Sandrace August 28th 2010
Though the weather was bright & sunny the beach at Vazon was in far
from perfect condition for racing, The bike boys in charge of setting up this meeting’s course had a long discussion before starting as the ridge that has been present in the slip bend for the previous 2 meetings had increased in size to such an extent that there was a large puddle at one end, too deep for either cars or bikes to race through & stones filling up the rest of the dip. It was therefore decided the bikes would have course with a sharp hairpin bend at the slip end to get back inside the stony ridge & a slight wider wet bend, so that the riders would not be carrying too much speed into the slip bend the course was made very short. After inspecting the course, clerk of the course Ian Le Page decided the course was too short for the car competitors so the smoothest section through the stones was cleared of the largest stones so that they could race down the outside after coming out of the wet bend.
Even though this was a short course for the bikes more akin to a speedway track, the fastest lap time’s approx 8 seconds quicker then a normal course, Anthony Queripel was able to dominate the racing with a superb display of riding still managing to lap the slower bikes. Dave Cleal & Robert Teed were therefore left to battle for the 2nd & 3rd spots whilst Jamie Thompson on the only other slider was gaining more experience after competing for the first time at the previous meeting. The two riders who least liked this course were Pierre Rive & Nick Russell who just could not unleash the power from their modified big road bikes whilst Eddie Goracy on his smaller motocross bike had to contend with a returning Rob Campbell on a KTM 250. In fact Eddie & Nick swapped bikes for the Committee Cup Race so for the first time this year the 250cc Honda beat the 900cc version.
In the cars Mark Ozanne driving the 4wd Subaru was the quickest on 4 wheels, the 4wd helping him to outpace the much more nimble but less powerful grass
track cars of Simon Carre, who has now won the racing car championship & Jake Bentley was has gradually improved his speed in his first season on the beach. Again with no competition Vienna Le Cheminant has won the production saloon car class up to 1400cc. In production 1401-1800cc John Dean again displayed his mastery of this class taking maximum points from Ricky Le Cheminant in the smaller 1500cc Civic & Bill Cohu who had changed back to 4 wheels after riding his bike at the previous meeting. The toughest class is for production saloons over 1800cc where Eric Trump down in his 3rd different car this year, this time an Alfa 164 2000cc took the first 2 championship race wins but slumped back to 3rd in the final one driving around quite slowly as the engine was about to fail on this car. Shaun Leigh in the Caviller was the best of the rest but had to contend with the big Lexus of Karl West & the slippery Accord Coupe of Darren De Carteret.
In the Junior bike class the short course meant that the riders were bunched closer together so that the racing became more competitive. This did not stop Billy-Reece Rive from taking all the race wins whilst his twin brother Ricky-Lee had to retire after the end of the first race with a seized motor. The shorter track should have suited Josh Lambourne on the 65cc KTM but he just could not keep in tight enough on the bends so only managed 2 second places to the larger bike of Billy Russell who took 4 second places.
Paul Stanford