Road rallies – Departure with fanfare for the first Tunisian Moto Tour –

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Departure with fanfare for the first Tunisian Moto Tour

Road rallies - Departure with fanfare for the first Tunisian Moto Tour -

Short stage of this first Tunisian Moto Tour, but long day: disembarkation, technical controls and start of this promising first edition. Sebastien Lagut (Yamaha 450 YZF) wins, but the race is just beginning…

Short stage of this first, but long day: disembarkation, technical controls and start of this promising first edition. Sebastien Lagut (Yamaha 450 YZF) wins, but the race is just beginning…

The 80 participants of the first edition of the Tunisian Moto Tour met Thursday morning in the port of Marseille to embark on the Tunisian adventure of the Moto Tour.

After a peaceful crossing of nearly 24 hours, it is the arrival at the port of La Goulette in Tunis. Customs formalities, technical control of machines and parade in the city of Tunis will finally bring us to the start of this exotic rally, under the Tunisian sun.

An incredible welcome awaited us in Tunis with fanfare and crowds of spectators who came to see the long-awaited motorcycle event !

Today’s stage is short (57 km) with two specials: one on the Belvedère circuit in Tunis, a legendary Monaco-style circuit with a length of 1.7 km, and a surprise special with a "Run" of 450 m two by two. Original for a rally special !

The connection route is mainly urban, with some sections of expressways. Nothing very interesting yet, but everyone knows that this first small stage is a kind of prologue to the real pure rally stages that await us. In addition, the handling of disembarkation, transport of personal luggage and other formalities were not easy and have already been sufficiently trying..

Bravo, however, to the organization for maintaining the program planned for this stage despite the delays: failure of an engine on the boat during the crossing, i.e. a reduced cruising speed resulting in a delay of nearly two hours on arrival, customs formalities a bit disrupted by some pilots not being in possession of the originals of all the documents concerning their machines…

The start is finally given and the program maintained. Among the participants we will salute the three Kyoto "Dax" K200s who have come to measure themselves against the big ones, a little sweet madness which comes at the right time in this festive atmosphere. !

As for the favorites of the stage, we expect a fight between the two best armed riders for the Belvedère special, the two "top guns" riding their Yamaha 450 YZF: one from 2012 for Sebastien Lagut ( third of the last Dark Dog Moto Tour) and one of 2014 for the official Yamaha rider of Team 2B / Deletang Julien Toniutti.

David Bournisien, co-organizer with Marc Fontan, warned us during the briefing during the crossing: the Belvedère special is really tricky, the grip is almost zero … Which therefore favors Sebastien’s light "Supermot" monos and Julian.

So here we are off through Tunis, braving slippery roundabouts and Tunisian urban driving to arrive at this famous stage of the Belvedère circuit..

As one might expect, the two best times will go to the excellent Sebastien Lagut on Yamaha 450 YZF (1’01.89) and Julien Toniutti on Yamaha 450 YZF (1’05.04) ahead of Franck Coudert at the helm of ‘a Ducati (1’07.08).

We also salute the fine performance of Dominique Wils, sixth scratch time and first Classic on the handlebars of his Honda 600 XLR from the 80s. !

Less than an hour later we arrive at the second special of the day: 450 m of acceleration in a straight line, two by two. Funny !

In this little game, it was Bruno Vezutti on MV Agusta Brutale who slammed the best time ahead of the avionesque MT09 Team Deletang – Marc Troussard site (10.27 against 10.89). Third fastest time for Yannis Peyron on KTM 990 Superduke, while Sebastien Lagut’s Yamaha 450 YSF got a time of 11.12 seconds and Julien Toniutti’s 11.42.

In the final classification of this first stage, we find Sebastien Lagut winner of the stage ahead of Julien Toniutti, but a time stamp anomaly at a time control did not allow a reliable final classification to be established … Everything will be regularized tomorrow. and we will be able to know more precisely where the provisional classification will be.

Because tomorrow, we are not laughing any more: nearly 400 km of stage with four technical specials … The first start will be given at 6 am … Stay tuned !

Marcus HIMSELF

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