Yamaha's Romain Couprie
Takes Win over Tim Farr's KTM Team
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12
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Pont
de Vaux, France (8/24/2008)
– The 22nd Annual Maxxis 12 Hours of Ponte
de Vaux in France is in the history books, and French
Dron’On/Moto Team of Romain Couprie &
Jay Clement on their Yamaha YFZ450 claimed the win
over the American’s KTM FRE Team of Tim Farr,
Adam McGill, and Taylor Kiser after an intense battle
for the lead from start to finish with Julien Valentin,
Jean Baptiste Richard, and Vincent Raimondi rounding
out the Podium on their Suzuki LTR-450.
The racing action began Saturday morning with
2 hours of timed practice, and the FRE KTM ATV
race team immediately made a statement as they
recorded the fastest lap-time of 2:53.619, which
was over 2 seconds faster than Romain Couprie’s
DRAG'ON/MOTO Team, and Tim Farr’s KTM Team
average speed was recorded at 48 mph.
With the starting positions set for the first
of three race sessions, it was French Yamaha’s
Romain Couprie grabbing the Holeshot followed
by Tim Farr’s FRE KTM Team, and the pair
lead the field followed by Yamaha’s JB Homes
Michael & Sean Mcaneney.
Due to transponder scoring issues in the first session
race scoring was shortened to just 1.5 hours, and
at the end Romain Couprie’s team was out front
followed by FRE KTM Team and Yamaha’s JB Homes
all on the lead lap. The American Polaris Outlaw
Race Team lead by multi-time Ponte de Vaux Champion,
Doug Eichner with teammates Dana Creech & Travis
Spader finished in the 6th spot with 27 laps completed.
Also, American Yamaha Racer’s Tim Dietrich
& Justin Noss completed 27 laps as well and
finished in 16th place. Finally, Motoworks /Can-Am’s
Josh Frederick, S Gillis, and Brandon Smith completed
26 laps on their DS450, and were ranked 36th place
in a field of 112 racers.
At 8:00PM, the sun was beginning to set and the
start of session 2 were released for another 5
hours of racing into the darkness with the racing
action wrapping up a 1:00AM, and the KTM Team’s
Taylor Kiser grabbed the Holeshot and KTM team
of Tim Farr, Adam McGill, and Taylor Kiser would
hold onto the lead to claim the Session 2 Win
with over 3 minutes to spare on the Yamaha’s
Romain Coprie & Jay Clement as the pair both
finished on the lead lap with 89 laps each. The
3rd place spot was held by Honda’s Cozzi
Extremetech Team with 87 laps and two laps behind
the leaders.
Unfortunately for the Polaris Team lead by Doug
Eichner, they were forced to swap engines during
Session 2, which dropped them 18 laps behind the
leaders and down to a 68th place finish. Also,
apparently the Yamaha’s Tim Dietrich &
Justin Noss ran into issues on the final lap of
the session after completing 85 laps, which would
have had them scored atleast in the top 10 overall,
but the official scoring has them ranked as 97th
place. Finally, the Motoworks /Can-Am Team also
just missed finishing the 5 hour long session
by 17 minutes and completed 66 laps.
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