Splashing sand and a hurricane of sound. With 15 kilometers of slopes, 400,000 spectators and a mass start of 1300 engines, the beach race of Le Touquet in France is the largest and most beautiful in the world. At the fiftieth edition, Lars van Berkel from Veghel has a good chance of winning on Sunday: “If you win this, you’re the man.”
Lars van Berkel (31) is used to a motocross rider. But the sound of 1300 four -stroke engines that give gas at the same time during the mass start is also ‘not normal’ for this seasoned driver.
“That is really impressive,” he says. “The start is one spray of water and sand and a hurricane of sound. This is the beach race of the year and a competition that you really want to win. Say the Monaco as with Formula 1. It’s nice to be one of the top drivers there. “
Because Lars participates in the prices. He already finished third in the famous French beach race twice. But the motocross rider from Veghel wants more and focuses all the arrows on Sunday. “It’s about speed, tactics and endurance,” he explains. “And I have that all three. I am going for the highest stage, because I train to win. It also has to be going well, of course, because winning is not easy. But very cool.”
“It tickles enormously, not the stress but of the excitement.
After the massart, the beach race takes three hours with just a single, short pit stop to drink and refuel gas. Van Berkel already knows that he should go deep on Sunday and that it will hurt.
“It is physically very tough,” he says. “You used to build such a race, but nowadays everyone is so specialized that it is immediately full. Then it is survival. The first time I made the stage, I just fell over after the finish. I saw completely gray. It requires a lot from your body. “
“It is really a dream for me to win Le Touquet,” concludes the Motocrosser from Veghel. “If you win this, you are on the map and you are the man. I get up every day for this. It tickles enormously in my stomach. Not the stress, but of the excitement.”
The spectacular beach race ‘Enduropale Le Touquet’ is a three-hour ‘extreme enduro’ race on the opal coast in France. The competition, which is part of the French Championship, was organized for the first time in 1975 by Thierry Sabine, who was also the initiator of the famous Dakar Rally.
The (yellow) start numbers 1 to 40 are professional motocrossers. Lars and 39 others go from the elegant seaside town of Le Touquet-Paris-Plage in Convooi to the beach to race a first kilometer to determine the starting places. Then the amateurs come with the (white) numbers 41 to 1300 and follow a mass art.
In 1986, De Brabander Kees van der Ven won the Enduropale for the fifth time in a row.