Four class records tumble in a sunny season opener
NICK SAUNDERS returned from the break raring to go and opened the hill climb season with top honours – despite his car not being up for the occasion.
In a Guernsey Motorcycle and Car Club event where four class records fell, Saunders faced a few issues with his Eric Sturdza Reynick and was pressured by several flying rivals, but his late 29.13sec. clocking still stood as the fastest time of the day.
The top Sarnian called it a day after four of five runs and now hopes to build upon this throughout the lengthy season.
‘It’s still fairly early on and the road was still cold, it will have to be, but with the issues I had, I was pleased with what I did,’ said Saunders.
‘[Next time I want] to sort out the issues I had with the car in this event and hopefully to go further down the times too.’
Saunders did not go unrivalled, though, as his 1101-1600cc rival Paul Priaulx was getting some sharp starts and picked up on Saunders’ late absence to burst through with 29.78.
Chris Guille was close to his all-time best in the 1601-2000 division with a surprise sub-30sec. time, with two star Tims – Tulie and Torode – also coming very close to that mark to set themselves up for positive seasons.
In a very well-contested motorcycle contest, Colin De Jersey finally held off a surprise challenger in former motocross star Ben Carre to seal the two-wheeled ‘FTD’.
Carre burst to the top of the standings on run four with a breakthrough 34.19 and it took a great final effort of 34.12 for the early favourite to get decisively ahead.
The remaining classes featured a healthy haul of new records.
Tim Le Pelley retired happy early on with a new Sports Libre G to 1400 record, preventing his own mark from reaching its fifth birthday with 32.69, while Ian Le Sauvage inched the Modified Limited Production Cars mark to 33.57.
Further afield, Andy Digard lopped off the biggest chunk of the meeting as he lowered the Production Motorcycles to 250 mark by nearly two seconds to 37.47.
Only slightly off that was the wacky marker thrown down by Jim Langlois in powering his Lotus Elan 26R to a 37.57 in the pre-1968 Historic Cars class.
