SANDRACING REPORT 03/10/2009
The final meeting of the year may have been held on a dry but very blustery day with the beach in fairly good condition but it was no disappointment as the racing was fast & furious. As with the current Grand Prix standing 3 riders were in with a chance of clinching the sliders championship with Dave Cleal leading the way before racing began, Unfortunately on the first corner of the very 1st race with all 8 riders tightly bunched together the inevitable happened with an accident between Dave Cleal & Darren Clarke & with both riders on the ground the red flag was shown to immediately stop the race. Fortunately both riders got to their feet but as Darren was in pain the ambulance was required to take him to the hospital with a suspected broken collarbone again. There was almost an hour’s delay till the ambulance returned again but with very slick pit work only 5 of the programmed races were lost. This delay allowed Dave to check his bike over before racing again where as Darren’s bike will be in need of repair to the front forks & a replacement wheel. For the first of the 3 championship races it was Dan Winterton out in the lead from the 3rd rider looking for the championship that of Anthony Queripel whist Mike Clarke & Anthony Bougourd picked up the 3rd places thus leaving Dave Cleal in the 4th or 5th slots meaning the championship now only had 1 point between Dave & Dan. In the remaining 2 championship races Dave was given some welcome help in that both Mike Clarke & Anthony Bougourd slowed on the final lap of each race to allow Dave to take 2nd spot but this wasn’t quite enough for the 62 year old local who failed by 3 points to much younger Stoke rider Dan for this year championship but this just shows the commitment of Dan to has put in this season to get here on a regular basis something some of the local riders should be looking to be doing.
In the junior classes the Rive twins on there more powerful bikes almost sewed up the 1st & 2nd spots in their 6 races it was only Billy-Reece trying to hard to make a good start in race 5 which saw him being thrown from the bike on the start line which ended the run thus allowing Joshua Lambourne & Jordan Palmeri to move up one place each. Billy Russell having missed the last meeting with bike problems was out for this meeting on another Kawasaki whist Jorad Carrington completed his first season on the beach.
There was a healthy turn out of 16 cars in various classes with Paul Morgan making a return with his Special after a major rebuild following a coming together with a tree at a hill climb earlier in the year, but a broken water pipe ended his day during the first race so this meant Simon Carre joined the saloons for the rest of the day. Another car making a beach return after many years was the Rover engine Escort special in the hands of Barry Le Prevost which may give Mark Ozanne’s Jaguar powered Sierra a run for it’s money next season after some winter tweaks. Two of the Jersey competitors were here again having had there cars repaired in Guernsey after the last meeting. Having a roll cage in his car allowed Michael Binet to run with knobbly tyres thus moving him up into the modified class but I’m sure it was not his intension to return home with an even more modified car as going into the wet bend during one on the latter races the nose dug into the sand somersaulting the car into the air causing considerable damage to the off side with front & rear wheels pointing in different directions, With all cars slowing down to take avoiding action John Dean ran into the back of another car causing serious damage to the front of his car which resulted in a puncture in the following race luckily his class championship had already been won.
Hopefully more competitors can be encouraged to come out when the 2010 season begins roundabout April new year.
Paul Stanford