2008 12 HOURS OF PONT DE VAUX

Most observers would agree that the American #110 KTM team was the fastest at PDV '08. Even with no rear brakes, they led the second session, posted the fastest lap there, and claimed second overall. Considering it was KTM's first showing at PDV, that's very impressive, no matter how you cut it. Three other KTMs entered the race

14 Americans take on the world!

By Bill “WBGO” Lanphier

           One very exciting surprise entry was the KTM 525-mounted team of multi-time US champ Tim Farr, plus KTM team riders Taylor Kiser and Adam McGill, both top-ten GNCC Pros. The Europeans won’t soon forget Tim’s participation 10 years ago at the 12 Hours. Accompanied by Shane Hitt and Harold Goodman and riding a Laeger’s Honda 330R, the dream team (as the Europeans still call them) demonstrated to the world just how fast Americans really are. They ran a near perfect race and won by 12 minutes. This year, would Tim’s KTM hold up in its maiden voyage at PDV?

Americans Josh Frederick and Brandon Smith piloted a Holz / Can-Am DS 450 in its maiden voyage at PDV. They ran fast, but several small problems hurt them in the final standings. Five DS 450s entered.

Can-Am’s DS 450 would also take its first shot at PDV in a team headed by Italian Sergio Gilli. Competing with Sergio would be BRP team riders Josh Frederick (’07 WORCS Pro champ) and Brandon Smith (’07 WPSA A-class champ). Last year at PDV, Frederick and Gilli finished third overall aboard a Suzuki 450.

Seven-time PDV champ Doug Eichner piloted this Polaris with the surprising addition of a sway bar. Teammate Dana Creech hated it, but Doug maintained it allowed charging harder into corners. Regarding a PDV comeback, Doug said, "I've been there, done that. But I would like to finish on a good note and win one more time."

 The Europeans had other fast Americans to worry about. The winningest rider in the history of PDV (seven times), Doug Eichner, had teamed up with former GNC Pro champ Travis Spader and former Pro Quad stadium champ Dana Creech aboard a full-factory sponsored Polaris Outlaw.

            The racing format at PDV is unique and teams have two solid hours to get in a good qualifying lap. Problem is, at least for the really fast guys, all 120 quads might be on the two-mile track at the same time. So, it’s a crap shoot trying to log one good lap without running into traffic. And, the slowest teams can be…well, pretty darn slow.

Grid positions for all three sessions are determined by qualifying times. Notice that the fastest qualifiers are usually quicker not only running to their quads, but, in the dead-engine starts, quicker off the line.

            For ’08, there was an additional obstacle in the way of fast laps: mud. Heavy rains early in the week and then a torrential downpour the day before the race turned many parts of the course into lakes. Said Eichner, “We might wait an hour for other quads to dry out the track before

we go out to qualify.” KTM’s Adam McGill had the same thoughts, and added, “I think we can find one dry line out there, but never more than one.”

In town on Friday night, Doug Eichner's Polaris team (l to r) Dana Creech, Doug, and Travis Spader, hooks up with the team that went on to finish first among the five women's teams.

Soon after qualifying began, though, most teams were chomping at the bit to check out their machines, and the track quickly filled with mud-covered quads and riders. At the end of two hours, Farr’s team had logged the fastest qualifying lap.

Romain Couprie gets the holeshot in session one, followed by Taylor Kiser on the American KTM.

Two seconds behind was a team including the Frenchman who could well be the fastest ATVer outside of the US, Romain Couprie. Though Romain has no trouble winning French championships and big races in Europe, a win at PDV has eluded him.

The first 30 minutes of the first session saw excellent racing among these four. The eventual winning quad of Romain Couprie leads Joe Maessen's YFZ (10) , Tim Farr's KTM (110), and Vincent Broyer's factory Polaris (67).

Third-fastest qualifier, just two tenths of a second behind Couprie, was the YFZ of Joe Maessen from Holland. Joe’s always a strong contender, and his team finished second.

Gotta be quick running to the quads for the dead start!

