Touquet’s elementary for Watson
By TMX Archives on 14th Feb 14
ADRIEN Van Beveren waited until twenty minutes from the end of the three-hour Le Touquet beach race to snatch the win, as his fellow Frenchman, Antoine Meo dived into the re-fuelling area for a last-minute splash and dash.
In Saturday's quad race Romain Couprie took his sixth win as Brit Carl Bunce fell foul of the organisers' rule changes and had to make a second fuel stop – but still ended the race in an excellent seventh place.
But hero of the weekend was young Ben Watson in the Youth race.
After finishing second in the race last year, Ben went one better this time, lapping the entire field in the process to become only the second UK rider to win at the venue, following Paul Winrow's heroics in the Quad race back in 2001.
The two race days couldn't have been more different.
Saturday, for the Youths and Quads was a bit breezy and sunny, but come Sunday's main race there was a full-blown gale, with rain driving in off the sea almost horizontal and the wind gusting to almost 40 miles an hour.
Most of the competitors didn't know how close the organisers came to cancelling the race as a local race rule says that if the wind reaches 100kmh, they have to cancel, – and it was very close at 11am.
With the start time brought forward by 30 minutes the 1,100 wet and cold riders were all leaning to the right to battle against the wind.
They stormed off down the start straight sending up a cloud of spray and sand that would probably land in Calais an hour later.
Local rider Marshall Meplon led the pack at the end of the opening 20-minute plus lap, with Van Beveren, Steve Ramon, and multiple winner Jean-Claude Mousse all very close together behind him.
At the end of the first hour, as spectators fed up with the cold, wind and relentless raid left in their hundreds, Ramon was in the lead as fuel stops started to kick-in.
Our best hope of a good result came from Nathan Watson but his race had started a bit slowly, although he was making good steady progress towards the front of the pack.
By the start of the third and final hour Meo was in the lead, but Van Beveren had him in sight and was staying with him.
Ramon came under pressure from Margate's favourite Arnaud Degousee as Watson moved into the top 20, his poor start spoiling his chances of a win.
Mousse had been off and half the peak on his crash helmet was missing which must have been a pain going down the main straight in the rain.
Holland's Marc De Reuver was all on his own just in front of Milko Potisek, who never looked like he really got going.
With 20 minutes to go, and with a small lead, Meo pulled into the re-fuelling area to top up, as Van Beveren went past for his first ever Le Touquet win.
The Frenchman said: "It's not the best Le Touquet I have ridden, but this is the happiest day of my life. This is a fabulous achievement, but is so much hard work.
"I learned that nothing should ever be taken for granted, but you must always believe you can do it.
"This year, I have tears of happiness in my eyes and they have taken away the sad face from last year.”
Meo crossed the finish line just 26 seconds behind Van Beveren, with a fading Ramon over three minutes behind him, and with Degousee on his tail.
Local favourite Mousse was fifth with De Reuver, who seemed to spend all race on his own, sixth.
Last year's almost-winner Potisek never recovered from a first-lap crash and suffered with arm-pump for the rest of the race.
As for the Brits, regular Le Touquet campaigner Nick Life was 61st, with Derry Milling 113th and eight other riders were listed as finishers.
Nathan Watson crossed the finish line in 11th place which was shown on the lap-scoring TV screens.
But despite lots of people seeing him cross the line his
lap-scoring tag wasn't working so he was deemed as a DNF and removed from the results.
His father, Rob Meek, a well-known and respected rider of days gone-by, who has won Weston and competed at Le Touquet before, said: "I saw when power washing the bike that the clutch cable had worn through, where the tag was.
"It was gone, but he was recorded doing 14 laps at least, so how can they say he didn't finish?”
Watson said: "It's very disappointing when you do all that work, wreck a set of clothing, the wear and tear on the bike and spend all the money it takes to ride here, it's gutting.”
Saturday's quad race was all about three riders as nobody could keep up with Couprie, Matthieu Ternynck and Keveen Rochereau and no-one really got a look in from the very start.
The 400 four-wheelers started in groups of 50 at the start of the three-hour event on a relatively nice day but the race quickly turned into a bit of a procession.
The top three set off at a blinding pace leaving the rest to fight over the remaining positions.
Our own Carl Bunce had a reasonable start and for the first hour made steady progress through the pack until the realisation struck the team that organisers had changed the rules.
Carl said: "Last year we all had to make two compulsory fuel stops so we fitted a slightly bigger enduro tank that we knew would last just over the hour, making two stops easy.
"We have a bigger aluminium tank that would have lasted an hour and a half easily, but the enduro tank is more reliable and we thought it would be okay.
"But they changed the rule on the number of stops and you could have gone all the way if you could carry enough.
"So we lost out having to make one stop more than the opposition, so I guess seventh is okay.”
Sheldon Seal finished in 12th position, making two UK riders in the top 20.
Seal said: "I'm very happy with the result and the bike, that was prepared in house at SJS services and did not miss a beat.
"It's nice to come over and represent England and a very well done to Carl Bunce as we ended up first and second non-French riders.”
Laurence Stopps finished in 135th, with Sam Barrett four places behind him.
Ben Watson winning the youth event on Saturday came as no surprise to a lot of people as, after proving himself capable of winning last year, he almost cruised to victory this year, with his relaxed, almost unhurried style.
But halfway through the race father Rob Meek wasn't too sure.
Rob said: "They have given us a minute's penalty as we didn't know that Ben had to get off the bike while re-fuelling.” But the team needn't have worried as Ben had a lap in hand, and second-placed Jean Pierre Mannucci was also penalised for jumping while a yellow flag was being waved.
A slightly dazed Ben said after the race: "I am really happy to win it despite the penalty in the pits.
"It's really hard for me to know what to do. Everything, even the riders' briefing is in French and I don't understand a word of it so I am very pleased with the
win.”
Oliver Benton was a creditable 17th making it two UK riders in the top 20 and with Jake Edey, Patrick O'Neill and Jordan Chapman all finishing well the future of British sand riders is looking good.
In the horrible conditions of Sunday morning they staged the kids' race, with Alexis Collignon winning from Tom Vialle, with the sole UK rider Charlie Newton finishing a creditable 73rd among a field of more experienced riders.
