SANDRACING REPORT 25/09/2010

The competitors meet for the penultimate time on a dry but blustery afternoon but though the classes were depleted in numbers the racing was some of the best of the whole season & this was down to the fact that the beach was in a worst condition then the previous month. The majority of the pebbles that line the beach from the slipway to the wooden groynes had been pulled down into the middle of the beach leaving a very stony surface together with the fact that the ridge had now filled with larger stones & a second ridge had appeared further up the beach leaving the slip corner as a sort of hump. This meant that a very sharp hairpin bend had to be included on this corner to get the competitors racing inside the stony ridge, & a slight kink was put into the course along the back straight so that a wider wet bend could be used.

For the bike boys it meant getting their line into the slip bend correct as if they ran wide on the exit they would find themselves riding over the very large stones which a number of them did, thus producing a mixed bag of results depending on how well each rider rode. Competition was fierce between the 2 Anthony’s & Daniel Winterton, with Dave Cleal the best of the rest. The 2 big bikes of Nick Russell & Pierre Rive would approach the slip bend at great speed then have to shut down to be able to make this corner & though they had different styles the riding was also very close. To give these big bikes a good run the final race of the day was over 10 laps but as these 2 riders battled for 2^nd place Colin Teed on his slider proved that his bike can run for the 10 laps as he took the win. 4^th placed man in this race was Dave Patten on a JRM 500 speedway bike making a return to the beach after last racing seriously in the mid 70’s.

Billy-Reece Rive worked out very quickly what the correct way was to ride the sharp slip bend & so was able to pull away from the other riders & take all 8 race wins. This left Billy Russell to battle with Ricky-Lee Rive for the 2^nd place spot whilst Jarod Carrington was determined to gain a number of 3^rd place spots.

With no racing cars present the design of this course brought the saloon cars a lot closer together as again the slip bend was catching them out. Approach too quickly & one would get bogged down & come to an almost complete stop in the soft sand that was being churned up as the afternoon progressed. John Dean had to contend with failing electrical power & rising water temperatures on his car whilst this track suited club president Bill Cohu who took a string a race & class wins, 3^rd car in this class was rather bent by the end of the meeting & Ricky is looking forward to finding something quicker for next season. His sister Vienna was one would smacked into the side of Ricky’s car in the slip bend, hopefully the damage is not too severe as her car has been sold on for someone else to use next year, Once again Martin Dorey embarrassed the larger powered cars in the small engined Honda but a blown head gasket ended his day. The 2 competitors in the large class were familiar names but both out in unfamiliar cars. Shaun Leigh’s Vauxhall has been consigned to end its days down on Chouet beach so he was out in Karl West’s Lexus whilst Eric Trump was out in his 4^th car of the year & thought the Peugeot 306 only has a 1600cc engine he elected to stay in the top class to gain valuable championship points.

The final meeting of the year starts at 1pm on 9/10/2010.

Paul Stanford