker for the loan of tools and advice to get it put right.
Qualifying was a bit hectic with traffic from a wide range of bike speeds throughout the field, we managed to get 1 clear lap with a time of 1:05.4, on the pace from last east fortune meeting and putting us on pole for the weekend .
Race 1 we put the graft in from a cracking start taking the win by 19 seconds over the line with a pb time of 1:05.03
Race 2 again a cracking run, taking our pb time down again to a 1:05.00 and taking the win by 10 seconds over the line
Race 3 didn’t improve on our lap time but took the win by 6 seconds with a 1:05.4
Race 4, cracking start and putting the hammer down from the off, led the whole race until the last lap being pipped by Phil bell and Gashy for the win, however again broke our pb time finally getting under the 1:05 threshold into the 1:04’s (just 😂) with 2x 1:04.9 laps, also on absolutely dead tyres so mega happy with that and more to come.
Cracking weekend had, further extending our championship leads in all classes. Looking forward to the last 2 rounds. Fingers crossed for some more cracking racing.

Unfortunately the weekend was soured when we discovered our team van keys had been stolen over the course of the weekend along with another team next doors vehicle keys. So at the end of racing we had to get a key services company to come out to the circuit and cut us and program new keys to the van costing £300 and meaning we didn’t get home untill 11pm 😡

All told all a great weekend. Massive thanks as always to everyone that makes it happen for us
Myles kirkup
Phil Knowles
Geoff Knowles
Darren and Karen Yelland
Rob Cranney
House of stitch
Mdk paintwork
Marin/Boris Stroud
The orange army
Sammi and the awesome team at Melville

05/08/2025

Last weekend the team headed to cadwell park for the annual sidecar revival meeting, however this weekend with a difference. Rather than running our usual Baker F2 we were given the opportunity to enter Darren Yellands LCR F600 in the British sidecar championship to see how we got on with it on the big stage.
Unfortunately due to work commitments Matti couldn’t make it down for the Friday test which put us slightly on the back foot as the first time he would get on the bike for his first ever lap of cadwell would be for a short free practice then straight into qualifying. massive thanks to Dom Herbertson for jumping on for the test day, managed to get some laps put in to refresh my mind on the circuit after 6 years and get a feel for how the f600 went. By the end of Friday and a couple of excursions to the scenery for dom, we had got down to a lap time of 1:41.4, faster than iv been previously on an F2.

Saturday free practice, Matti’s first laps round cadwell went well, few steady laps showing him the way round ready for quali
Qualifying went well, dropping in a time of 140.0 put us in p15 out of 20 bikes in our first outing on the British stage, happy enough with that
Race 1 I realised the Yamaha outfit was a lot different to the Suzuki to get off the line, it just bogged down dropping us to dead last off the start, giving us more work to do, we got our heads down and made progress coming home p14, p5 in the cup with a time dropped to 1:39.1
Sunday race 2
The weather was so changeable with downpours then sun drying the track, tyre choice was all over the place, after a couple of returns to the paddock by the organisers we decided to go with dry tyres, opposite to most of the grid, hoping the drying was enough. Again starting in p15 the start wasn’t great due to how wet the start finish straight was but as the race went on the circuit was drying fast, it was dry for half of the lap but very greasy and wet through hall bends and the the start/finish. We managed to bring it home in p12/p4 in cup but with a great lap time that put us forward onto p9 on the grid for the final race.
Race 3 starting in p9 I finally got my head around the Yamaha starts! We got a cracking start mixing it with the cup lads, over the moon to be up there and enjoying the race “amongst it” we were really settled into the race and sitting p10 and 3rd in the cup putting the laps in. Unfortunately 3 laps from the end matti missed his hand hold on the transition from left to right at the bottom of the mountain and fell out of the bike, ending our race. Matti was all good, although gutted that it had happened, but as they say s**t happens.
All in all a great weekend and a great first dipping our toes into the British. We have decided after this weekend that we are going to enter the last 2 rounds of the British sidecar championship at Snetterton and the finale with bsb at Brands hatch to push us on, further our progress and be brought on by the faster riders, really looking forward to the challenge.

It was also absolutely amazing to take my son Myles out for a taxi ride, giving him his first taste of sidecars

We have a weeks break now then it’s back to the short bike at east fortune to try and further increase our points lead in the Scottish championship.

