Road rallies – Maxime Mettra pushes the limits of the Ultimate Rally 2010! –

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Maxime Mettra pushes the limits of the Ultimate Rally 2010 !

Road rallies - Maxime Mettra pushes the limits of the Ultimate Rally 2010! -

After a night of hyper selective liaison, the competitors left for three events and it is Maxime Mettra (KTM 950 Supermoto) who crowns the crown, allowing Site to climb on the podium by teams ! But the battle has been tough…

When putting on the leather again, after a dozen hours of particularly selective nighttime connections and a very short hour of sleep at the start of the afternoon in the Combrailles, I admit having felt a slight "slack". .. But we are here to go to the end, to give our all to the limit of the end of the end … So action !

For our part, we made a point: with the hour and a few delays on this hellish night, Moon, Crazy and Marcus see all hope of the podium fading away. But we trust the newcomers to our team: Maxime Mettra and Michel Bonneau are part of the thirty or so drivers who scored zero (without penalty) among the 99 starters in this second edition of the Ultimate Rally. All that remains is for them to shine on the three successive stages which will determine the great winner in 2010. !

The exclusion, brought this year to two hours behind only one last year, allows 80 pilots to continue the adventure today. On this side, things are moving in the right direction !

Friday afternoon: first stage

On the program this afternoon: a 243 km loop, shortened compared to the 420 planned to make up for the delay caused by late arrivals … The departure was postponed by one hour – 2 p.m. instead of 1 p.m. -, because a minimum rest is still mandatory so that the Ultimate Rally does not become a chore: Patrick Bournisien, the organizer, would he become more human? ?

We are therefore leaving for three specials in this loop: Gue de Sellat, circuit de la Châtre and again Gue de Sellat. But a surprise awaits us from the first special…

The link route is of the same ilk as the night concentration links: narrow, bumpy, gravel and earthy roads … In short, the worst that can still come under the name "road"! All this with one eye on the road and the other on the road book, it’s not easy to follow everything without sometimes making small steering errors which involve U-turns, wasted time and lowering the average.

After a few hours of all this, we approach the Gue de Sellat. And there, surprise, we arrive … by the finish! Normal, this is the surprise of the day from the organizers of the Ultimate Rally: we will do this special backwards! A good joke for those who have recognized in a good way … But since the special goes up as much as it goes down it doesn’t really change much..

Small quack of the organization: the start of the special is delayed by a good hour, following problems of setting up at the rescue level.

Nicolas Derrien from the ASMACO team on his KTM 690 SM finally opens the ball and scratches in 2’19”533 in front of Renaud Fanon also on KTM 690 in 2’20”629 and Pierre "Moon" Mouneu, who defends cheerfully the Team Site colors on its faithful Husaberg 650 FSE (2’21”218).

The link then leads us to the Châtre circuit where series of 15 pilots are formed according to the classification at the finish this morning at Marcillat. Happy stroke of fate: the first line of our session is squatted in its entirety by the Site pilots! Marcus occupies the pole alongside Moon and Nicolas "Crazy" Pautet.

Moon wins our series hands down, after overtaking Marcus who started out in front without rushing him – for once! -, but that will only give it a thirteenth scratch time. Very good performance on the other hand from Florent Parret of Team 202 on Yamaha R6, who won the best time ahead of Jerôme Argoud, also of Team 202, also on Yamaha R6, while Maxime Mettra (Team Site) won the third time.

And it continues: return to the Gue de Sellat special by an equally delicate connection. Here we are finally at the start, the real one this time, in a good way! But successive delays forced the organization to cancel this last special of the day in order to regain some time on the program. The last competitors will arrive at the end of the loop shortly before 10 p.m..

Friday evening: second stage

The departure of the first competitor was scheduled on paper at 22:00. But to allow everyone to rest a minimum, it will be shifted by half an hour and the planned route will be shortened to a total of around 70 km. Tomorrow morning, the start of the next stage is scheduled for 8:00 a.m. and the 145 km originally planned would have taken too much away from the drivers’ lack of sleep..

Bad luck tonight for the Team Site: Crazy forfeit following a rupture of the cylinder head gasket of his Husaberg 650 FS, while Moon discovers a puncture on his motorcycle when he starts: he also throws in the towel…

The other competitors leave for a liaison always in the same extreme style. 25 km later, here we are at the Chambonchard special, the rapid, the road-circuit! But a new problem of delayed placement of doctors again causes a prolonged wait. An hour later, it leaves !

