SANDRACING REPORT 22/03/2008

An early Easter meant an early start to the 2008 sandrace season so it was not surprising that the number of competitors was smaller then expected with a number of vehicles not being ready in time or being held back for the 1st hill climb meeting on the same weekend. The weather also proved a major concern even before the event started as a JCB was required to fill in a large water filled hole at the bottom of the slip before any vehicle could get onto the beach. With very strong gustily winds it was deemed unsafe for both the juniors & slider bikes to compete so the 4 motocross riders decided to treat the meeting as a test session.

The car drivers elected to run near enough to program but instead of all competing together they were split racing cars & saloon cars but didn’t get there full quota of races as the lap recorder ran out of lap sheets. In the racing cars only 4 of the 7 entered appeared, Ben Batiste having sorted out his problems from last season will have a tough battle with ex-trials rider Ian Shorto who has acquired a similar if slightly larger engined grass track machine, whilst Graham Carrington was making a return to the beach with his now supercharged Jaguar powered car & Colin Bridle was moving up from production/modified saloons to a special saloon in the shape of a rear engined Skoda Coupe.

In the modified/special saloon class Ozzy Ozanne led the field from the Impreza of Paul Guymer & the Ford engined Peugeot 205 of Simon Carre who was using this as a test run before putting this car to hill climb use. In the production class there were only 4 competitors with Shaun Leigh in a Vauxhall Cavalier having close battles with the Escort of Carl Walbridge in the over 1800cc class whilst in the up to 1400cc class Eric Trump in his trusty Honda Civic does at least now have another competitor in this class as long time handicapper/lap recorder Paul Stanford has converted his 1993 Vauxhall Corsa which he has owed for the last 10 years & which was driven to this meeting to a beach car just so he can have a bit of fun.

Paul Stanford.