Man of the day: Nick Saunders finally broke under the magical 30sec. barrier. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0619772)
RECORDS were sent tumbling at the penultimate Le Val des Terres hill climb meeting on Saturday.
Out of the 35 classes on show, a staggering 10 records were broken in what was generally a lightning quick day, with many racers also breaking their own personal bests.
The most stunning class of the day was the motorcycles 501 to 600, where the top three riders all recorded times faster than the previous record set by Peter Le Page in 2006.
Le Page and Anthony Poynder both rode well, but it was ultimately Daniel Attewell who set the new record and won the class.
The other standout performance was by Nick Saunders, who broke his own record set a year ago in the racing cars category. More importantly, he became the first islander since Mike Dean to reach the top in a time of less than 30 seconds, recording 29.68.
One of the reasons for the startling pace on show was the perfect weather conditions, according to young saloon racer Robert Stanford, who broke his personal best by a second.
‘It’s been brilliant today. The weather looked as though it was going to be bad, but it has cleared nicely. It is dry and cool, which is near perfect for racing in. The cars have also held up nicely throughout the day,’ he said.
One of the record-breakers of the day was former Muratti footballer Steve Brehaut, who took 0.25sec off his own record from a year ago. It had been a realistic aim before the event, he said.
‘With the conditions being perfect, I hoped that I could get close to my record. Overall, it has been a brilliant day.’
The only negative part of the day had been around midday, when slight drizzle had hindered some racers at the time. However, Brehaut, who was one of the ones to race in the rain, believes it wasn’t a huge problem.
‘It didn’t rain for long and it wasn’t that heavy. It made it a bit slippery and naturally a bit slower, but it was nothing dramatic,’ he said.
Marc Maubec, who came third in his closely fought class, had been hoping for a good day, which he felt he achieved.
‘If the weather was good, then I was hoping to break my personal best, which is what I ended up doing.
The rain wasn’t great, but that aside, I have had a good day out,’ he said.
Other record breakers included Shaun Leigh, Dave Hockaday, Glyn Ridley, Tim Le Pelley, Brian Harrison and Mark King, who all broke their own class bests, as well as Paul Priaulx.
The final record was broken by Andy Bougourd, who bettered his own time in the most hotly-contested class of the day, that of the sports libre.
His time of 31.03sec saw him finish only 0.34 quicker than the fourth-placed racer, such was the competitiveness of the class which included holidaying national series star Martin Groves.
The day’s racing didn’t finish until nearly 6.30, after a number of crashes delayed the proceedings at various intervals. However, no one was injured and the day turned out to be a great success all-round.
Article posted on 11th August, 2008 - 1.30pm
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