There, Maxime Mettra … very big gas! He slammed the best time in 2’08”990, nearly five seconds ahead of Jerôme Argoud and Pascal Leger (respectively: 2’13”602 and 2’14”010).

Then a short connection takes us to the second night special, Boron. Another modification of the original program: the special is shortened! No more small loop with a double passage that bypasses the small cemetery … It is precisely this principle of passing twice in the same place that made the FFM delegate hesitate in his validation of the special as it is … The start will therefore be done after the small loop, just at the start of the fast part. New expectation at the start: the hours are starting to weigh heavily…

Maxime Mettra did it again on the handlebars of his KTM 950 Supermoto and again took the fastest time in 3’06”818 ahead of Etienne Godart on Ducati (3’11”901) and Nicolas Derrien (KTM 690 SM), third in 3’12”392.

The shortcut to the night link then takes us directly back to Marcillat. Fortunately, because with the two additional hours of delay there is not much sleep left before the departure at 8:00 am tomorrow morning for the third and final stage…

Saturday morning: third stage

As for the classification, things are starting to take shape and Maxime Mettra is at the head of the provisional: the Site pilot is about fifteen seconds ahead of Nicolas Derrien, the ASMACO pilot. But everything is still possible, especially today with the four specials planned in addition to the one on the karting circuit. Big stage therefore to "finish" the last survivors with more than 400 course markers still as difficult.

We start slowly with a very short link (6 km) which leads us to the Boron special, the same as last night. By day, it’s not the same music and Nicolas Derrien takes the best time in 2’54”681 ahead of Etienne Godart (2’55”866) and Franck Coudert (2’56”075). Maxime ensures and ends up with the fourth fastest time almost three seconds behind Nicolas.

Then we go on about thirty kilometers further with the Chambonchard special where Franck Coudert takes the scratch. Nicolas Derrien takes eight tenths from Maxime Mettra…

Then there is a big connection (200 km) to the Gue de Sellat special. Nicolas Derrien puts the package and scratches the special almost eleven seconds ahead of Maxime who must be satisfied with a sixteenth time…

To catch up with a delay still due to the same reasons for setting up – something will have to be done about this, Mr. Bournisien! -, the last special, that of the Prat dam, is canceled. It will therefore be borrowed without a stopwatch, melted into the link that leads the last survivors to the Marcillat karting circuit, where the victory of the Ultimate Rally 2010 between Nicolas Derrien and Maxime Mettra will be played out….

So here we are at the karting circuit for series of eight drivers made up over sessions of six laps. And there, the show is waiting for you! The two contenders for the final victory pulled off a load of anthology! Maxime, who started from pole position, takes control from the start and throughout the session withstands the assaults of an unleashed Nicolas who will not manage to pass !

At the end of these multiple extreme limits, the victory of the Ultimate Rally 2010 thus goes to Maxime "Metimax" Mettra, who wins the race for three small seconds in the total time of the complete rally, ahead of Nicolas Derrien (KTM 690 SM) and Etienne Godart (Ducati).

With Maxime the winner, Michel Bonneau eleventh and Marcus 48th despite his heavy penalty from the concentration course, the Site team climbs to the third step of the podium "by teams", a ranking out of 19 teams in total won by Team 202 (Pascal Leger , Florent Parret and Benoît Salzard) in front of the ASMACO Rallye (Nicolas Derrien, Florent Lemoigne and Nicolas Lemonnier).

Although more tolerant in terms of exclusion and rest time, the 2010 edition of the Ultimate Rally was as tough as the first edition last year: promise kept! There are only a few small organizational details to review, in particular for the installation of personnel on the stages (!), And Patrick Bournisien’s extreme rally will deserve the title of "great event" !

A big thank you from the Team Site to for allowing us to have on-board cameras (see our), as well as Scala Rider equipment which allowed Moon and Marcus to keep in touch throughout the link: very interesting to get info like "come back, it was right here!" or "Are you okay, aren’t you sleeping?" The communication device turns on by itself when speaking and the autonomy has allowed us to see each other in one go for more than ten hours.

In short, we had a lot of trouble but for sure, we will be back in 2011! In the meantime … stay connected !

Marcus HIMSELF

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