Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

characteristics of the Esplanade (the area in front of the Cittadelle of1umental stan s and the presence of the starting section of the motocross course. the supermoto track featured more off-road segments (a total of four) than usual. which made for muddy going. Some of the riders where happy with that. such as'"2004 S Supermoto World Champion Thierry van den Bosch. "I like racing and riding, so anything is fine to me," VDB said. "I go to Namur trying to do my best, as usual." Some were less positive, such as 2005 S2 Supermoto World Champion Jerome Giraudo. ''There is too much off-road," he said. "We train hard for the asphalt. We're not ready for this," Either way, the rain made it really hard for everybody. Obviously among those who loved both the lots of dirt and the heavy rain were the riders coming from motocross, so it's no wonder that Belgians Delepine in the SI class and Godfroid in S2 prevailed in what turned out to be some really wild supermoto racing. 51 The Supermoto races took place partly on Saturday (moto one) and partly on Sunday (moto two), with the timed practices for both classes on Friday. In the SI class, the timed session was dominated by VDB, who had to work hard through the traffic in order to find his good lap. He was followed by firstround winner Delepine, local new entry Gilles Dejong and Husky's Ivan Lazzarini. The next day it was all Delepine, however, who won SuperPole. Delepine would start first on the grid. ahead of VDB, Dejong and Lazzarini. As the opening moto was about to start, the rain fell. Dejong grabbed the early lead, with VDB and Delepine right behind him. Lazzarini got stacked up in the inside of the first corner while waiting for a rider in front of him to separate two bikes that had collided. Some said that Delepine jumped the start, but nobody apparently protested, and the FIM official didn't penalize him. The race continued with Dejong leading and van den Bosch follOWing him very close. The French star never attempted a real attack because the slick, watery track had his rear tire sliding too much, and he didn't feel comfortable with taking such a risk. Instead, it was Delepine who would break Dejong. The Belgian appeared to be comfortable with all the water and the lack of grip. He passed behind VDB then started yelling at Dejong to make room for a pass. The intimidation worked perfectly. Dejong got distracted and Delepine passed him. From there, Delepine ran away and hid. Van den Bosch finally passed Dejong for second, and the race finished with that order. Fourth went to KTM's Berndt Hiemer, who had crashed pretty hard during timed practice, hurting a little bone in his knee. Lazzarini came up 13th from dead last. Frenchman emd l'hieaault (w a sig a new contract just a few days before the race) debuted on the new version of the Terra Modena and finished 17th. The second moto, raced on Sunday afternoon, saw a really strong Delepine grab the lead right away and contro e race easily. VeB wen

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