Sandrace Report July 11th 2009

After the trill of the previous Sand Ace meeting it was back to a normal Championship event for the 6^th meeting of the year & for this meeting the cars were to take centre stage as the 20 lap Victoria handicap Trophy was up for grabs. The plan was to allow the racing cars to have a go for this trophy as 5 cars were entered by with 3 preceding races the line up would have been only 2 cars so the organisers decided that the saloons should race instead. Quick work by the handicapper & lap recorders worked out the starting order for this race giving Lisa Robilliard a 2 lap start in her little Nissan Micra over 2^nd man away Paul Stanford followed by Phil Brehaut, Bill Cohu, Eric Trump & John Le page as scratch man. The only car to drop out was Eric Trump who though he had a puncture which was unfounded.  There was a real battle for first place as Paul slowly but surly gained on Lisa but a couple of wild moments in the corners meant he would have needed just another lap to take the win meanwhile there was another battle for 3^rd place as it took Bill 18 laps to get ahead of Phil with John still bringing up the rear.

With so few saloons the remaining races more or less went as predicted whist in the racing cars Ian Shorto lead the way in all 6 races but was being chased hard by Mark Ozanne in his new Ozzyworth which has now gained more speed with all the sensors working. Simon Carre in the small 600cc machine proved that reliability works as a string of 3^rd places showed. Ricky Le Cheminant once again had problems with the drive shafts on the Kawasaki 1100 so another re think is called for to resolve this problem. Barry Le Prevost at least managed to finish one race in the monster 5 litre Dulon but will have to fix the misfire problems caused by water getting into the engine before this car can provide a challenge to the other competitors.

In the Junior bike the once dominant Rive twins did not have it there own way with only Billy-Reece getting 6 3^rd positions whilst Rick-Lee took a tumble so missed some races. It was the 2 riders on the smallest machines Jordan Palmeri & Josh Lamourne on their little 65 cc KTM’S that took all the 1^st & 2^nd placings a truly well deserved achievement. The only other rider in a leading position was Billy Russell who took the remaining 3^rd place spot whilst Jarrod Carrington still has a bit of catching up to do.

As for the senior bikes it was disappointing to see only 4 sliders & 1 motocross bike out though as none of the top local riders were racing it meant there were close races all afternoon. Martyn Guilbert came out best with 5 wins whilst Dave Cleal got the remaining 2 winning spots plus 5 second places thus leaving Darren Clarke & Robert Teed each to gain 1 second & 3 third placings. Eddie Goracy on the only 250cc bike took his maximum 6 class wins.

Paul Stanford