RACING BEGINS 

For exciting race starts, it’s hard to top PDV. Hundreds of spectators have migrated from the track infield activities and crowd the front straight barrier. One hundred and twenty quads, now silent, line one side of the straight; pilots line the other side. At exactly 3 p.m., the flag drops, riders sprint across the track, fire up their machines, and thunder roars across the French countryside.

A YFZ piloted by '02 PDV champ Cyril Lamet and exquisitely prepped by TR Racing in Belgium is ready for the qualifying mud. The team ran a strong third overall until a battery problem in the final session dropped them to fifth overall. A custom canister on the headpipe allows the YFZ to meet strict PDV noise regulations.

 Couprie’s YFZ, with the pole position earned in qualifying, takes the convincing holeshot, followed by Taylor Kiser on the American KTM. In third is Maessen’s YFZ. This is only the beginning of the 12 hours, but it’s often the most fun to watch. Fast guys up front, free of lappers, and dicing without too much worry that the other guy might do something stupid so early in the game.

Monster Energy doesn't sponsor just green Kawasakis! Veteran PDV racers Richard Cole and Paul Winrow helped set up this YFZ, which qualified third and posted the fastest lap of the third session. Piloted by PDV vet Joe Maessen, the Yamaha fell back with a broken header pipe and an overdose of powdercoating on the wheels (in other words, bye-bye lug nuts).

          Six minutes in and now on lap two, Taylor has taken the lead, but the original top three are still very close. Two laps later, Taylor starts to pull away a little and Eichner works his way closer to the top five. After 20 minutes, the leaders are into lappers, but Taylor continues pulling away and, at 30 minutes, he has a big lead over Couprie, relaxes a little, and casually waves at a photographer as he screams past at near 90 mph.

 Around this time, though, things were not going well for Eichner. His 525 motor lost a crank and his team lost 34 minutes swapping motors. “I’ve won by that margin here before,” said Ike, “so, we still have a fighting chance. It’s a new quad and a new team, so you can’t expect everything to be perfect.”

            Things were not perfect of the American KTM team, either. The oversize oil reservoir, borrowed from a KTM dirt bike and adapted to the left side of the quad motor, sprung a leak and the team lost several minutes re-routing the oil lines to bypass it.

After the team presentation in town, quads parade back to the track for more partying.

            Even the race organization had issues. Just an hour and a half into the first of the three race sessions, the crowd in the infield, primed for Caleb Moore’s upcoming back flips, couldn’t help notice something very peculiar on the track itself: racers casually cruising around at quarter speed. An uncharacteristic but major computer scoring glitch had forced the promoters to stop the first session at the half-way point. The solution was to change out the defective transponders, tighten up the scoring chicane to slow the speeds there, and score the first session at the point of the glitch. That put Couprie in the lead, followed by the American KTM, and a British YFZ team, all on the same lap. 

When the first session ended, all eyes turned to the first of three H-Bomb freestyle shows. That cement barrier and fence keep spectators away from the high-speed start-line straight. The back portion of the course is visible in the background.

INTO THE DARKNESS

            Eichner’s team, finishing sixth in the first session, hoped for better luck in the night session. “I go good at night,” said Eichner and then laughed, “You don’t worry as much because you can’t see what you’re going to hit. I’ve raced PDV so much, I know the braking points and when to get back on the throttle. Racing at night’s easier because it’s cooler, the moisture starts to come up for better traction, and the motor runs cooler.”

Five years ago Banshees were everywhere at PDV, but in '08 there was only one. This Laeger's Banshee and the American KTM were the fastest machines on the straights, but a seized motor put a stop to the screaming twin.

            But, as he spoke and the night session wore on,  teammate Creech pulled into the pits with the motor making a terrible racket. “That doesn’t sound good,” said Ike. Probably in a rush earlier to swap motors, the headpipe wasn’t secured properly. An oil seal and tranny problem on the bone stock and untested new motor would eventually put the team out of the running.

Five minutes before the start of session one, PDV vet Tim Farr (right) passes along some wisdom to PDV rookie Taylor Kiser, who started the race for the team and built up a decent lead in the first half-hour.

