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·E D R Limoges, France N U O· GillesLalay C lassic By John Dickinson UMOCES, FRANCE, FEB. 25 ou r finishers out of 240 starters the statistics say it all - the Gilles Lalay Classic is undoubtedly the toughest one-day, off-road event in the world. This gruelling marathon, staged in the forests, that surround th e ancie nt French town of Limoges, has th e capacity to bring even the best enduro riders to their knees. The elite few, who reach the finish are true superstars and hailed as such, by the 20,000 fanatical French spectators. Cyril Esquirol is the hot property at the moment, as far as the Gilles Lalay is concerned, and in this unique event, not even Yamaha's great Stephane Peterhansel could get near Esquirol, who trained exclusively for this event over a two-month period. It wa s the 25-year-old Honda France rider's second Lalay victory in a row, as he also won last year's event on a Husqvarna . On a superbly prepared Honda CR25O, Esquirol was never headed during the '95 event. Second, was Kawasaki's Laurent Charbonnel, who, like the 'w in ner, has finished all four Lalays to date. Charbonnel rode for the most part with third man home Peterhansel, and th e two were able to help one another as they chased the amazing Esquiro!' The only other rider to reach the finish line was Italian veteran, 29-year-old Arnaldo Nicoli, who eventua lly w res tled his 250 Husqvarna to the summit of the infamous Dead Crow Hill (Le Corbeau Mort) after midnight - almost two hours later than Esquirol, Nicoli finally checked in after seven hours and 30 minutes in the saddle. Th e Gilles Lalay Classic sta rts as it finishes - in the dark. At 6:30 a.m ., the 240 riders are flagged away from the start in the center of Limoges, four rid ers at a time, at one minute intervals . They face a 200 kilometer course, which is run on sta nd a rd European Enduro rules with time checks, special tests, pa ss checks and so on. This· part of the even t is relatively ea sy and even th is year, when conditions were truly appalling, thanks to incessant heavy ra in before and during the event, most · riders have a good chance to reach the finish. The aces don't have any problems at all on this run, they concentrate on staying out of trouble, conserving energy and doing just enough to ensure a good starting position for the main event. After this prologue, the slowest riders are weeded out and onl y the fastest 100 riders go forward to the real Gilles Lalay. The gloves now come off and the wa r begins. . The format from here is devastatingly sim p le, ahead stretches another 200kilometer course incorporating all the toughest, muddiest, rockiest, steepest terrain that the organizers can find . And it is run as a straight race - no checks, no intermediate times, no compulsory rest periods. First man hom e wins. This time the start is pure motocross with four t w aves of 25 rid ers blastin g out of th e ga te at just IS-second in te rv a ls , s t r ai g h t in to a sing le- la p motocross course, before heading to the hill s. Thi s MX was p ure Fr en ch Farce and the so le blot on o therwise brilliant organization. The saturated course was marked with just tapes - not ropes - and while the fast front-runners stuck mo stly to the course, the later starters headed straight for the exit, wiping out all the tapes, with the massive crowd running for cover. The result was the entire field reaching the exit gate at the same time. It was pure chaos. As the riders streamed away out onto the hills and into the forests, the spectators took to the roads by their thousands to get to the well marked viewing points on the route. At the first such p oint, there was a two-mile stretch of road with ca r s parked solid down both verges, as well as hundreds of enduro bikes parked amongst the tree s. It seemed as if, half the spectators bought a brand-new enduro bike, plus all the riding gear, just for the Gilles Lalay . This first area, a seven-kilometer stretch of slippery cambered rockery, that would stretch a good trials rider, is just one and a half hours from the start, but already the field had been decimated because many had ru n out of fuel on the boggy moorland course, which had bad engines revving hard fo r long periods, burning lots of fue!' The Fre nc h spectators lined the single goat track and a s the fir st man through, Esquirol, slithered s lo w ly along the narrow track, a multitude of helping hands and arms kept h im upright and urged him onward and forward. Th is was repeated many times with no particular favoritism for the masses of French riders. British ace, Paul Edmondson, has a tremendous following in Europe, and Fast Eddy was well up, only a minute behind Esquirol at this stage. But at th e serv ice area, just be yond the rocks, th ings were soon to take a . tum for the worst. Edmondson cra shed heavily only 100 ya rd s aft er taking on fuel, and with a damaged leg, a concussion and a d islocated fin ger, it w a s ambulance time for Eddy. He would not get the win he craved after fin is h ing fifth la s t year . A headli ght fa il u re stop pe d him. Not this year, anyway. And there wa s more glum news ove r in the Swedish cam p, where top guns Sveneric Johnsson and Kent Karlsson had both pulled out. Both were stea ming, a fter reporting, that many riders were taking short cuts early on, and that Johnsson had