Road rallies – Rallye du Dourdou 2012: half rain, half Corsica! – Bruno Langlois non runner

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Rallye du Dourdou 2012: half rain, half Corsica !

Road rallies - Rallye du Dourdou 2012: half rain, half Corsica! - Bruno Langlois non runner

The Corsican driver Carlo Scanu (Honda 450 CRF) wins the ninth rally of Dourdou ahead of Florent Derrien and Flavien Coitoux, both on KTM 690 SMC. An unusual podium for an extraordinary rally: but where are the leaders ? Report.

Bruno Langlois non runner

This ninth edition of the Dourdou rally in Villecomtal (12) was already shaping up to be unsettling for some, due to its particular format (night stage before the day stage), but that was without counting the hazards that will follow….

Exclusion !

To begin with, the exclusion of Bruno Langlois who returned from the Pikes Peak canceled (read), whose registration too late for the Aveyron event had not been taken into account by the French Motorcycling Federation (FFM). Bruno was on the waiting list because the maximum number of entries had been reached. Romano Laghi, the friendly Italian driver who has been racing the French rally championship since the start of the year on a BMW HP2, had however voluntarily withdrawn to personally leave his place to his friend Bruno, but following a complaint from another competitor from the famous waiting list finding this exchange of places inadmissible, the FFM had to decide: Bruno Langlois will not take the start.

Julien Toniutti, the pilot KTM France official site on 990 Superduke, current leader of the 2012 French rally championship, is thus comfortably in the lead. But that doesn‘t amuse him because "to conquer without peril we triumph without glory"… Julien would have preferred to fight to the end for this title now almost acquired, so the discussions fuse in the paddock and the leaders are looking for a solution a few hours before the start so that Bruno Langlois is accepted.

The sympathetic Corsican pilot Carlo Scanu then also offered to give way to Bruno. We are less than three hours from the start and if no other complaint is filed, Bruno would have a chance to run … But it is the FFM which decides and categorically refuses the principle, scrupulously respecting the regulatory texts. Carlo therefore keeps his place and Bruno does not leave.

The Aveyron program

Funny pattern with night before day, as in previous years at Dourdou, and a start from the first stage at 10:30 p.m. for the first, 0:30 a.m. for the last (120 competitors are at the start of the night stage). With about 150 km planned (a loop of about 120 km with two specials + a small loop of around thirty kilometers and one special) on the night course, it gets everyone back around 4 a.m. to leave at 9 a.m. for a route of nearly 300 terminals (120 km to be done twice + about 60 km with the two specials to be done on each loop). Trying !

The specials are at Mouret (3 km), which will only be done once at night and three times during the day, and at Villecomtal (3.1 km), which it is planned to do twice at night and three times by day.

The route is grandiose! Technical, virolous at will, with a lot of gravel and small roads in more or less good condition (especially less!). All without signs, in the road book, with lots of intersections and changes of direction … Real rally navigation !

The landscapes are magnificent ! It’s beautiful Aveyron, like all these regions of deep France that the rallies make us discover and rediscover.

Marcus HIMSELF

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