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Le Tovquet. Fl"snce . February 27, 2CO:I 2000 Le Touquet Beach Race By GEOFF MEYER T he Le Touquet Beach race is one of the craziest competitions in motorcycle racing. Event organizers, T.S.O., famous for running the Dakar Rally, have created a monster. A crowd of around 250,000 people, a field of 1000 riders and a beach course that starts with a first corner from hell and ends with a mad rush through a one lined tunnel is the motorcycle madness that is Le Touquet. Once every year some quarter of a million people migrate to the small French resort of Le Touquet. Loaded with beer, wine and good humor the vocal French crowd make this event a sandblast. While motocross and Supercross can only attract large crowds with names like Everts and McGrath the Le Touquet is another story. Ever heard of Demeester, Mousse, Hauquier and Tonus? These are the heros of Le Touquet. Arnuad Demeester is a four-time winner of the beach spectacular, while Mousse and Hauquier have both won in the past two years. Names don't count for anything at Le Touquet though. This years beach bash was again a wild affair. With a record '1000 competitors on the start gate it was little wonder that the famous Le Goulet (first corner) turned into a World War III-type epic. Le Goulet, a wide open left-hander, turning into a quick righthander, is were it all begins, at least for most of the competitors. While the first 20 or so riders can get through Le Goulet without too much of a problem, it's the other 980 that fight for survival. This year a French competitor dropped his machine on the thick unforgiving sand of Le Goulet and then gave his fellow competitors the chance to use him as a berm. One after another, riders from France, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Germany, South Africa, England and just about every other country in the World crashed into the fallen rider. Within five minutes some 900 or more riders tried their best to make their way through the carnege. After some 20 minutes Le Goulet was clear, and the race really began. This years Le Touquet saw some major surprises, although as the riders made their way through the Le Goulet it was obvious very quickly that the race favorites had all positioned themselves in with a chance for victory. Thierry Bethys, racing a Honda CR250, held the lead followed by David Fretigne and Jean-Claude Mousse from the French Yamaha team. Demeester, also a Yamaha France factory rider lay in seventh place and was already suffering. "I am coming back from an injury and the first two laps were very difficult. I had to fight for the position and I knew Bethys would try and get a big lead. I struggled a little getting past some riders, in the end I took too long to get into second place." Bethys did just what Demeester had expected. Taking the lead on lap one and moving away from the field quickly, the Supercross rider looked awesome as he carved away at the rutted out course. By lap seven the Bethys was already some two and a half minutes ahead of Demeester. who had passed both Fretigne and Mousse. Mousse was in all sorts of trouble as his clutch started melting. Lap after lap the 1999 champion struggled while he rode his Yamaha into the most dangerous positions on the track, trying to compensate for the fried clutch. Just as it seemed Demeester had moved into a position to challenge Bethys, but it all went wrong for the Yamaha rider. Demeester lost more than a minute on lap eight, then on lap nine Bethys was some six minutes ahead. It looked sure that Demeester, a four-time winner of the Le Touquet would again finish in second place. He finished previously finished second in 1997 and 1999. "With the injury pr9blems I have had I had to take a rest," Demeester - Enduro placed Hauquier. The KTM rider had moved to within a minute of Demeester by lap ten. "I could see he was catching," Demeesfer said." I was getting tired and really had to think about a new strategy. " Whatever the 26-year old Demeester changed seemed to work as he steadied his lap times and moved some two minutes away from Hauquier with only one lap remaining. Touquet Pas~d~Colafs -- (Left) Only the competitors that make it through the first tum at the Le Touquet Beach race get to enjoy the lonely loam (above) of the demanding off-road event. Bethys was long gone though winning with more than eight minutes ahead of Demeester, while Hauquier was another two minutes back in third place. Defending champion, Jean-Claude Mousse finished in 576th place, having stopped after four laps, and Georges Jobe, the fivetime World Motocross champion, finished 767th with only two laps to his name. eN "The clutch just started playing up, in the thick sand you have to use it so much and maybe that was the mistake I made, I don't know, it seemed to go very early in the race. I was taking chances keeping the speed up." Le Touquet Beach Le Touquet, France Results: February 27, 2000 said. "I tried my best, but Bethys was too fast, I could not contain such a pace." With Bethys now moving away from everyone Demeester started getting some pressure from third eye' e O/A: 1. Thierry Bethys (Han); 2. Arnaud Demeester (Yam): 3. David Hauquier (KTM) : 4. Jean Tonus (Yam); 5. Danny Theybers (KTM); 6. Yves Deuden (Hon); 7. Jerome Hernery (Yam); 8. Laurent Wargnier (Yam): 9. David Castera (Yam): 10. Vincent Thiollier (KTM) n e _ s: • MARCH 15.2000 31