Sand Racing Report 17TH September 2016

Sand Racing Report 17^TH September 2016

A perfect beach of dry flat sand with no ripples, no holes, no stones or seaweed the best all season was what the competitors found when they gathered on Vazon beach for the last time this year & though local entries where down due to Alderney speed weekend/family commitments 4 English swelled the entry. Locals had no chance in the slider class as regular visitor Dan Winterton was joined by Paul Cooper & Andrew Whitaker from the UK. Paul on Anthony Bougourd’s spare bike won the 1^st race, retired in the second race then came back to win the 3^rd& 5^th races on a bike belonging to Paul Van der Tang which just happened to be on display in the pits so was used for these races. Andrew gained a 3^rd, 1^st& two 2^nd’s whilst Dan had two 2nds & a 3^rd before blowing his 18000rpm engine when screaming down the back straight during the handicap race which turned out to be the only win for a local as Rob Teed just edged out Paul in 2^nd& his father Colin in 3^rd. In his 70^th year Bill Cohu came out for a couple of races as a farewell to slider racing but will continue next season on the sidecar which started & finished all 5 races though his passenger in the final race was Paul Cooper. Clint Blobdel/Ross Young only managed to complete the 3^rd race as broken chains in practice & 1^st race hampered their afternoon. It was back to 9 riders in the MX class & though Billy Rive could have won the first 3 races he handed victory to twin brother Billy so that he could increase his points tally as Billy had already won the championship. 4^TH race was on the oval track for points in the oval championship & this was the only chance for the handicappers to get times on the riders as their last race & the last race of the season was a 20 lap handicap on the oval course for the Pealing Carey trophy. If Marcus Crittell had stayed on his bike the result may have been different, having taken a tumble in the slip bend with 3 laps to go he was comfortably in the lead but not being able to restart allowed the other riders to ponce so that the faster rides came through to take the spoils.

It was unfortunate for 15 year old Arran Butcher from the UK not to have competition from Guernsey’s leading youngster Dan Clark but an accident at a Scouts soapbox event resulted in a broken wrist for Dan. Arran duly won 4 of the races only dropping to a 2^nd place when he tried out one of Harry Ogier’s spare bikes which was not as quick as his own. (Harry’s family are now the owners of Arran’s bike).There were good tussles between Harry, Luke Bush, Patrick Le Friec who must have found a difference when he swapped from the 85cc bike he was using to the 250cc version of Kevin Rumens& Ben Le Prevost, whist further back Kieren Bennett was tussling with Erin Ogier. GiloRobilliard& Sam Walker the 2 regular cadet riders were joined by newcomer Thomas Vining and they had great battles on their smaller course, let’s hope we see all these youngsters back on the beach next year.

Fewer cars for this meeting & an unfortunate accident on the 1^st lap of the first race saw an unsighted Eric Trump plough into the offside of Paul Helyer’s sideways car resulting in front end damage to Eric’s which will be repaired over the winter months but which curtailed any further racing as this event. The 3 remaining production cars were very close in every race with young Matthew Board showing a distinct increase in pace resulting in his first scratch race class win in the last race of the afternoon. Neil Bougaize& Paul Helyer will both be preparing new cars for next season. Neil a larger engine Civic & Paul an 1800cc MX5. Clint Blondel rounded off his season by winning all 5 races including the handicap race & now faces the decision next year if to defend both the racing car & sidecar championships or just concentrate’s only on one of these, whilst Gary Duquemin& Ben Brown gave chase they just don’t have the speed of the Purple Dragon. Making a rare saloon car appearance was Jim Langlois in a Toyota MR2 which was not sounding very healthy but the end of the meeting and was not able to match the speed of the smaller saloons.

Paul Stanford