WESTON-super-Mare was renamed Weston-super-Madness at the weekend when about 1,000 moto-cross competitors descended on the Somerset resort.

And among them were a large contingent from Oxfordshire.

It's easy to see why the once-a-year beach race has been dubbed motorcycle racing's equivalent of the Grand National.

Awesome man-made sand dunes, built by a battalion of earth-moving equipment and an army of workmen, created a view alongside the sea wall as daunting as any viewed from the famous Beecher's Brook at Aintree.

Add to that a constant spray of wet sand, lashing rain and a bitter Westerly off the River Severn estuary and you begin to get the picture.

Five hundred starters lined up for Saturday's gruelling qualification race to decide the top 100 who would join the 500 seeded riders for the main event the following day.

The event's international reputation has steadily grown throughout its 17-year history with an ever-increasing number of entries - the net result is pure bedlam.

But the most redeeming feature of the Weston race is that it enables club riders - many of them tackling the event to raise money for a variety of worthy causes - to compete alongside established stars from a cross-section of two-wheeled sports.

Andy Hobbs typified the spirit of this end-of-season blast, by taking part on his trike dressed in a gorilla suit. The cheers went up from the packed crowds as he wheelied his way down the straight in the wheeltracks of the serious competitors.

Finstock moto-X star Craig Pratley led Oxfordshire's best home. The local 250cc Kawasaki rider finished a fine sixth, completing a strength-sapping 18 laps in two-and-a-half hours of flat-out racing. Bad weather and a looming high tide had forced organisers to reduce the time of the race from three hours.

One lap ahead of him was David Knight, on a 250cc Yamaha, who took the sand-caked laurels. Gordon Crockard, the 20-year-old Newtonards CAS Honda rider, was a close second. Third was the event's four-times champion, South African Ryan Hunt.

Oxford Cheetah's Lawrence Hare swapped his speedway bike for a 400cc Yamaha scrambler in a brave effort to raise money for the Injured Riders Benevolent Fund.

But Lawrence must have found the transition hard going on the challenging circuit - a one-mile straight that U-turns into a two-mile myriad of twists, littered with the mountainous sand dunes. He finished 219th after a mass start of around 500 riders.

Stewart Hare, also on a 400cc Yamaha racing for the charity, was 140 places ahead of him when the chequered flag came out.

Matt Bates, a 250cc Suzuki rider from Abingdon, finished a credible 25th on a day packed with bedraggled spectators, despite the bitterly cold rain.

Other competitors from Oxfordshire making it to the end were Abingdon's Darren Wheeler (69th), Graham Skelcher (Abingdon, 137th), David Woodbridge (Abingdon, 138th), Stephen Goddard (Banbury, 170th) and David Ilsley (Wantage, 346th).

Top Gear TV biker Steve Berry was entered to ride a 125cc CAS Honda at the event, and despite roaming the paddock on Sunday dressed in full moto-cross gear, failed to show up on the final results sheet.

I wonder if the presenter, who is famed for using more adjectives than you can shake a stick at, either did not start or failed to finish the first lap?

Story date: Wednesday 27 October

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.