Pont de Vaux, France - The 19th Annual Maxxis 12 Hours of Pont de Vaux was held August 19-21st in Pont de Vaux, France. This Premier 12 Hour event was started back in 1987 when ATC were still actively being raced in Europe, but were quickly replaced by the ATVs. The event has continued to grow every year with ATV enthusiast from around the globe making trip to Pont de Vaux, France for some intense racing action spread over 48 hours for a weekend of fun and excitement with the festivities beginning Friday Night with the Team introduction downtown.

Unlike the 12 Hours of ATV America, the 12 hours of Pont de Vaux is broken up into 4 sessions spanning from Saturday through Sunday. All three sessions are started Le Mans style with a full field 120 quads lined up on one side of the track and a team member on the other side waiting for either the wave of a flag or the sound of the gun depending upon session.

The track itself is extremely compact and flat with several high speed straight aways, which has made the Yamaha Banshee the machine of choice for the seven time winner Doug Eichner even with the advancements in the four stroke machines available today.

© AMPV		© Bill "WBGO" Lanphier
Aerial View of the Pont de Vaux Track		Le Mans Style Start

Over the past few years, the four stroke machines have slowly replaced the two stroke machines with 114 four stroke entries this year and only 6 two stroke entries, but in the end, the two stroke, ATV World/Duncan Racing Yamaha Banshee, piloted by Doug Eichner and John Mitchell takes win with 231 laps which was four more than the Spanish team in 2nd place aboard a Honda TRX 450R. This marked the eighth Pont de Vaux Championship for Team ATV World / Duncan Racing and the seventh for Doug Eichner and second for British teammate John Mitchell. This potent pair won two out of the three sessions with the American Team Quad Briel(Josh Creamer, Jeremy Lawson, Cody Grant) coming on strong in the end to win the final season with a one lap lead over Eichner/Mitchell. The young American Team Quad Briel would earn the honor of the fastest laptime in the final session with a speed of 45.88/mph aboard their Walsh Briel KTM machine, and it was enough to pull them back up to 7th place with 215 laps after experiencing problems in the second session, which dropped them back 17 laps behind the leader.

Pat Brown received the last minute call to join the French team Moto and Co aboard a Yamaha YFZ 450 and the trio just missed the podium finishing out the weekend in 4th with 221 laps which was two shy of the French Team Quad Competition Pro. The next best finish by an American team behind Team Quad Briel (Creamer, Lawson, Grant) in 7th was Team ATV World/Duncan Racing/Yamaha (Tavis Cain & Chad Lohr) finishing 12th after having to make a lengthy pit stop to fabricate a swingarm skidplate to comply with the rules.

Several other American’s raced in the event, but ran into their share of problems which kept them from finishing out near the top. CT Racing/Laeger’s Racing (Nick Grandlund, Levi Morana, Gilli Sergio) were off to a great start before their race was ended with just over 2 hours left in the race. Team Quad Tuning(Cale Downen, Cody Miller, and Gregor Brzozowski) run on their 525 KTM/Briel ended after seven hours of racing. Team ATV World(Andy Lagzdins, Ricy Tordoff) were off to a great start as well before their Swingarm Bolt broke and damaged the engine cases which took them out of the race after 86 laps. The worst luck of the weekend for any team went to CT Racing/Laeger’s Racing(Harold Goodman, Josh Fredericks, Justin Reid) as their race ended after only 5 laps after they seized up their backup Banshee engine.

Team ATV World's Andy Lagzdins, will be posting a complete race report from the Pont de Vaux in the near future, and if it is anything like last years race report, the wait will be well worth it.

Congratulations to all the American riders that competed in this historical event and especially to Doug Eichner for winning his seventh Pont de Vaux, which is an incredible accomplishment.

2005 Pont de Vaux Race Results

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