Event Review by Giles Dav

Event Review by Giles Davis

This year the world-famous event was held on the weekend of the 8th and 9th of February, with the quad race on Saturday followed by the bigger bike version on Sunday.

This race has evolved as an annual pilgrimage for many of Europe's top quad racers and is now seen as a proving ground for the new 2003 equipment. Looking through the queues for signing-on and scrutineering on Friday, it was clear that many manufacturers are getting heavily involved. The once dominant Yamaha Banshee is now becoming a minority with the new breed of race-ready four-stroke machines taking over. What used to be a sea of Yamaha blue is now a mix of Honda red, Suzuki yellow, W-Tec black and white, Bombardier orange as well as a few Cannondales and Predators.

Despite the huge influx of big thumping four-strokes, most of the favorites to win the event were still on the two-strokes. Paul Winrow and John Mitchell were on an ATVWorld Laeger Banshee, and the 2002 winning pairing of Blaise Parent and Vincent Pichon were also sticking with the reliable Banshee.

As with every year at LeTouquet, there are several hours of queuing to get through the signing-on on Friday and the rush to get to the front begins the day before! The reason for this becomes apparent when you arrive at the pits after you have signed-on. The paddock area is a large car-park on the seafront and this also serves as the pit area during the race, so getting a position near the track entry and exit point is vital if you want to win. For example, a pit area at the furthest point from the entrance will add around a minute extra to your stop time.

Overnight all 220 of the competing quads are placed in the parc-ferme until the morning, at 8 a.m. the teams are then free to retrieve their machines, which comes as a lovely wake-up call to those still asleep.

This year, for some unknown reason, all the teams went out together for timed-qualifying, as opposed to the top 100 then 2nd 100 sessions in all previous years. This caused mayhem on the first few laps, as all the riders fought to get round and set a fast lap before the track cut-up. But, as with most beach races, there were people getting stuck on the man-made dunes and pretty soon a quad traffic jam of epic proportions evolved just before the lap-scoring.

Eventually it all freed up and the track began to cut-up as it always does. And this is the unique thing about the LeTouquet beach race, the sand is so soft that within just an hour of racing, almost the whole track is like a supercross whoops section. By the end of the race, lap times drop from around 8 minutes to 20 .

The tactic this year seemed to be go at average pace at the start and keep it going all the way through, this was obvious from the way the top teams were still bashing through the whoops at the end and everyone else was rolling.

In the end it was Blaise Parent and Vincent Pichon (Banshee) who took the win, from Couprie and Fournier (Banshee) with Pascal Rochereau and Thierry Lassaigne (Predator) taking the final podium spot.

Also taking part in the quad race this year were Paris-Dakar rally stars Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Pierre Fontenay, both commented on how difficult and physical the event was with Peterhansel finishing a decent 43rd and Fontenay 161st, (out of 212 classified).

Top British team were Winrow and Mitchell who got 9th with British Champ Justin Reid and partner 10th. Paul Rowlands (British Enduro Champ) and William Waggott (British 250 Champ) placed 12th and Jason Mac Beth rode his 450F powered machine to 19th by himself.


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