Sand Racing Report 28^th April 2018

Having agreed that the bike courses from the first meeting were ideal there were just a couple of tweaks to these courses, the cadet/junior/intermediate course was lengthened slightly & the start moved to parallel to the finish line on the top straight. Another good entry for all but one class saw some exciting racing, though 2 early races & the final race of the day were red flagged (stopped) because of incidents on the course. With the cadets & juniors racing together so saw a mixture of riders in the top positions but there was only ever one winner with 8 year old Thomas Vining showing no fear as he drifted his slider around the bend’s. The mixture in this combined class saw some close battles as everyone was showing improvement in their riding. The intermediates on their larger machines also gave their all to the extent that both Dan Clark & Jack Bougourd overdid their drifting just too much & took tumbles which left them out of the results in a couple of races thus allowing the other riders to gain valuable points. An entry of 6 riders in the adult slider class was an improvement with regular English rider Dan Winterton outriding everyone else to take 4 race wins though he was chased hard by Billy Rive & Rob Teed. In their 3^rd race 6 riders into the slip bend from the start just did not work as Jersey rider Jorden Noel took a tumble which resulted in a red flag & visit to the ambulance without any serious injury. The motocross course was again much more flowing which allowed closer racing as Billy Rive once again lead the way but was closely followed by youngsters Josh Lambourne& Jarrod Carrington& when they got onto the oval track places did not change that much. Unfortunately Paul Le Messurier took a tumble on the final lap of this race which necessitated a visit to the hospital.

4 racing cars appeared for this meeting which saw them racing on their own as their speed difference over a flying lap was approx. 4 seconds over the quickest saloon cars. Mark Le Page had managed to purchase another engine for his car after blowing the engine at the first meeting. Sam De Carteret had also changed motors in his car up from 600cc last year to 1000cc for this season and was joined by Andrew Henry & Craig Addlesse. Lisa Le Page getting her first race of the season in the car she shares with husband Mark had the fright of her live in the third race of the afternoon when Craig Addlesse’s car flew over her car after contact was made in the wet bend, this resulting in the first red flag of the day. Both drivers & cars were a little bruised & shook up but again nothing to serious or that cannot be repaired. Joining the saloon car brigade was Neil Bourgaize in his road legal Hyundai, making a return to Vazon beach after having too many cars destroyed down at Chouet was Ian Robert in a Honda Civic & making his sand racing debut was Mike Ogier a regular hill climb & sprint start line marshal in the ex-Andrew Robilliard Peugeot. Unfortunately both these drivers had technical problems with fuel & electrical issues.  With no racing cars appearing for the handicap race it became a saloon only race with Gary Robert taking the only trophy that was on offer for this meeting.

Paul Stanford