Reigning British and four-time World Sidecar Champion Tim Reeves has said he is puzzled at the decision by the sport's domestic governing body to change the rules for 2014 which will prevent him from racing to retain his title.

Under new regulations, drawn up by RKB-F1 chief Roger Body, Reeves and the Birchall brothers will not be eligible to race in the entire championship with only wildcard entries allowed.

The 2014 regulations say: "Any driver who has been classified in the first three of the final drivers’ points’ standings in the FIM Sidecar World Championship between 2009–2013 is not eligible for full series registration to the Championship.

"At the Promoters exclusive discretion wildcard drivers may be accepted for events. Wild Card drivers are not eligible to score points or receive prize money."

Reeves is upset by the decision and says that he now has a choice of quitting completely, trying to find the money to go back to World level or settling for racing his F2 outfit twice a year on the roads.

"If I was still world championship racing it wouldn't be such an issue but I have won that four times and I came back to the British Championship to do a couple of years before I retire, a bit like Niall Mackenzie did, if you like," said Reeves, speaking to bikesportnews.com this morning.

"My brother Tris wanted to go racing again but his job and family didn't allow world championship. I started my career with him so it was nice to end it with him too. As I am sitting here now, the new rules have left me right in the mire as I was negotiating a dea with Kawasaki for the British championship, which has now gone by the wayside. I've lost one of my other big sponsors because I won't be riding in England at all and I had two others lined up.

"On a big bike this could be the end. It won't finish my TT career, but certainly it will finish on an F1. I have someting in place for the TT and the Southern 100 and that's it. If I can find the budget to go to the World championship, then that is what I will have to do but at the moment there is nothing in place. Trying to find money is hard.

"The other teams were getting closer to me, and to Ben and Tom, they just needed a bit more consistency. On the timesheets, sometimes the difference was only half a second or so. It's only because I can do that lap in, lap out and they are learning their trade that the gap at the end was big. I wanted to make these last couple of years racing into me giving something back to the sport.

"When I started, Steve Webster helped me hugely but when I got close to him, that understandably stopped. The only way I got better was to make sure I was racing Webbo every weekend. The Hegartys, Browns, Hollands are all more than capable of giving me a race and they are all working hard over the winter, I have spoken to them. Who says they aren't going to give me a race? Whenever any of these guys need some help, I do, with suspension setup, whatever, but as soon as they get close, it would stop. But we won't know now, will we?

I'm not knocking Roger for what he has done for the sport. He has put a lot of his own money in, got Sidecars back on to the television and back in the mainstream British Championship, so he has done some great work, I just don't understand his reasoning behind freezing me out of it."

Attempts by bikesportnews.com to contact Roger Body via phone and email over the last two days have proved unsuccessful.