Sand Racing Report 14^th July 2018

It must be remembered that sanding racing is not only about the 5 bike classes running over 4 races but there are 4 car classes which were spit into 2 races for this meeting. For the first time ever brothers Billy & Mark Le Page were out in their own grass track buggies racing against each other (in the past they shared the same car) The cars have the same sized engine but in different chassis so was interesting to see who came out as fastest, unfortunately for Billy a punctured rear tyre & a broken chain in different races meant he couldn’t keep up with Mark though he did manage to beat Mark’s car when Mark’s wife Lisa took control of it for a couple of races. Making his sand race debut was Nick Duquemin out in father Gary’s car commonly called ‘Dave’, he drove sensibly throughout the 5 races getting quicker with each race so would be a welcome addition to the racing car class. For once Eric Trump did not get a clean sweep of wins in the combined saloon car races, for once having to follow in the tracks of the similar Hyundai of Neil Brougaize in the first race. Being the only modified car entered it did not matter where Gary Robert finished in each race as he would pick up maximum points but though he could run gripper tyres, the down side of running heavier with a roll cage meant he was often being chased hard by the Puma’s of Matthew Board & Andrew Robilliard. Having to replace his windscreen & gearbox after the previous meeting Paul Helyer was not quite so quick this meeting in his road going Mazda MX5. Having to go home after race one to weld up his exhaust pipe which had fractured at the manifold meant Mike Ogier only completed this & the last race in his Peugeot. A close battle was fought out for second place in the handicap race but no-one could catch the slowest car on the beach the Nissan Almera of Jamie Lucas whohad to use this car instead of his normal Audi due to fire damage incurred at the previous meeting.

The inter-island battle continued in the slider class with Robert Teed again beating Jordan Noel from Jersey 3-2 in the slider class whilst Colin Teed was the only other competitor. Though Dan Clark once again had maximum race wins in the intermediate class the 2 girl races Erin & Stephanie were not going to let the only other boy racer Jack get all the 2^nd place slots, as they managed to push him out of this position once each. In the combined cadets/juniors it was once again all 1^st place for Thomas Vining (cadet) & 2^nd places for Ben Le Prevost (junior)but 3^rd place was well fought for with Gemma Le Page on her new 149cc slider & Sam Walker on his slider both taking this position twice each whilst Lewis Le Blanq on his smaller 65cc machine managed this in the final race. The riders all enjoyed their afternoons sport & with another training session away at the beginning of August improvements can still be made before the season comes to a close. The MX class was as frantic as usual but with no one rider being able to dominate proceedings. The first 3 races were on the twisty infield course which excludes the use of the back straight this stretches the field out so there are separate battles going on throughout the field, the main battle was between Billy Rive, Josh Lamboure& Jarrod Carrington but if one of them faltered Mark King or Ricky Rive were there to pinch places. Their 4^th race for a separate champioshipwas on the oval track which is high speed all the way & then for the finale the organiser had decided to make it a handicap race. Taking the result from the previous race the handicapper walked down the line of riders sending slowest away first till fastest last, this meant this was a hard charging 5 lap race which was won by midfielder Paul Le Messurier.

Paul Stanford