The drive up to Quebec was a welcome change from
the same roads I have traveled for years doing
the nationals in the United States. Montreal still
had remnants of the 22 feet of snowfall they received
this past winter, with piles of snow on the side
of the road. As we drove further north, the road
meandered alongside the St. Maurice River, a very
scenic area.
The small town of La Tuque supports the event,
as I’m sure the influx of people helps
the local businesses. The track is laid out
at a riding park, and the town is a popular
spot to spend a weekend riding scenic natural
trail systems and MX tracks. We entered the
track, and took our position in the pits. The
pit straight runs alongside the start/finish
straightaway, and the two are separated with
a long jersey wall. Every team had a designated
20’ x 50’ pit area, which was marked
with stakes in the ground. This was a welcomed
change from the chaotic pit confusion from the
US Nationals.
The FIM is the sanctioning body for this race
and the Pont de Vaux, and this is the reason
the events seem so alike, they are both conforming
to the same set of regulations for the event.
Once the promoters heard about us being there,
they were happy to have us, and made sure we
knew how the race would be run. There was a
rider’s meeting before qualifying, and
also before each of the three 4-hour heats.
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Race parade through the town of La Tuque
with the teams interviewed before the
race |
Since the meetings were done in French, we
had a translator tell us what was being said.
Technical inspection took place on Friday, and
afterward all the teams lined up and rode into
the center of town. We stopped in a small town
square area, and one by one each team rode their
quad up onto a podium and were interviewed.
There was a great celebration atmosphere and
the town was alive with people and activity.
We rode the quads back to the track and prepared
ourselves for the qualification laps on Saturday
morning.
Saturday morning started with an hour of practice
on the racetrack, and each of us did three laps.
The track was 3.8 Km long, which is roughly
2 miles. Each turn on the track is marked with
a numbered sign, and there are course marshals
at almost every turn. The slowest parts of the
track are two 180 degree turns at the each end
of the main straight. The straight is a wide
open affair, with some racers being clocked
by radar at over 80 mph. Most of the course
was a 15 to 20 foot wide fast sand track through
the wooded hills around a large quarry filled
with water. With transponder scoring, no checkpoints
were necessary- you could just keep going.
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12 Heures of La Tuque track & pit
area |
The scoring was shown on a TV channel, so we
just put a TV on a table in the pits and had
live results from the transponders right in
front of us at all times. Qualifying was a one
lap affair, with the fastest rider from each
team putting down a fast lap that would determine
the team’s start position for the first
heat. The fastest qualifiers were the Yamaha
team led by Jasmin Plante, who turned a 3:08
for pole position, a full six seconds faster
than the second place team. I put in a 3:21
lap that put my team in 10th on the grid, not
too bad considering I only did three laps ever
on the track before that.
