Sandracing Report June 27th 2009
This was the big meeting of the year for the 4th running of the Condor Ferries Sand Ace title with our own local Anthony Queripel defending the title he won in 2008 from 2006 & 7 winner Mitch Godden plus a number of strong English riders who had raced here in previous years & a number on their first but hopefully not last visit to our shores. With a number of local competitors unable to compete there were a total of 20 riders of various ages & on various bikes competing. Youngest rider was 16 yr old Jersey rider Joe Bishop on only a 350cc bike, whilst English riders Gerry Smith & Mick Cooke were out on 2 very old upright engined machines whilst the remainder were on more modern 500 cc machinery. Each race contained 10 riders & each rider rode 4 heats to gain points for the 2 finals of nine riders at the end of the meeting therefore only 2 riders would miss out on a 5th race. The top 9 point scorers went into the A final whilst the next 9 made up the B Final & it was these 2 races which determined how much each rider was going to win. The B final winner Bryan Pillow only made it this far by using Simon Cohu’s bike which was on display on the concrete slab at the top of the slip before being pressed into use, long time local rider Dave Cleal took 2nd place whilst Jersey rider Jamie Griffiths took 3rd place. As was expected the top riders all managed to get into the A Final but the question was would Anthony beat Mitch for a 2nd year, unfortunately the answer was no as Mitch took a well deserved 3rd victory in this event with Anthony taking 2nd place & Phil Ashcroft taking the 3rd spot.
Backing up these races saw the largest turn out of youth riders this season but it was Frankie Brouard out for the 1st time this year on the largest bike a KTM 150cc took the 4 race wins whist 2nd place seemed to be hotly contested as Ricky-Lee Rive took this position twice on his Honda 100cc bike whilst Josh Lambourne & Jordan Palmeri both out on the smallest bikes KTM’S 65cc each claimed this position once whilst 3rd place was glued to the hands of Billy-Reece Rive on his Honda 100. The other 2 rides Billy Russell on a Kawaski 80 & Jarod Carrington on a Honda 70 were never that far behind to challenge for this final position