KTM's Tim Farr &
Yamaha's Romain Couprie Battle for Win
Two Race Sessions Completed
on Day One of Pont de Vaux
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Hour Pont de Vaux Links |
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Pont
de Vaux, France (8/23/2008)
– The Maxxis 12 Hours of Ponte de Vaux in
France is well underway with 2 race sessions and
8 hours of racing completed in day one on Saturday,
and the American KTM FRE race team lead by Tim Farr
is battling for the win with the French Yamaha team
lead by Romain Couprie as both teams have completed
117 laps and are 4 laps ahead of the third place
team with 4 hours of racing remaining on Sunday.
The racing action began Saturday morning with
2 hours of timed practice, and the FRE KTM ATV
race team immediately made a statement as they
recorded the fastest lap-time of 2:53.619, which
was over 2 seconds faster than Romain Couprie’s
DRAG'ON/MOTO Team, and Tim Farr’s KTM Team
average speed was recorded at 48 mph.
With the starting positions set for the first
of three race sessions, it was French Yamaha’s
Romain Couprie grabbing the Holeshot followed
by Tim Farr’s FRE KTM Team, and the pair
lead the field followed by Yamaha’s JB Homes
Michael & Sean Mcaneney.
Due to transponder scoring issues in the first session
race scoring was shortened to just 1.5 hours, and
at the end Romain Couprie’s team was out front
followed by FRE KTM Team and Yamaha’s JB Homes
all on the lead lap. The American Polaris Outlaw
Race Team lead by multi-time Ponte de Vaux Champion,
Doug Eichner with teammates Dana Creech & (Travis
Spader or Jason Dunkelberger) finished in the 6th
spot with 27 laps completed. Also, American Yamaha
Racer’s Tim Dietrich & Justin Noss completed
27 laps as well and finished in 16th place. Finally,
Motoworks /Can-Am’s Josh Frederick, S Gillis,
and Brandon Smith completed 26 laps on their DS450,
and were ranked 36th place in a field of 112 racers.
At 8:00PM, the sun was beginning to set and the
start of session 2 were released for another 5
hours of racing into the darkness with the racing
action wrapping up a 1:00AM, and the KTM Team’s
Taylor Kiser grabbed the Holeshot and KTM team
of Tim Farr, Adam McGill, and Taylor Kiser would
hold onto the lead to claim the Session 2 Win
with over 3 minutes to spare on the Yamaha’s
Romain Coprie & Jay Clement as the pair both
finished on the lead lap with 89 laps each. The
3rd place spot was held by Honda’s Cozzi
Extremetech Team with 87 laps and two laps behind
the leaders.
Unfortunately for the Polaris Team lead by Doug
Eichner, they were forced to swap engines during
Session 2, which dropped them 18 laps behind the
leaders and down to a 68th place finish. Also,
apparently the Yamaha’s Tim Dietrich &
Justin Noss ran into issues on the final lap of
the session after completing 85 laps, which would
have had them scored atleast in the top 10 overall,
but the official scoring has them ranked as 97th
place. Finally, the Motoworks /Can-Am Team also
just missed finishing the 5 hour long session
by 17 minutes and completed 66 laps.
The final round of racing will be held on Sunday,
and it appears that Tim Farr is on his way to
securing his second career Pont de Vaux Win. Amazingly,
Tim Farr who competed in the Pont de Vaux ten
years ago with Harold Goodman & Shane Hitt
and they won the Championship on a Honda 250R,
but now Tim Farr is back with KTM and two young
and talented GNCC racers with a shot at another
prestigious Ponte de Vaux Win, but it isn’t
over till its over with Yamaha’s Romain
Couprie within striking distance of stealing the
show, so the final session should be an extremely
exciting round of racing on Sunday.
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