actually been hit by another rider who hu rtled out of the trees at him. Sve neric has a tremendous record at the Gilles La lay;. having won the event in the first two years and finishing second beh ind Esquirol at la st year's event. Karlsson can boast a second place finish behind Johnsson in '93. It might have been thought that much of the interest had been knocked out of the event at this stage with the exit of three of the top ru nners plus a heavily decimated field . (At the 1/4 mark, only 26 machines were still on the course.) This didn't deter the French fans in the least and they continued to swarm all over the course at the numerous vantage points, thinking nothing of waiting up to two hours just to see the leading couple of bikes, before racing off to catch back up to them. The torrential rain was taking a heavy toll, though, as despite the majority of retirements, even the top riders were looking very tired as darkness fell at around 7:00 p .m. and they sw itched on their ISO-watt headlights. These lights give a very bright pencil beam and they needed to, as the heavily wooded forests were truly pitch black. The lead riders (by now they were the only riders) were running over an hour behind schedule, yet the followers kept a cold and wet vigil by the pass checks, wondering eagerly if indeed anyone would arrive. Suddenly, a thin shaft of brillian t light he ral d ed the arriva l of Esq u irol, while dazz led eyes were rubbed, he go t his sta mp card pu nched and was gone, across the road to be swallowed up by the forest in seconds. Even the official s began to wonder if they had gone over the top this year. Everyone began to think that no one would reach the now infamous De ad Crow Hill - the final Lalay challenge. Thousands flanked the fierce climb in the forest at 8:30 p.m., with the winner sched uled to arrive between 9:00 - 9:30 p.m. And they were still wa iting at 10:45 p .m . When once again, their darling Es quiro l a rrived to ascend th e slo pe, w hi le th e cheers rang in both hi s ears and down the hillside. . lefl'l Br" ' '. '. For the second year in a row, Frenchman Cyril Esquirol won the prestigious Gilles Lalay Classic, named after the famous French off-road racer who was killed while competing In the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1992. Billed as the toughest enduro In the world, only four of the 2OO-plus starters finished this year's event. Esquirol was quick to acclaim the organizers. "It was very hard, but they did a brilliant job of easing the hardest parts of the course, while still making it a tremendous challenge," he said. "It was the spectators that kept me going." Charbonnel confirmed that he and Pete rhansel had tried to keep one another going. "If one of us hit trouble the other could avoid it," he said. "Rid ing like this 1 thought we might catch Cyril, but today he wa s the best." "Now we know this is the toughest race ," said Peterhansel, ''' 1 feel so m uch e mot io n (at the finis h) that I forgot abo ut all the probl ems o f today. I aim to wi n in the next two years." An electrical problem on the starting line that caused him to get away late was the motivation needed to get Italian Arnaldo Nicoli to the finish . "It made me very aggressive and I was so determined to finish ," he said. "What I want to do now is motivate the other Italians to train just for this event and really think about winning." l.""i Gilles Lalay Classic Umoges, France Res ults: February 25, 1995 alA; 1. Cyril Esquiro l (Hon~ 2. Lauren ' Cha.-bonnel Peterhanscl (Yam~ 4. Arnalda Nirol i (Hus). (Ka w ~ 3. Stephane . . . . . First-place prize money for the 'Gille s Lalay. . ._.-'._ _._ . .• . Classic was $9000..Maybe one or two.of the 'top Amer ica n teams and riders .could be Stephane Peterhansel proved onre ag~in : · tempt ed to take on the toughest one -day ' not that he needs to> what a tremendous ·event..At the '95 event, there were riders racer he is at the Gilles Lalay. He had not · from 11 differenfcouritries. Naturally,France . had time to train specifICally for this'event, as 'had the Iarg~st turnout with201.entries. he had been tiusy winning the three-week -. long Granada- Dakar desert rally. And.in an Statistic nuts" may be.interested in the follow· amazing ' weekend of motorcycling, Pete i~ ing log istics. The Gilles Lalay relied on over so me 3000 hansel went to the. Le Touquet in northern " 700 VOluntee rs ', ,who.stuck upkilometers of ' refleetivearrows laid evereo Frarice on Sunday and finished 15th in the . tape. contacted over 200 land owners torper-: jamous tnree-hour-lonq beach race. ., m ission to use the course, and posted 2000 .Paul Edmondson was devasialed when he direction arrows, just for spectators. A single · man spent .a week installing the tloodlighting crashed , as he had set his.sights on winning ' in the trees, for the infamoUs Deild Crow Hill. ' . the Gilles Lalay this year. He reckoned that .. . the extra power of the 250 Gas Gas was just 250cc two:strokes are the ' machine ot what he needed tokeep him in'front of the choiCe at the Gilles Lalay. 145 riders tavored fanatical Frenchme~ . Edmondson hopes to' : the machlnes. even four-stroke .spec ialists be lit tor the follOWIng weekend's Spanish · Ii.ke Svemeric'Johnsson switched to 250s for Enduro Championship rOUnd: .' . ' the race, Only 24 riders rode 125~ ~

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