Sand Racing Report May 17^th 2008

This the 4th meeting of the season produced yet another different challenge for the adult bike riders in the form of a team challenge. The rides were equally divided into 2 teams the Richmond Rebels lead by Mike Clarke & the Albecq All Stars lead by Anthony Bougourd. Though there were 6 heats to this challenge each rider only had to ride in 4 of them so that there was a good mix of riders claiming the valuable points. At the end of the day The Richmond Rebels took the spoils by 105 points to Albecq All Stars 99. To add spice to this meeting the 4 fastest riders were each given the opportunity to make an attempt at the Bahn Record (Flying lap), not unsurprisingly this went to reigning 500cc Champion Anthony Bougourd on 26.22, surprisingly Jon Le Page got into 2nd place with a 26.53 whilst 3rd was Simon Cohu on 26.72 & taking 4th place was Anthony Queripel whose actual time was the fastest on 26.06 but because he had gained an unfair advantage by riding outside of the course marker cones was dropped to last place. The remaining riders were given the chance to take part in a prize scratch race which went to Dave Cleal on his Nu-Track Bandit 547. The last race of the day was for the committee cup which saw a wins for Anthony Queripel in the 500 class & the only 250cc rider present Eddie Goracy.

In the Cadet class there was no brotherly love lost between the only two competitors present with Ricky-Lee beating his twin brother Billy-Reece Rive by 4 wins to 2.

The longer course & wet slip bend didn’t make things easy in the car classes, with only 2 racing cars present all classes raced together meaning some competitors were getting filled in with sand & spray as a regular occurrence. Ian Shorto dominated the racing car class whilst Trevor Le Page sorted out some problems. In the modified class Mark Ozanne had it all his own way as Colin Bridle having blown the head gasket on the Skoda Special was out in the well used Mazda 626, whilst Paul Guymer in the Subaru never completed a race. In the Production classes Eric Trump led the way in the small class whilst Paul Stanford suffered a broken cam belt whilst in the large class there were mixed fortunes with only John Le Page not completing the meeting with a broken clutch on the Audi. In the middle class in was going to be a win for a Honda CRX but of the 4 competing which one would it be & in the end it was only Martin Dorey who didn’t take a win but it was Doug Le Fevre who suffered the most as his engine just did not want to run correctly for most of the afternoon.

The next meeting in 3 weeks time on Saturday 7th June at 2.30pm is the CondorFerries Sand Ace which features a host of English Riders plus for the first time in many years there should be 4 1000cc sidecar outfits competing.

Paul Stanford.