SANDRACING REPORT 09/10/2010

Conditions were ideal for the final meeting of the year, a dry sunny day, a pristine beach, nice smooth sand for the first time in a couple of months allowed the organisers to lay out a massive track taking up as much length of the beach as allowed under racing regulations & with a good low tide the width was also as large as possible. Unfortunately the car entry was minimal with only 4 cars appearing, the majority of the serious championships & trophies already having been decided many competitors did not bother to enter as there was little to race for. With only these four cars on a large beach they soon became stretched out for all of their races.

Even though there were again only 4 junior riders they did put on a better show then the car drivers. Once again Billy-Reece Rive was dominant but surprise rider of the day was Jarod Carrington who found this course much more to his liking taking up all the 2^nd spots. Jarod is the lightest rider in this class & so finds the shorter sharper courses much more difficult as he has not got the strength to slide his bike in tight around the corners & then pull it upright for the straights but on this course was able to keep his speed up & though having to take a much wider line through the corners was able to pass both Ricky-Lee Rive & Billy Russell who were then left to battle for the third & fourth places.

There was a good turn out of 12 riders in the senior class but things did not start out very well for them, just after their 1^st start the gearbox blow on Colin Teed’s bike leaving him with no drive & his sudden stopping caught out George Van Der Tang who was competing in only his second meeting as collision occurred which left Colin with serious damage to the front forks of this bike, luckily Colin had a spare bike available, so the race was red flagged to clear the bikes off the course. On the 2^nd attempt to start this race as the riders were being brought to the start line the bike of Anthony Bougourd suddenly shoot forward with a slipping clutch, knocking over one of the start line officials so they were all sent back to the pits so that the clutches could cool off, therefore for once the juniors had the honours of completing the first race of the day. Once the big bikes had got themselves sorted there was some very quick racing from Daniel Winterton & Anthony Bougourd whilst Mr. Consistency Dave Cleal on the eve of his 6oth Birthday was the only rider to gain top 3 placings in all 5 races that were run. As this was the final meeting there was a number of riders swapping bikes Colin & Robert Teed on Colin’s spare bike, Mike Clarke having a go on the high revving JRM of Dave Patten whilst Pierre Rive (Suzuki Salt Blaster1100) had a go on Anthony Bougourd’s Slider, he’s just not used to having to trail his left leg in the corners but did not fall off & so finished that race. In the 5th championship race a slight touch by Dave Cleal brought Mike Clarke crashing to the ground in the first corner so another race was red fagged to allow the ambulance onto the beach to attend to Mike, who then needed to be taken to hospital. As there were not many races left to be run the meeting was brought to an early conclusion.

Paul Stanford