SANDRACING REPORT 13/08/2011

If you don’t win the Sand Ace (& up to now only 2 riders have claimed this title) then the next best achievement is to be crowned King of the Beach. In the 2 preceding races the battle for the winners spot was between the 2 Anthony’s, Bougourd & Queripel. Bougourd claimed this spot in race one but a mix up when lapping back markers going into the slip bend on the final lap in the 2^nd race saw both riders forced outside of the course but whilst Bougourd headed to the pits Queripel took a wide turn & still managed to get across the finishing line ahead of an improving Robert Teed for the win. Third bike race was for the King of the Beach crown & the prospect of a trilling race was on the cards, especially as for this meeting the course was on the short side being only approx 450yards, whereas the previous meeting had been in the region of 750yards, this was down to a rather rough wet bend. Reigning title hold Anthony Queripel could only watch as this title slipped from his grasp as Anthony Bougourd put on a master class in short lap racing to claim the title for 2011.

The juniors once again had their battles in which ever direction the races were run. Josh Lambourne took race honours in the 2 anticlockwise races whilst Alain Branquet took the only win in a clockwise race. Billy-Reece Rive had to make do with a 2^nd & two 3^rd places whilst Jarrod Carrington was unfortunate to fall off his bike whilst battling for 2^nd place in their 3^rd race, so this gave Billy Russell the opportunity to claim 3^rd spot. Ricky-Lee Rive was the other rider in this class.

In the cadets each rider Daniel Clarke & Barnaby Queripel took a win apiece in the 2 hotly contested races that were run for them.

The cars were down to only 8 competitors again, & early in the first race there was the first retirement as Karl Marshall broke a drive shaft on the little yellow Saxo & by the end of the race Simon Carre was out with chain damage on his Honda grass track car. For this meeting Faye Downes & Darren De Carteret had swopped Honda Civic’s to give Faye the experience of driving a slightly bigger engined car admittedly this was only a change of 100cc. The 2^nd car race was brought to a stop by the red flag after 4 laps as Paul De Jersey’s day only got worse (an accident whilst towing to the beach saw work having to be done on the front end of his Volvo 440 as the bumper had come off) when his car ground to a halt in the middle of the track on the exit to the slip bend. The third race was to see the end of any further racing for the day. Nigel Ozanne may be regretting his late entry for this meeting as having allowed Jarod Smith to get ahead of him from the start he may have misjudged his speed & Jarod’s line into the slip bend for the 2^nd time as Nigel’s front wheel caught the rear wheel of Jarod’s car, this catapulted Nigel’s car into the air spinning a couple of times before thumping back onto the ground. The race was immediately stopped so that the ambulance could attend to Nigel. This took some time as the Fire Brigade was called to cut Nigel from his car suffering from neck & back pain & injuries to his ankles.

Paul Stanford