It's Touquet time!
By TMX Archives on 21st Jan 15
Its that time of year again when all those riders that love racing on sand travel across the channel to what is possibly the biggest off-road event of the year number wise at least for next weekend is the massive Le Touquet Beach Race and this year there is more racing, over three days instead of the usual two
This year marks the 40th running of the biggest and best beach race in the world and to celebrate that fact the organisers will run a ‘Vintage Enduro' birthday race on Friday with lots of the past masters taking part alongside some of the current riders, but all will be mounted on bikes manufactured before 1990.
Just looking through the list of former competitors, riders from days gone by stand out like, Eric Geboers, Kees Van Der Ven, Mickael Pichon, Thierry Bethys, Gerard Delepine but these names will be backed up by modern riders like Adrien Van Beveren, Jean-Claude Mousse, Arnaud Demeester and Steve Ramon all keen to get out racing on the old two-stroke machines.
Sunday's main race – with its 1,100 starters – will play into the hands of French ‘sand specialists' like last year's winner Van Beveren, who will be going flat out for the three-hour duration to make it two in a row.
But you can't discount Margate favourite, Arnaud Degousse, who is now riding a French team Honda machine and is due to win the big race, while Mousse and Antoine Meo will be out to stop that becoming.
Ramon will be hoping for a more trouble free run this year so he can be in with a chance to win again, but one rider that will be missed from the race and a regular visitor to Britain will be Milko Potisek who is still recovering from his Bercy Supercross crash.
The number of UK riders has dropped over the years, primarily because of the economic situation, but we will be represented by the likes of Scott Gorden, Gary Jones, Adrian Smith, Leslie Winthrop, Ben Hunt, and of course the up-and-coming Dan Thornhill.
French quad specialist Jeremie Warnia must be one of the favourites out of the almost 500 starters for Saturday's Adult Quad race but GB riders in with a chance of a high place finish will be Stefan Murphy, who has been doing a lot of sand racing recently and Carl Bunce. Although Bunce will have his work cut out as he hasn't got a front row start number.
Other riders to look out for are Bailey Edwards and Sheldon Seal of those doing the whole three-hours on their own and Danny Spencer with partner Rob Willetts in the two-man teams.
So it all kicks off Friday afternoon with the Vintage race and presentation while the quads and solos go through technical control and put their race machines into ‘parc ferme'.
Saturday's proceedings will start with the Youth race at 9.30am, which was won last year by Ben Watson by over a lap.
Ben will not be defending his title as he'll be in Spain preparing for the World MX2 Championship.
The Quads go off at 1pm Saturday afternoon for their three-hours with the main solo race charging down the beach at 1pm on Sunday.
Le Touquet is easy to get to, as once in Calais it's just a 40-minute drive down the coast.
You can't park in the town itself, but you will be directed to carparks at the airport, from where a free bus service will take you to the sea front.
It's a great weekend out and if the weather is kind, like it was two-years ago, expect big crowds as that year there was just over 250,000 spectators.
Just remember that it may take a little time to get out of town after the event.
