Sand Racing Report 22nd July 2017

Sand Racing Report 12^th August 2017

The feature race of this 1^ST August meeting was for the slider bike competitor’s contesting for the title of King of the Beach. Whereas when this trophy was introduced it as well fought out between local, Jersey & the occasional English rider with the advent of the Sand Ace meeting this trophy has lost some of its importance. With only 3 local & 1 Jersey rider present on the beach it was easy to see who would take this award barring any accidents & having won the preceding 3 championship races by a fare margin, Bob Teed duly took this win also & the concluding Committee Cup race. Main battles were between Bob’s father Colin & veteran Dave Cleal whist young Jersey rider Noel Jordan was trying his best to mix things up. With a clashing MX training week end on at the same time there were fewer of these riders on the beach. Though he did not lead every lap of the four twisty course races Billy Rive made sure he was at the headof the field when the chequered flag dropped but was hard pressed by Mark King & Jarrod Carrington though Mark did get the better of him on the oval course. Middle of the pack was an all family affair between Dan, Nathan & Josh Pinchemain whilst Marcus Crittall& Kevin Rumens were fighting not to be last.

The 6 cadets (6 to 8 year olds) saw Thomas Vining take charge of this class with 5 race wins but second place was swapping hands lap by lap as GiloRobilliard, Casey Gallienne& Corey Le Friec fought for this position whilst Charlie’s Clark & Walker on their smaller 50cc machine were having their battle further down the field. The 10 junior/intermediates (9 to 16year olds)who race on the same track as the adult riders were having a day of mixed fortunes. Dan Clark was not as domineering as usual having to race hard against Patrick Le Friec& Luke Bush. Newcomer Sam Goddard put up a good show mixing with the mid field runners Harry & Erin Ogier, Stephanie Best & Ben Le Prevost. Most unlucky riders were Gemma Le Page & Sam Walker who came out for all races but between them only got to the finish line once having electrical & steering problems.

5 Racing cars appeared for this meeting but not one of them ran without some sort of problem. Sam de Carteret only managed one race as a flicked up stone caused problems to a spark plug, whilst early on Billy le Page’s car had a misfire, once this was cured there were close races between him Craig Addlesse, Gary Duqemin& Andrew Henry before Gary’s car broke a chain & Andrew’s car had a broken electrical wire. There were the usual bunch of cars in the two production classes but in a way the most interesting car present was the 50 year old 1967 Austin Mini MK11275cc modified saloon of Graham Jehan. This car spent about the first 13 years of its life as a road car before being converted to sand race use having a number of different engines fitted during its racing life but was last seen on the beach in 2007 having been carefully sorted away a now retired Graham though it time to bring it out again.

Paul Stanford