Road rallies – The Dourdou Rally seen from the inside: Toniutti the heat wave! – The evening race

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The Dourdou Rally seen from the inside: Toniutti the heat wave !

Road rallies - The Dourdou Rally seen from the inside: Toniutti the heat wave! - The evening race

The 12th edition of the Dourdou rally, 6th and penultimate round of the 2015 championship, sees the victory of Julien Toniutti (Yamaha MT-09) who takes back the pole position of the championship between heatwave and rain of penalties…. Interior report.

The evening race

The candidates for the titles are fully ready this Friday, July 3: Laurent Filleton (1290 Superduke R KTM Team France CTM83), provisional leader of the championship, will lead the way tonight, because here it is unlike other rallies: we starts at night on Friday evening.

Laurent is followed, in the order of the provisional classification, by his KTM team France teammate Florent Derrien who took the courageous decision to take the start on the handlebars of his 690 Duke R despite his .

The third to go is called Christophe Velardi, the Ajaccio rider at the controls of the Ducati 1200 Multistrada of Ducati Moto Prestige Ajaccio.

The Yamaha MT-09 n ° 1 of Team 2B Deletang Moraco driven by the reigning French champion Julien Toniutti only starts in fourth position.

Bruno Shiltz, fifth in the provisional scratch, follows suit on the handlebars of the MV Agusta 800 Brutale of Team MV Paris Nord Motos Ultimate Driver.

In the categories, Florent Derrien will have to grit his teeth to pocket the Mono title which will fall into his purse if he collects the last points allowing him to have an irreparable advance by his pursuer Michael Augras (KTM 690 SMC).

In Sport 2, Maxime Mettra plays the same setting on his Kawasaki 650 Versys and can expect to pocket the title of the category in front of his direct opponent Michael Brelly at the controls of the Kawasaki 650 Versys of Team 212.

The Amblard crew’s sidecar (Mr. and Mrs. this time, Alain and Edith, the latter more or less recovered from her fall at the Beaujolais rally) also takes the start for the title that could be acquired after this test.

Same pattern in Scooter where Mathieu Bruneau goes all out to offer the title of this new category to the Honda Integra. But Mathieu almost did not take the start of the rally: a reconnaissance crash Thursday evening was due to the "integrity" of his Honda scooter … Mathieu "Terminator" Bruneau, victim of a sprained knee during his fall, do not hesitate for a second and decide to take the road in a van the night before the race to pick up another Integra in Angers !

A tour de force as daring as it is remarkable (nearly 1,200 km of additional road) which will allow him to be at the start and prevent Marc Troussard and his Yamaha T Max Team Deletang from taking the lead in the Scooter Championship…

But will the injured knee hold up ?

Let’s go !

7:55 pm Friday: the start of the so-called "night" stage is given! But of course, a July 3 in Averyron, the sun is still far from setting at 8:00 p.m. !

Several pilots complain about the position of the sun at the scheduled passage time in the Rodelle special, criticizing the dangerous nature of this situation in chrono mode in these conditions..

The race direction takes these comments into account and, without delaying the originally scheduled start time, decides to cancel the timed passage in this first special. The passage will therefore be "blank", as at the rallye de l’Ain, and will serve to validate the "supposed" trajectories during reconnaissance with a "life-size" benchmark setting..

The night stages are not what they were … We had to change the names and say "first stage" and "second stage", I thought to myself like an old fan of the night stages of yesteryear, when the night departure was given at 22:00…

The course is a little gravel in the first link but without ill-considered traps. So far, so good.

Once passed in "recce" at the first passage of Rodelle, here we are in Limon in this sunny late afternoon for the real first stopwatch.

The festivities begin! Christophe Velardi (Ducati 1200 Multistrada) hits hard with the best time (1’58.14) ahead of Julien Toniutti’s Yamaha MT-09 by more than 5 tenths (1’58.66 for our reigning French champion).

The third fastest time goes to the excellent Bruno Schiltz, pilot of the MV Agusta Paris Nord Motos Ultimate Driver team on the handlebars of the MV Agusta 800 Brutale number 15, only 25 hundredths behind Julien.

The route of this first big loop is rather pleasant, it is still not really dark and we can enjoy the magnificent Aveyron landscapes. It’s time to enjoy a bearable room temperature although it is already relatively high, it will be hard tomorrow in the sun…

Arrived in Villecomtal, 15 minutes of assistance are granted. Just the time to hydrate a little, to fill up with gasoline and two or three small maintenance operations, and it starts again for a smaller loop.