 Frederick’s Can-Am team also lost time at night fixing a light bracket and swapping batteries. “The little things cost you,” said Frederick. Then, even more little things cost them, as the quad came back into the pits for ten minutes to repack the muffler (the race organization takes noise regulations seriously).

            But, up front, the American KTM team was on fire, leading every lap of the long, five-hour night session, even running an hour without rear brakes. Plus, they posted the fastest lap of that session.

            “I never thought the track could get so rough,” commented teammate McGill. “The holes look like a dozer dug them up, and they don’t give an inch. I could relax only on the fast straights and in the air.”

The defending champs, from France, were in third overall after the second session, but had mechanical problems in the final two hours of the race.

          McGill also admitted he enjoyed taking full advantage of the team’s killer lighting system. “It’s interesting pulling up behind someone and having your lights overwhelm his and cast a huge shadow right where the guy is trying to see.”

On Friday night, the main street of Pont de Vaux is closed to car traffic and quads rule.

            Following the KTM in the night session was Couprie’s trouble-free team, and then a team of PDV veterans piloting a Honda 450. But the more important results are the combined standings from the first two sessions. This put the KTM in the lead but on the same lap as Couprie. In other words, less than three minutes apart. In third, but four laps (12 minutes) down were reigning and two-time PDV champs, the French Piron brothers. As in the previous two years, they were running a consistent and flawless race. 

The tunnel jump is every bit as sharp a razorback as it appears in this image. Over the years there've been some ugly crashes here (including Travis Spader's get-off in 1998), but no serious injuries. This local French TRX finished 24th overall.

SESSION THREE

The next day at 1 p.m., the quads that were still running, about 100 of them, rocketed into the final four hours of the event. At the end of lap one, Couprie was in the lead, followed by Piron and the lone Yamaha Banshee in the field, piloted by North Ireland’s Justin Reid.

It's a blur of LED taillights as quads power out of the tight scoring chicane and onto the pit straight, by far the longest and fastest. Speeds are close to 90 mph here.

 But the American KTM was nowhere near the front of the pack. In fact, when the session began, the KTM went straight to the pits-repairs can be made only during race sessions- for a new rear brake system, the original system a victim of the high speeds and consewquent overheating. The team lost two laps and sent the quad back on the track, only to discover they still had no rear brakes. Because they couldn’t afford another pit stop, and because most braking power is in the front anyway, the team decided to see if they could make up the two laps, reclaim the lead, and win PDV using only front brakes.

            An hour into the session, and with three hours left in the event, the KTM was still two laps behind Couprie. With two hours left, same thing. With an hour left, two laps down but closing in. As Tim Farr endured lap after lap of the pounding (his back still hurts him from an ’05 crash), and the final minutes ticked down, his crew went wild at the pit wall. A KTM pit board for Farr exclaimed, “You can do it!”

Between race sessions, quads are secured in an impound area. Repairs can be made only during race sessions. Here, 45 minutes before the start of the final session, and under the watchful eye of track security, crews and riders retrieve their machines.

Podium time in France (l to r): France's JU 115 Cantal team (3rd), Clement Jay / Romain Couprie (1st), and Taylor Kiser / Adam McGill / Tim Farr (2nd).

But it wasn’t to be. When the checkers fell, Couprie’s team took the ’08 PDV win by less than a lap over the KTM. Riding the top Suzuki at PDV, three French guys finished six laps down in third. Expressing just how consistent they were, 19 year-old teammate Julien Valentin explained, “We stopped only for fuel and rider changes. No stops for tires, air filter, or even for tightening the chain. All three of us posted exactly the same lap time, lap after lap.”

On Friday night, the entire town of Pont de Vaux is jammed for a presentation, one at a time, of all the riders and quads.

            PDV is consistency, but it’s also about speed. The competition is tougher and, even to the casual observer, it’s clear that any team anywhere near the top five is on the gas hard. You gotta be consistent at PDV, that’s for sure, but you also gotta be screaming.       

Click Here for full results

            Editor’s note: For more on PDV, PDV race machines, and Wild Bill Lanphier’s ATV escapades in Europe, check out our ATV Sport hard copy magazine, beginning with the December, ’08 issue. For a shortened recap with additional images onATVSport’s website click here.