Sand Racing Report 28th
July 2018
Fine
weather but with strong onshore winds greeted the competitors as they assembled
at Vazon once again. With the tide not dropping as quickly or as far as
expected there was a delay in starting proceedings & this combined with a
number of red flag incidents meant that the final batch of races could not be
run as the fast incoming tide was beginning to encroach onto the back straight.
Having 3 racing cars present meant they had the own separate championship races
whilst the saloons had their own races also & it was in the first of these
that the red flag had to be used. Unfortunately Andrew Robilliard in his Puma
ploughed into the spinning MX5 of Paul Helier in the notorious wet bend &
though both drivers & Paul’s car were OK the Puma had to be dragged to the
top of the beach with a broken offside front wheel, driveshaft, steering column
& engine mount (parts are being sourced to try to repair the car). A
further 2 red flags were used in the intermediates races as Erin Ogier twice
came off her bike trying to take the slip bend with too much speed also
resulting in Stephanie Best taking a tumble, both riders continued racing. Most
bizarre race was in the cadets/juniors 3rd race when a rider came
off his bike,the yellow flag was shown warning riders of a danger on the track
though no Red flag was shown as this rider had walked off the track, the other
riders all slowed down & instead of continuing to race all headed to the
pits. The clerk of the course Ian Le Page declared that this race had been
abandoned & would not be rerun. For the last time this season Clint
Blondel& Kevin Bennett completed a couple of demonstration races on their
sidecar before a broken chain stopped their afternoon as they were not prepared
to use their other outfit as this was to be used at an invited Masters grass
track event in August.
On
the sliders it appears that Jordan Noel from Jersey much prefers to race in
Guernsey than at home as he shared the top two spots with Rob Teed, whilst
Colin Teed & Dave Cleal battled for 3rd spot. It was pleasing to
see that Mark Burbridge who rode as a junior about 17 years ago was having a go in this class on Rob’s
spare bike. For the 3 twisty MX races battle for first spot was between the
Rive twins & though Jarrod Carrington placed third in each race he was also
in battles with various other riders. The only oval course race was another win
for Billy Rive. The course for the cadets, juniors & intermediates was
longer then at previous meetings thus allowing them to reach higher speeds.
Though Dan Clark won the first 2 intermediates races a rattling engine meant
his day was over so Jack Bougourd won the final 2 races. Rhys Mellais on a
125cc MX bike managed second place 4 times bearing in mind that his bike’s
engine & that of Stephanie Best are only half the size of the 250cc slider
machines of the other riders in this class. For once Thomas Vining had to give
second best to Ben Le Prevost in the combined cadet/juniors first race but for
the remaining races he made sure of race wins.
Mark
Le Page won the 2 racing car championship races then promptly left the beach
(authorised by the clerk of the course) to attend a family wedding, leaving Sam
& Nick to battle for points for the Fillston Trophy. Double saloon car
championship race wins were order of the day for Matthew Board, Eric Trump
& Gary Robert whilst once again but by a very small margin James Lucas
managed to keep his car ahead of everyone else in the car handicap race.