Watching these pros dart through the field is amazing, a spectacle to be seen. Few other races in the world allows such a close contact between the top riders and the weekend riders.
Each lap takes about 10 minutes for the top riders, while some private entries needed one hour to complete a lap.
A quarter into the race, Potisek had installed himself in the lead. Desmeesters continued to fight for every inch, moving closer and closer. Not an easy task on a normal track, but here, with hundreds of riders between him and his target, it was an almost impossible objective.
At the refueling, Potisek left the pit lane like a bat out of hell. He clipped another rider who had fallen at the base of a hill, avoiding him in the air by inches. It looked like he pulled the bike higher into the air in order to avoid the downed rider.
Demeesters was not that lucky. His Yamaha ran into mechanical problems and he was forced to let Mouss pass him.
Approximately three minutes away from the finish, Potisek had a choice. Since the race was to last three hours, he could slow down and pass the finish line at around the three-hour mark or continue at the high pace he had set. He chose the latter. In the meantime, hundreds of motorcycles had halted before the finish line; no one wanted to do another lap.
So after three hours and 10 minutes, a jubilant Potisek crossed the finish line with his first-ever Touquet win. Mouss took second place just 1 minute 15 seconds behind the leader, while Pierrick Paget (#38) rolled into third place on his Yamaha one lap behind the leader.
The new Enduropale was an enormous success, both with the riders and the public (though due to the cold weather, there were only 200,000 spectators).
Riders from France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Columbia, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, Luxembourg, Ireland, Sweden, the UK and Finland attended this race. Funny, there were no American riders in this top competition! Maybe next year...
Contributor Mike Werner runs an interesting Europeon-based blog, www.motorbiker.org.