The sands of time eventually ran out for a sport that was great fun while it lasted
I enjoyed the tale by Alan Hughes about sand racing. I too started in 1967 on a Royal Enfield Bullet, but I rang Jack Grey at Gander & Grey, the Enfield specialists, who sent me a scrambles piston and cam which made it go quite well. After a couple of meetings, I realised that I was never going to beat the Goldies and Velocettes, so I acquired an old Speed Twin, which grew magneto ignition, a T100 head, 3134 cams, 10.5 pistons and twin carbs. It was quick, but the vibration was so bad my hands were numb at the end of a race!
I was working at Victor Horseman’s in Liverpool at the time, and a bloke part-exchanged a nearly new Metisse with an ex-works Tiger 100 scrambles motor. Knowing I was a member of the Wirral 100 club, the boss asked if I knew anyone who would be interested in it? My answer was to request time off to go to the bank for the cash to buy it!
I was suddenly among the front runners. The pinnacle of my career came in 1970 when I won the North Western Centre
Championship meeting, although I wouldn’t have won had the late great Derek Dixon not fallen off in the first race, and then have his clutch explode in the second. Incidentally, those clutch plates nearly decapitated me as I was right behind him at the time! My career came to an abrupt end a while later when I broke my right leg racing at Wallasey and, as we didn’t get sick pay those days, my new wife put the blocks on it.
What happened to sand racing? It dwindled out by the mid-90s through lack of entries, it played havoc with machinery, and it wasn’t as glamorous as other branches of the sport, plus local councils were getting nervous about closing their beaches off. Also, about that time, there was a lady racer killed during the Wallasey promenade road races, which the ‘elf and safety’ brigade latched on to and that I think probably was the final nail in the coffin of motor sport on the Wirral. It was great fun while it lasted.
Terry Gaunt, Sale, Cheshire