Sand Racing Report 3^rd May 2014

For the second meeting in a row the slider class was dominated by Anthony Bougourd who showed fine form in taking all 6 race wins. The old masters Bill Cohu, Dave Cleal & Colin Teed showed the youngsters the way to go racing by taking the majority of the 2^nd & 3^rd place spots with Anyon Robilliard & a vastly improving George Vandertang slipping in the odd top placing, leaving Simon Cohu making a rare appearance to be the only rider without a top spot.

The motocrossers had a track with a longer twister infield & saw the appearance of top trails rider Tom Scott more use to a slower form of motorsport take on the more experienced riders but took top spot in race one on Nick Russell’s Honda 450cc before taking over Billy Russell’s smaller 250cc version after taking a tumble in the 2^nd race. This allowed class leader Tony Duquemin to take 4 race wins whilst Paul Le Gallez took the win when they moved onto the oval course for their final race. Besides these riders Daniel Pinchemain took a couple of 2^nd & one 3^rd place whilst his brother Nathan took two 3^rd places whilst Matt Le Gallez was the only rider not to get a top spot.

The Rive twins swapped bikes for this meeting so Ricky was out on the slider whilst Billy started out on a Honda 85cc before having to use Josh Lambourne’s spare Suzuki 85c so at times there very two number 8 bikes out on the track. The battle for first spot was quite close between Ricky & Josh with them both gaining 2 wins apiece whilst Billy got the win in the final championship race. As none of these 3 came out for the final scratch race this allowed Jarrod Carrington to take the win from Rhys Melass, who was gaining experience on only his second meeting on this bigger bike. Youngest cadet Dan Clark 9 had an advantage on his slider bike to his only rival Kieran Bennett 10 on the motocross bike but twice failed to win a race by giving himself too big a handicap at the start by either stalling his bike on the start line or waiting too long before setting off, though this gives him the knowledge of having to chase instead of being chased.

Cars were down to just 6 entries but once again the very reliable Home Comforts ZZR racing car of Jack Sanders was in trouble as a broken chain ripped teeth off the sprocket, cut through the wiring loom & did unknown internal damage to the engine that a replacement will have to be fitted before the next meeting. There was though the beautiful sound of a real racing engine when the 5300cc super charged engine was fired up in Graham Carrington’s Jaguar which has not seen the beach for 6 years. Also out in a racing car was newcomer Paul Penney having acquired another ZZR after sharing a car at the last meeting in 2013. Simon Carre tried to keep up with Graham but even his 4wd Quattro was outpaced so the only real battle for class honours was between Eric Trump & Wayne Martel in the production car class with Wayne taking the championship race wins but lost out in the Rocksand trophy race when the fan belt broken losing power steering & overheating which curtailed his racing for the rest of the afternoon.

Paul Stanford