Sand Racing Report 3^rd August 2019

A dark cloud hanged over the prestart proceedings at the 7^th round of this seasons championship as once clerk of the course Ian Le Page had given his usual briefing to both competitors & officials re condition of the track, track limits & warnings about taking out the marker cones he had to pass on the sad news of the sudden death of veteran slider rider Colin Teed. He asked that everyone enjoyed their afternoon thinking of Colin & his family & was rewarded with an afternoon without any serious incidents, red flags or warning to the competitors re hitting the marker cones, all practice & 30 races were completed on time.

The major car trophy on the programme was for the 20 lapper Victoria handicap trophy but was run with a depleted field as no racing cars had been entered for this meeting so it was a saloon only event. Unfortunately the spectators did not get to see OzzyOzanne out in his big Jaguar as after doing too many doughnuts at the final parade at the motorsport sea front Sunday the clutch failed & Sam De Carteret did not start this race in his rapid Toyota Corolla as it was suffering from overheating. This just left 6 cars to contend for this trophy & when Gary Le Page had to retire also with overheating problems the race became a procession as the faster saloons of Eric Trump & Gary Robert just could not catch & pass the cars in front of them. This allowed Matthew Board to take honours from Faye Downs whilst in 3^rd place was Bradley Sampson who is a UK resident but with family in Guernsey.Bradley does rally cross in the UK & the local family had suggested he come & race at Vazon, he accepted their offer as long as they sourced & prepared a car for him to race. The usual mixture of championship & season long trophy races were also run & it was interesting to see how even the cars are even though they are split into 3 classes.

For the MX class their major trophy was for the Coronation Vase handicap & this came down to a battle between the Le Messurier brothers as Paul just pipped Ian to the finish line with Jarrod Carrington in 3^rd spot. For this meeting the twisty section was quite a simple affair with just a couple of tight corners at the slip end of the beach then almost a straight run across the infield to the middle of the wet bend to re-join the oval course. This meant that the field was not splitting up so much making the racing tighter & more overtaking was taking place which kept the lap recorders on their toes. No one rider was dominating though Josh Pinchemain who was up in the leading pack twice failed to finish due to mechanical problems.

For the first 3 races of the slider class Jersey man Jordan Noel really had no competition as though UK rider Dan Winterton was riding he failed to finish these races, it was only in the last two that he pushed Jordan but had to settle for second place. Dave Cleal was as usual consistent whilst Billy Rive managed one race, Erin Ogier managed a couple of races on her lower powered 250cc machine & Keith Rumens was using Dan Wintertons spare bike on the beach for the first time.

After a fraught training session away the previous weekend(rain flooded out the track at Eastborne so alternative arrangements were quickly made to drive down to Plymouth for a shortened session) the majority of the cadets, juniors & intermediates were only too willing to put the knowledge gained to good use. In the cadets Jack Pollard came back with a slider bike so just took his time to get use to riding it so leaving GiloRobilliard& Zach Wallbridge to battle for the wins. In the MX section Alisha Wild King & Cody Wallbridge riding same cc bikes were evenly matched whilst on the sliders Gemma Le Page & the Walker brothers Sam & Charlie certainly showed an improvement in the speed that they were riding. I’m sure that Colin Teed would have wanted members of his family to still be present & taking part in this meeting & to have been proud that they were gaining experience every time they race.

Paul Stanford