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Maxxis Pont
de Vaux 12 Hour ATV Race Report - Continued
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The Final four hour session of the race began at
1PM on Sunday, and it was Romain Couprie on their
Yamaha YFZ450 grabbing the Holeshot followed by
FRE KTM & 2007 Pont de Vaux Champions, Team
Piron of Belgium (Alexandre Piron, Stéphane
Piron, and Greg Lassiagne), who finished 4th in
Session Two.
Unfortunately, The FRE KTM Team had to immediately
head to the pits due to an oil leak problem noticed
at the end of the night session, which would give
Romain Couprie’s Team a chance to gain some
ground on the Americans.
Team Piron’s Greg Lassaigne would eventually
take over the lead, but their lead would be short
lived as they would end up only completing 30
laps in the final session, and were sidelined,
which dashed any hope for a championship repeat.
After an extended pit stop, the FRE KTM was several
laps down, but they were determined to close the
gap on the overall leaders, and several hours
into the final session the American’s (Farr,
McGill, and Kiser) closed the gap on France’s
(Couprie & Clement) to just over a lap, but
the gap was too much to make up for the FRE KTM
Team in the final stretch of the race, and the
French Team of Couprie & Clement would take
the final session win with 75 laps completed with
the FRE KTM team completing 74 laps and finishing
4th in the final session.
After 192 laps of racing, Drag’On / Moto’s
Romain Couprie & Jay Clement secured the Ponte
de Vaux Championship for France and the American’s
FRE KTM Team of Tim Farr, Adam McGill, and Taylor
Kiser finished in the 2nd spot with 191 laps completed,
and the JU 115 Cantal + Team of Julien Valentin,
Jean Baptiste Richard, and Vincent Raimondi rounding
out the Podium with 186 laps on their Suzuki LTR-450.
American Yamaha Racer’s Tim Dietrich &
Justin Noss finished out the final session in
73rd place, which netted them a 30th Overall finish
for the entire race. Unfortunately the two other
American teams, didn’t complete the final
session of the race. The Polaris Outlaw Team (Doug
Eichner, Dana Creech, Travis Spader) completed
40 laps and Can-Am / Motoworks Team ( Josh Frederick,
Brandon Smith, Sergio Gillis) completed just 29
laps. With racers from both teams previously having
Podium finishes, it was surely a huge disappointment
not to finish the final session, but I am sure
both teams will be back in 2009 or even make a
run at the GBC
Heartland Challenge 10 Hour Endurance Race scheduled
for Novemeber 8th in the Des Moines, Iowa for
a chance for some redemption.
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| 2008
Pont de Vaux Champions Drag’On / Moto’s
Romain Couprie & Jay Clement |
American
FRE KTM Team sprayed the bubbly with their
2nd place finish |
For the FRE KTM Team, finishing in the second
spot was a huge accomplishment with GNCC Pro ATV
Racers Adam McGill & Taylor Kiser making their
Pont de Vaux debut appearance, and Tim Farr hasn’t
competed in the Pont de Vaux since he won the
Championship 10 years ago with teammates Harold
Goodman & Shane Hitt on a Honda 250R.
With 16 Countries and 112 teams competing, the
2008 Maxxis 12 Hours of Pont de Vaux proved to
be yet another exciting race with the American’s
once again finishing on the Podium.
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