The 2012 Enduropale du Touquet saw a huge field of riders, all with different levels of experience and different specialities, took on a technically and physically challenging course laid out on the ice cold beaches of northern France..
David Hauquier, the course designer of the seventh Enduropale du Touquet has had a short night. By the time he'd hit the sack at 1:30am, the track was perfect and the predicted snowfall had failed to materialise. But when his alarm had gone off three hours later, David thought he was having a nightmare: it's snowed... heavilly.
"When I saw it, I cried out,” he says. “By 5:30am I was out on the track and on the phone to technical services. Fortunately the ground wasn’t frozen but at least 10cm had come down.
“We waited until dawn and then called in three snowploughs, hoping they wouldn’t be requisitioned by the city to clear the roads. And we couldn’t cancel the event either – but the teams did a great job and the track was ready by 1pm."
And effectively, by 1pm, the 1,040 motorcyclists began to filter down to the beach and line up for a race which is described as ‘exceptional’ and ‘difficult’. There’s still snow on the ground and the thermometer reads -5 °C.
Right from the start, Adrien Van Beveren got the jump on his opponents, taking the Merlimont Holeshot and finished the first lap in the lead. Behind him, the drivers jostled their way down on the 17km stretch of the course with a few jams appearing in some places to recall the legendary bottleneck of the race in its heyday: the most emblematic image of the first Enduro.
But right from the start, the other favourites, Nicolas Aubin, Jean-Claude Moussé and Tanel Leok, are hot on the heels of the young Frenchman.
© Flavien Duhamel / Red Bull Content Pool
After an hour of racing, Nicolas Aubin passed to Van Beveren, the Norman striking while Adrien is held up in the pack. That’s only the beginning of Adrien’s troubles and he looses a few more meters after an amateur cut across his path. The resulting fall is violent but Van Beveren manages to escape with just a damaged front brake disc.
Twenty minutes later, Aubin is challenged by Jean-Claude Moussé who takes the lead. It sees the start of a thrilling battle between the two.
After four laps, Jean Claude Moussé, 41, and a winner here in 1999 and 2004, is still the man to beat. He’s seen off Aubin, Leok, Allier, Van Beveren, Damien Potisek and Prévot, his cousin with whom he shares the honours as France sand racing champion.
The positions are frozen, but after running for 105 minutes, change is in the air. Aubin runs out of petrol 300m short of the pits and the Honda rider runs into the stands to get hi crew to help push his bike the rest of the way – it’s to prove a costly mistake.
As we enter the last hour of the race, Moussé is still leading but has yet to build enough of a gap to start breathing easily. The tension is palpable as Leok and Aubin pile on the pressure.
But the French championship is safe after Prévot injured his shoulder in a heavy fall and had to retire. A big disappointment for the man from Champagne who had come into the race as one of the favourites.
We enter the final laps with Jean-Claude Moussé charging hard. He falls twice but gets away with it and still manages to maintain his advantage. Leok gambles on his strategy: making four pitstops instead of the mandatory three, but it’s a waste of time and he can’t improve on P2.
Finally, after 3hrs 11mins of racing Jean Claude Moussé takes his third home victory – a success that kicks of Le Touquet’s centenary celebrations a few weeks early.
Aubin crosses the line just behind him, but the steward penalise him for asking his team to intervene after he ran out of fuel and he has to settle for 13th.
Leok picks up the second place while the podium is completed by Milko Potisek, who’s race had never quite recovered from a terrible start.
Other pilots have expected had mixed fortunes: FMX star Thomas Pagés had run out of petrol and Michael Staufer had succumb to a mechanical failure.
This 7th edition will be long remembered as one of the most extreme races in the history of L’Enduropale. David Hauquier is delighted, everything’s gone to plan and he’s already thinking about what he can improve for next year...
So see you in 2013.
Three times winner Jean-Claude Mousse on top © Flavien Duhamel / Red Bull Content Pool
Want more?
- Enduropale du Touquet 2012 event page
- Six of the best: Off road races
- Facts and figures on L'Enduropale
- More Hard Enduro on redbull.com
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