Old rivalries forgotten for common good
IT WILL never rival Monte Carlo, or perhaps even the Jersey event, but the Guernsey Rally was a major triumph for the island motor sport scene.
Let’s face it, Guernsey is not built for big stage rallies in modern ‘NIMBY’ times and health and safety demands, but Karl Marshall’s Guernsey Kart and Motor Club pulled it off marvellously, just as they very nearly always tend to do.
This is a sport that does not standstill. This year the rally, last year the Imperial Hillclimb, the year before St Saviour’s reservoir time-trial.
Throw in all those hillclimbs, sprints, motocross, karting, trials and sand racing, and you have a remarkably vibrant scene overseen by two clubs who, in modern times, might as well be one such is the level of cooperation, rapport and mutual respect.
Ten years ago such close links were a pipe dream, but in 2018 Marshall’s GK & MC and Ian Le Page’s Guernsey Motor Cycle and Car Club have dispensed with all those silly rivalries and jealousies to work together to stage great events.
They should be proud of their efforts, but how about a Grand Prix lads?
n THE Jersey Sports Lottery may have crumbled before a prize was delivered on the projected £150 per ticket event, but Inside Track understands that the Guernsey version is virtually all lined up to go and is hoping to deliver some significant funding for island sport.
But, contrary to initial plans, the Sarnian lottery will be run separately from the Sports Commission.
The vast majority of sports have signed up to the new fund-raiser which is being driven by former Commission chairman Martin Belcher, but among those who have opted out are football, table tennis and bowls.
n 2018 has been so far miserable for golfers.
Poor La Grande Mare has spent weeks under water and St Pierre Park – now termed The Golf Club – has had substantial range issues which after a three-week closure they are about to repair, while also fitting brand new netting down the entire side of the range and installing an extensive additional drainage programme.
Meanwhile, the on-site Guernsey Golf Academy have secured the services of coach Andy Myers from the Royal Guernsey.