Massive thanks to all that make it possible
Darren and Karen Yelland
Phil and Geoff Knowles
Myles kirkup
Boris Stroud/Marin
House of stitch
Aj Dixon transport
Andy’s man club

15/07/2025

Late race report, settle in it’s a long one 😂😂
It’s been a mega busy time since Oliver’s mount at Scarborough.
July came and brought the Southern 100 Road Races for myself and Mark Gash, we headed over to the Isle of Man on Friday 4th, spent the weekend setting up, bike tinkering and a bit of touristing. Sunday night was sign on and kit inspection which went without hitch, we were all ready for the first night on track on Monday.
Monday nights first practice we went out with the intentions of me learning my way around again after 6 years away, seeing how the bike felt, and how we rode together, after 3 laps we knew we needed to come in to make some slight changes for Tuesday night qualifying so cut the session a bit short. Gearing was changed, a screen added to get mark out of the wind and a slight alteration to the rear suspension, we were all happy ready to go.
Tuesday night qualifying we upped the pace and you would honestly think someone had took my bike and replaced it with another! The thing handled like an absolute pig from the moment we pushed on a bit. The bike was all over the road on the brakes and just not planted like it had been the night before, we had a spin at crossfourways, then had a clean lap, bike feeling like a pig, then on lap 3 had a massive moment at ballawhetstone, the bike violently sliding accross the road into the Bankside and back out onto the road, luckily managing to save it, more by good luck than anything else! Into the paddock we went for investigation before it tried to kill us again. Our “clean” lap gave us a p11 on the grid out of 19 entries
It was decided that we needed to take the bike to somewhere with a level floor to do some measurements, checks and adjustments, massive thanks to Pittman for the use of his unit!
Lots of adjustments made, new brake pads fitted all round and a full set of tyres and it was time to see if what we’d done worked.
With no more practice available, only racing, mark spoke to race control and we got permission to have 1 lap off the back of a solo race to try our new setup. All seemed ok from what we could tell in 1 lap so into racing we went. After talking me and mark decided neither of us had the confidence in the bike to push from the word go so decided to use the first few laps of the 6 lap race as another practice to make sure. Setting away we lost a place followed another outfit a couple of laps, bike feeling back to somewhere near where it felt on Monday night so decided to push on. Bike felt so much better, allowing us to make back up the lost place and finish p11, but not importantly feeling confident again!
Thursday afternoon was the 8 lap championship race, starting again p11 we had some great racing, getting faster and really enjoying it, bringing the bike home safe in 7th place we were all over the moon! All in all a great but trying 2025 s100 has been had, bring on 2026!
The return home started the morning of Friday 11th, however not really “home” as such
We headed straight from the ferry to meet regular passenger Matti Golightly at east fortune in Scotland for the next round of the Scottish championship. Saturday in the glorious sunshine we had a great hassle and problem free practice, qualifying and 2 races.
Quali p2
Race 1 p2
Race 2 p1
Sunday, again in the sunshine brought races 3 and 4
Race 3 p2
Race 4 p1
Mega happy with the weekend and looking forward to knockhill in 2 weeks.
Massive thanks as always to my team
Myles Kirkup, Phil Knowles, Darren Yelland I really couldn’t do it without you guys, you make it all
Possible, and bring so much laughter and craic.
Both my passengers, Gashy and Matti
Everyone who gives me advice and help,
The organisers, Marshalls, and all my supporters.
Little extra thanks this time to House of stitch for helping with team wear so we were all looking great.

08/07/2025

Not having a great start to the southern 100, got 3 steady laps in last night, came in early as we identified a few changes were needed ready for qualifying, gearing changed, little screen added to try and stop Gashy from being blown out of the back and a stiffening of the rear suspension due to weight difference from usual passenger, everyone happy and looking forward to tonight’s qualli
Out for qualli tonight you would think we were riding a totally different bike, and not in a good way! It just felt so nervous on the road and was really tracking about the road on the brakes, just not handling like we wanted it to at all at all once we’d upped the pace a little. We came in after a bit of a moment at ballawhetstone, after 3 laps to make checks and a plan, the team are off to a local workshop in the morning to make use of a nice level concrete floor to check measurements, settings and make adjustments to make it how we want it for the first race tomorrow night.
We will be on the grid p11 out of 19 bikes, hoping we can turn the week around and get some good results with a bike that handles.
Here’s Cool pic I got sent tonight from last nights practice at church bends, unfortunately not sure of the photographer to give photo credit.

07/07/2025

That’s the team successfully through technical inspection here at the Southern 100 Road Races in the Isle of Man. Ready to go for first night of practice. We will be on circuit 8:45pm

Kirkup/Hickey Sidecarcross Team

22/04/2026

15/04/2026

05/04/2026

05/04/2026

22/09/2025

18/08/2025

05/08/2025

15/07/2025

08/07/2025

07/07/2025

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