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But a busted ACL in May put paid to that.
Next year maybe.
Why is that?
Scheduling?
Not enough 'prize' money?
I think there's big money to be made, say at Le Touqet (sp?) and other big Beach races. They've often drawn high level GP riders to have a tilt against the specialists. Though, a lot have found it not to be easy money.
I'm just curious - there's blokes that do the Beach Race 'thing' as a Profession / big part of their Career, and with Weston being So long running, and So significant, we would have seen much more participation from those across the channel.
Does Todd Kellett do any / many of the Euro races?
All the French races are proper beaches with sand, and a slope, Le Touquet gets water on the straight at worst, but the water table is decent, so you can dig a hole , and its a hole. so you can race it like a proper race.
At Weston, the water table is 2mm below the surface, so you dig a hole an inch deep, its an inch deep in water. The track is built to make it slow and messy, which it is , but you dont have a 50kmh speed difference between the fast and slow guys like they do over there.
I seem to recall that when the Red Bull Pro series ran an MX type race on the beach, a few came to do that , and one of them asked 'where is the fucking sand'..
It was supposed to be the first round of the CDS (French Series) a few weeks ago but the tanker drivers were kicking off again, so there was no fuel, this weekend is at Loon Plage, Dunkirk, i expect Kellet to be there, and he is slated to be back at Skegness , which is s short track race , in bottomless sand, next week.
The thing for me, is that all of Kellet's 5 wins, came after his brother had a huge crash at Weston , that saw the event cancelled ( i am guessing 2013 ish) , and his brother raced again this year and finished inside the top 50 , after a first lap crash again, despite breaking 2 bones in his wrist.
Weston has drawn some massive names over the years including Dave Thorpe, Kurt Nicoll, Stefan Everts, Jeffrey Herlings, Billy Bolt, Steve Ramon, Travis Pastrana, Ken DeDyker, Tyler Rattray, Mike Brown, Robbie Maddison, David Knight, Paul Edmondson, Shaun Simpson… plus a lot more World motocross and Enduro racers, top US Quad racers, French beach racing specialists on bikes and quads and several Grand Prix sidecarcross teams…
Todd is a beast at Weston and it’s going to take a mechanical issue or someone very, very fast to stop him winning quite a few more Weston’s he’s got to be due a win at LeTouquet too, might hop on a ferry and go to watch it again in the new year.
Have you stopped doing Weston?
I'm aware of the past big names that have done it. Indeed, in a recent clean up of my various Brit Magazines, I took the time to keep a few (few hundred, it seems) that had features that I wanted. Quite a few had Weston coverage - cripes, it's been going for a long time.
I was more referring to the blokes I see over time, that really seem to specialize in the Beach Races. I'm almost certain I'll get it wrong, but blokes like Milko Potosek ( I've very definitely got the name and spelling wrong, it's just an example) that seem to always be in results at Big Beach races.
And PhilGs "more of a Mud Flat than a beach" made me chuckle.
What you need is to have a Brit 'Beach' race on a shingles / pebble 'beach' ............ = Utter Hell on Earth .
To be quite honest, Beach Racing never looks remotely like fun to me. I get to ride enough bloody sand as it is, without being surrounded by / impeded by / run over by squillions of riders. I did one here quite a few years ago ( there's not that many here in OZ, even though we've all that coastline), so, while parts of it were fun, such as going warp factor 10 on the solid, wet sand, and timing waves, the rest of it just absolutely ruined the bike. And that was without all of those horrendous traffic jams.
I stopped riding it because of the start TBH, last time i rode there , they ran heats, and i led the second one up the straight on my 500 Honda , which was awesome until i i realised that if it seized, i was a dead man.
That was 86, i finished in 87 on the same 500, and after that i had already got folks who wanted my bikes at the end of the season, provided they didnt do Weston.
Great to see its still busy, back when it started it was one race , with quads , sidecars and solo's and it was nuts.
Who's passing Who there?
Just saw the Skegness thread.
Pit Row
The 80/90% of average dudes who tackle the beach are what make the event possible, and without the huge numbers of riders the event wouldn't be what it is.
The top 20% attack and race the track with aggression and speed. The rest it's about consistency, saving the bike and most importantly saving yourself. 3 hours on the beach is exhausting.
Side note; Ty is wicked good on a MTB too!
Someday I'm gonna make it over there for one of these, they seem so awesome.
I don't imagine they have many "rent to race" services for these like they do some of the Extreme Races? Seems like the bike would need to be torn down to the frame and probably every bearing just tossed in the trash....
Yes it’s pretty tough on the bike but not too bad, I’ve done lots of beach races, both Weston and Skegness and I’ve a friend who has used the same KX250 2 stroke every year for the last 19 years, he does look after it well though.
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