The sand kings of time

TO UNEARTH the top driver and rider of the best part of a century, a six-man panel with eyes delving back as far as the 30s, met around the table.

The oldest was lifelong motorsport fan Yves Cataroche, 88, the youngest, former rider Paul van der Tang, who is in his 40s.

In between, Jim Spicer, 82, a championship-winning driver in the fifties, GMC&CC club stalwart Amos Ozanne, another former car champion in Roger King and veteran bike rider Bill Cohu.

And in the time it takes to play a Muratti Vase final, the panel came up with the top five riders, top five drivers and the all-time kings of the sand on two and four wheels.

Cataroche’s recollection of pre-war racing was remarkable and painted a picture of car drivers virtually all associated with local garages.

Geoff and Tony Cohen, who ran a garage business in St John’s Street, Tommy Tostevin snr and jnr from Le Mont Saint, Harold Duquemin of Duque’s Garage, Roly Le Lacheur at Le Lacheur’s and the ill-fated Dave Bougourd at Ruette Braye.

It was an era which produced arguably the finest woman driver of the sands, her name, Dorothy Le Parmentier, and old Yves rates her highly when asked who was the quickest of the time.

‘I’d say it was a toss-up between Geoff Cohen, Mrs Le Parmentier and Roly Le Lacheur.’

All three found their way onto the longlist, soon halved to a shortlist of a dozen and then to the final five in alphabetical surname order: Geoff Cohen, Roger King, Dave Lowe, Maurice Ogier and Jim Spicer.

The last was good enough to win the highly-competitive open car classes of the fifties in No. 8, the Jim Spicer Special.

Cohen was even earlier and very fast.

‘That Invicta [of his] was out of this world in those days,’ recalls the veteran of the panel.

‘I’d say he won most [races] of the time.’

Lowe shone for a decade and was perhaps unfortunate it was a decade that coincided with Ogier at his most determined best.

In car No. 23 his Impala first carried a motorbike engine and latterly was propelled by an Imp one.

‘You’ve got to have Roger in,’ says Ozanne, father of modern-day car star Mark ‘Ozzy’ Ozanne.

Colin Horey, another contemporary of Ogier, is seriously considered, but King’s run of championship successes since 1969 gets him the nod.

But there is no doubting the winner.

Everyone is in agreement, ‘Mo’s the man’.

‘He would have won very nearly every race,’ says one of the panel.

‘I don’t think anybody has got near to doing the Guernsey-Jersey double,’ says another.

That double served as Ogier’s swansong on the sands and came in 1969 when his home-built Wellanier Daimler ‘wedge’ was flying.

At the final St Ouen meeting of the summer he achieved a double to make it nine wins out of 10 in Jersey that summer.

And while his Caesarean commitment meant him missing some of the local ones, he won what he had to to secure the Guernsey title, before declaring his next challenge: to take on the English hill climb circuit.