Rodelle second passage, first time on this special as beautiful as it is fast. Julien Toniutti apprehended this special in terms of the possible performance of the machines of some of his direct opponents with a character more suited to fast. But the MT-09 of the reigning French champion MNC rider won the cup and offered himself the best time of the special in 1’52.33 against 1’54.05 for Laurent Filleton.

Bruno Shiltz (MV Agusta 800 Brutale), determined to go for big points, gets the third fastest time here (1’54.86).

The category title hunters do not make in the lace either: Florent Derrien saves the furniture "with one hand" on the handlebars of his KTM 690 Duke R and slams a fifth time (1’58.83).

Maxime Mettra (Kawasaki 650 Versys) intends to win the Sport 2 title and secures the sixth fastest time (2’01.97).

But the most surprising is Sonia Barbot (Suzuki 1000 GSXR Team Gexlr), already titled female champion since the Rallye de l’Ain and who is now tackling the Topsport category. !

Our Superwoman gets here the eleventh scratch time, second Topsport less than a second behind Jerôme Argoud (Kawasaki 600 ZX6, eighth scratch) but almost eight seconds faster than her direct competitor, Topsport leader Sebastien Brugues (Kawasaki 600 ZX6 Team 212) !

The connection then leads us to the Limon special for a second passage. It’s finally dark !

In Limon, it is still Julien Toniutti who takes down the pompom and this time sticks more than two seconds to Christophe Velardi (1’58.54 against 2’00.57) in front of the third Laurent Filleton (2’00.72).

The connection is short: the road book indicates 12,230 km to reach the time control (CH) located at the intersection opposite the town hall of Villecomtal. 13 minutes are allocated for this section.

But when you arrive at this precise location, the hospital that was installed there is no longer there! A pedestrian decked out in a yellow vest (probably a race marshal) signals us to continue…

After having covered the 500 meters crossing of the village I see a crowd of competitors parked around a CH sign placed on the road.

It’s a bit of panic, the race marshals present on the spot reassure us and tell us to check in in any order and that this link will be neutralized…

In reality, the time control had to be moved following the recalcitrant behavior of a local resident who could not stand the CH in front of his house. The race management therefore made the intelligent and diplomatic decision to move the CH a little further, without having been able to warn the pilots of this slight modification..

Among the first numbers and in particular the first five, only one, Bruno Schiltz, insisted on pointing at his ideal time. We will see later that Bruno’s experience and coolness will bear fruit….

The KTM boys Laurent Filleton and Florent Derrien, believing the marshals and convinced that the regulations are precise on this point (CH moved during the race = neutralization of the connection), do not worry too much about their check-in minute and point to blindly following the instructions.

Christophe Velardi and Julien Toniutti follow the movement as well as more than half of the competitors of this twelfth rally of Dourdou.

After checking in, the pilots have, as in the previous lap, 15 minutes of assistance before leaving for the last night loop..

Last passage of the stage to the Rodelle special: Laurent Filleton slams the best pendulum in 1’53.95 ahead of Christophe Velardi (1’54.70) and Julien Toniutti (1’55.44).

Limon, last night pass: Julien Toniutti once again! 1’59.47 for the Yamaha rider, 28 hundredths ahead of Laurent Filleton’s KTM (1’59.75) and 1.55 seconds ahead of Christophe Velardi’s Ducati (2’01.02).

As expected, the battle is tight in the top 5, but these times in space are not going to be the only factors that will decide the ranking….

Once back in Villecomtal after a difficult night stage, most of the riders sleeping soundly in preparation for the hot daytime stage that awaits them, a sentence falls in the middle of the night, once all the classifications have been recorded. : the penalties for CH 9 (end of the second night lap) are taken into account !

Too bad for those who have checked in at random following the instructions of the Commissioners of the CH, the strict rate is applied: 15 seconds per minute early or late at the control !

Julien Toniutti will take 15 seconds, the two KTM boys Laurent Filleton and Florent Derrien will take respectively 37.5 and 30 seconds, Christophe Velardi 22.5 as well as the majority of the pilots…

Bruno Schiltz, for his part, did not take a penalty, thanks to his strict respect for the imposed times indicated on his time card: following his excellent lap times (in the top three on the first two specials, fourth in the other three ), he took the lead of the rally by winning this first stage on the handlebars of the MV Agusta 800 Brutale of Team MV Agusta Paris Nord Motos Ultimate Driver in front of the Yamaha MT-09 Team 2B Deletang Moraco of Julien Toniutti and the Ducati 1200 Multistrada of Christophe Velardi.

Marcus HIMSELF

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