Sand Racing Report 2ND May 2015
The wet & glumly weather did not deter the competitors as they
headed out west for the second instalment of the summer sand racing season.
Having fixed the problems from last meeting Graham Carrington was on the beach
again with his Jaguar Special & completed the first race in the winning
spot before a melted piston ended his running once again, also going out in 1st
race was Gary Duquemin with clutch problems on his smaller engine special
leaving Clint Blondel as the only racing car running. Jamie Lucas in his 4wd
Golf had stiff competition from the Audi Quattro of Karl West who was another
retiree with overheating. Simon Carre having not satisfied himself that he had
cured the problems on the Prelude decided to bring out his little 1400cc Civic
instead and must have been happier as he was mixing in with the larger
production car class which saw Wayne Martel dominate he class having improved
the traction since its first outing.
The third race of the afternoon for the MX Class was full of incident
with the red flag being shown after 2 laps after Billy Russell took a nasty
tumble in the wet bend which necessitated the use of the ambulance which did
not have to leave the beach though Billy was taken up to the hospital to be
checked over. Once this delay was over the race was rerun but once again the
red flag was out as 2 riders collided in the tight twisty infield section &
with a rider on the ground uninjured is was deemed correct to bring his race to
a halt. Though the meeting was running behind schedule it was decided to
continue racing so that every class got their 5 races but when this class was
out for their final race the red flag had to come out again but in this case it
was due to the tide encroaching too far onto the back straight making it
dangerous to race. After the intermediates 1st race Jarrod
Carrington had to do 4 races on his own as Ricky Rive concentrated on the good
riding he was showing in the MX class. We were down to just 3 cadet riders
today with Dan Clark leading this class, with Rhys Melass on the only Motocross
bike taking 2nd spot whilst an improving Harry Ogier gaining
knowledge every time he rides & can now get off the start line without
stalling having the bring up the rear in this group. So what of the sidecar
outfits of which there were 4, Bill Cohu/Jason Carre as having ridden round the
pits when it came to fire up for the practice could find no gears. Newcomer
Brian Le Page/A N Other rode slowly for practice but were not seen again, Clint
Blondel/Ross Young had a clear advantage in the first race leading for 4 laps
but pulled the bike in going down the back straight, didn’t come out again so
this only left Pierre Rive/PrusisNormunds who completed the 1st race
& 2 other shortened races, a lot of hard work by all of these competitors to
get their bikes reliable will be required before there will be some exciting
action from this class.
Paul Stanford
Paul Stanford