Sand Race Report April 7th 2012

The sun made periodic appearances on a dull day to greet in another season of sand racing. The senior motorcycle riders had honour of opening up the meeting with a very tight finish in the 1^st race between reigning champion Anthony Queripel, long time competitor Mike Clarke & a fast charging Martyn Guilbert. It was Anthony & Martyn who dominated the lead postions for the remaining races with close competion lower down the field between Dave Cleal & Rob Teed, Colin Teed & Eddie Goracy whilst Nick Russell on the big Honda 900cc battled with young George van der Tang for the final slots. First retirement on the season went to Dave Patten. First trophy of the season was for the Silver Goblet, Mike lead away from Martyn but was forced wide off the course coming out of the wet bend allowing Martyn into the lead but coming out of the same bend for the 4^th & last time Martyn slowed & pulled off the track gifting the win back to Mike, the reason he had run out of fuel.

Juniors only mustered a field of 3 with Josh Lambourne dominating the winning spot whether he rode his usual Motocross bike or a new bike which will be set up solely for the beach. Billy Russell was the faster of the other riders before he had to retire & a new bike for him should surely be on the cards as he is fast outgrowing his current Kawasaki, this left Jarod Carrington as the only other competitor.

2 racing cars were entered but unfortunately for newcomer David Rice with a Suzuki GSXR 600 an undetected wiring fault stopped the car from running even before the meeting started, this left Jarod Smith in the Honda CBR 1000 as the sole racer. Saloons were a little better supported but again it was newcomer Craig Whales in a 1600 Honda Civic who was out of racing after his couple of practice laps when a serious water leak manifested itself. This left Eric Trump as the sole saloon up to 1400cc, the closest racing was in the 1400-1800 class with Shaun Leigh & Karl West battling for supremacy whilst in the over 1800 class Simon Carre outgunned the only lady competitor Faye Downes. The cars first trophy of the season was for the Winslow Trophy & whilst it was obvious the handicapper had given Eric to much of an advantage the battle for second place was intense with the remaining 5 cars crossing the finishing line almost as one.

Paul Stanford