THE Classic M/C Road Racing season got under way at Pembrey circuit in South Wales at Easter, with the husband and wife team of Geoff and Ruth Hands on their Windle Imp sidecar outfit and veteran Jim Curry with his 350cc Drixton-Aermacchi upholding the reputation of the area in fine form.

Geoff and Ruth carried on with their domination of last year, winning three of their four starts over Sunday and Monday.

Most of their competition comes from the continent, with the Ledermans, a Belgian husband and wife team, who were not present third time, and even more Belgians in the shape of Jean-Claude Capel and his passenger Damien Van Pee.

The latter pairing have got their Weslake engined machine flying this season and this resulted in one of the best races seen for some time.

In race three, on the first on Monday, Geoff made a great start, closely followed by the Belgian. On the third lap the Belgians squeezed past on a dive into the final corner of the circuit, that left the fairings scraping and hearts thumping.

He then pulled away for the next three laps of the eight-lap race.

However, the Chipping Campden duo aren't a top British Classic team for nothing and on lap seven Geoff, leaving his braking to what seemed a suicidal late stage, outbraked Jean-Claude into the hairpin. Smoking tyres left a plume all over the track as the pair of determined rivals screamed off into the last lap.

Geoff, using all his accumulated experience from a career spanning four decades, hung on and closed off all the Belgian's attempts to re-pass, ducking under the "linen" to take a well earned victory.

The very popular continentals, reversed the positions in the final sidecar race, but it left the Camp-donian's moral victors.

Curry also was in winning form, claiming two wins for the class covering machines identical to the ones he campaigned in the Grand Prix of the 60s and early 70s. This means that his winning ways cover a 40-year period.

Having won his first race at Silverstone in 1961, at the age of 20, he has also won races in the 70s and 80s, not scoring in the 90s because he thought he was past offering a genuine threat.

This seems to have been a premature retirement and he is now looking forward to the Classic class that has been added to the French GP at Le Mans in May.

He smiled as he recalled the last time he rode at Le Mans in 1969 when he finished eighth in the 350 class of the French GP.