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Rally of Tunisia

After over 4000 competitive km's Stan Watt of team FrontrowGB came 3rd overall in the 2008 Optic 2000 Rallye of Tunisia, the first round of the FIM Cross Country Rallies World Cup. Stan was also first in the production category and first KTM home aboard his 690 Rallye. More info and photos/video of the rally can be found at http://www.adventure-spec.com/frontrowgb/  and www.frontrowgb.com 

Update

Todays stage on the Optic 2000 Rallye of Tunisia has again proved cruel for some lead riders, but for the british contingent moves up the leader board have been compulsory! Stan Watt of Team FrontrowGB had a great run in spite of a disabling mechanical issue. The exhaust manifold bolts came loose with nearly 200k's of special to go, limiting top speed to about 100kmh, but luckily due to technical and sandy terrain this allowed him to come home fifth fastest on the stage, twelve minutes back. This moves him up to fourth overall and first in the production class with one day to go.

Stan Watt (G-B/KTM 690) : “ I knew I was doing well, no navigation problems, and I was thinking that I am going to be one of the day’s best time. Then I had a manifold problem that kept my last 200 km to 100 km/hour, It was still a good day for me”

Proving that consistency and experience counts for so much in rallying, veteran Derrick Edmondson's strong 13th place today moves him to the same position overall and fifth in class. JonStamper lies 23rd overall after todays stage.

Justin Carter also moves up to 20th overall today. Jonathon Walter is 28th with Scots John Whiteford and Ewan Buchan 33rdth and 39th respectively.

Factory Honda rider, Thierry Bethys, had aweful luck when his engine gave up not far from the finish. Having been second overall starting today he made it to the finish with assistance, incurring penalties and finishing 26 th overall.

Factory Yam rider Olivier Pain leads the rally with one day to go and a comfortable 48 minute lead, but rally is a cruel mistress and anything can happen!

Update

Its been an odd couple of days for the rally and FrontrowGB. Stage 6, the second day of the 'marathon' stage with no assistance and by far the longest of the rally, at 502k of special plus 135 liaison, ran with no timing! After the stage 5 there were quite a few retirements and the 'sweeper' truck which collects stranded competitors was full to bursting. Driving over the rough terrain it overturned with 8 people on board. Although no one was badly hurt, the organisers had a bit of a panic situation on and 'neutralized' the rally. As they couldn't get everyone back to the bivouac by morning and the sweeper truck was still out there, they felt they couldn't run the stage competitively without their full resources.

For Team FrontrowGB this was somewhat of a blow, with the big stage the only real chance to make up a lot of time on the leaders. Stan Watt's phone-in updates for the last few days are here - http://www.adventure-spec.com/rallyraidio/index.html 

Another blow was their unsuccessful protest against losing time a couple of days ago, due to the badly edited roadbook. The car competitors had their protests upheld and were given their lost time back, but as not enough bike competitors complained (the helicopter showed up to direct competitors just after stan and derrick passed) Stan and Derrick didnt get their time back!

Stage 7 took place yesterday and passed through the dune sea of Tatouine in southern Tunisia, the area upon which Luke Skywalker's homeworld of Tatooine was based. Lots of sand!

Stan Watt was in impressive form again, upping his pace as the rally goes on and really stretching the legs of his KTM 690 Rally. Coming through CP1 Stan was leader on the road but then crashed heavily damaging his rear fuel lines and GPS, costing about 15 mins. He pushed hard for the rest of the stage coming home fourth fastest, leaving him sixth overall, just 2mins 28secs behind the production class leader.

Leader of the rally from the start, Michel Marchini, retired on stage 7 after his factory Yamaha succumbed to engine failure.

Derrick Edmondson also fought hard on the 350km soft sandy special. Tough navigation and technical riding made for a hard day but 16th place on the stage only 10mins behind Stan puts Derrick at a highly respectable 15 overall and 7th in class.

Jon Stamper's time placed him 32nd on the stage and 25th overall.

The other british competitors are mostly still running, with only Calum Mckenzie going out. Justin Carter lies 22nd, Jonathon Walter is 28th, John Whiteford is 33rd and Ewan Buchan is 42nd. There are 48 riders still in the rally with two stages to go.

Watts - a good day in the sand

Report by Chris Colling Photo MaindruPhoto.com  

Stan Watts of Team FrontrowGB had an excellent day out in the dunes yesterday, coming in a really strong sixth place on the stage! This places him a strong seventh overall (1h 57' 44 from the lead) and second in the production class only 17'33 back. The stage comprised some of the hardest dunes of the rally with some over 300ft tall. Rally leader Michel Marchini had a bit of a shock and left himself with slight concussion after a big unplanned jump off a dune face, although he got up and carried on immediately. Stan left another detailed audio update on the day at www.adventure-spec.com/rallyraidio/ 

Quote from rally news site - Stan Watt (G-B/KTM 690) : «At last a great result on the Rallye de Tunisie. Two days ago I had such a great start but ended up loosing mysel. … I love these high speed sections as my bike really finds its rhythm, as was the case today. But I didn’t take too many risks, as in this terrain an accident can quickly happen”.

Tuesday and Wednesday are 'marathon' stages with no help allowed from support crews and only an hour to work on bikes (riders only) before they are locked up in parc ferme. This should leave Stan in a strong position going into todays epic stage with over 500km's of special stage. Full of tricky navigation and high speed pistes it should suit Stan and the rest of FrontrowGB on their KTM 690 Rallyes.

Derrick Edmondson came home in 23rd today, the big 80km dune section slowing him down a bit after a strong start. Derrick now lies in a strong 15th position overall with four days of the rally remaining.

Jon Stamper came in 27th, leaving him in the same position overall.

We had news of Craig Bounds retirement, which was unfortunately due to a mechanical failure when the big end let go. I'm sure he's gutted, but he'll be back on the dark continent soon enough after his great debut performance.

Worst luck of the day (decade) goes to Ludivine Puy, the events only lady competitor, who after a storming run to tenth place overall had her rally come to a dramatic end. One of the flares competitors must carry to help in a rescue ignited itself in the small compartment in the rear fender. It quickly burnt into the rear tanks of here KTM 690 and she had to make a quick get-off before the £25,000 bike exploded and was completely destroyed. Luckily Ludivine was unhurt.

The other brits are still all running good. Justin Carter is in 23rd, with Jonathon Walter 30th and John Whiteford 37th. John's Scottish team mates Ewan Buchan and Calum Mckenzie somehow picked up 5hr penalties today and are 46th and 47th. Calum had a breakdown at km91 so i imagine the penalties were associated to having assistance on the marathon days.

Today's stage should sort out the men from the boys and is pretty much the crux of the whole event. You can follow it live by clicking on the 'click here to follow competitor' link at http://www.npolive.com/en/tracking.php 

Boundsy Retires

The sad news from Tunisia is that Craig Bounds has retired. We're not sure what happened yet, but after a storming run yesterday (ended up 2nd in Enduro Cup class) he didn't start this morning. The rally website said he had an off at KM225 but he rode another couple of hundred k's after that and was going really well. We're hoping he's okay, but something is obviously not right. Trying to call stan tonight to see if he knows what happened

Stan and Derrick Ed were flying yesterday and passed the whole field to actually lead the rally on the road, but then there was a badly described edit to the roadbook and they got lost. A helicopter arrived at the dodgy junction shortly after they passed and directed the rest of the field correctly. Stan and Derrick lost over an hour dropping down to 29th and 30th overall from what should realistically have been top 5. They have lodged a protest with race direction and hope to get some time back. I think the only way this will happen is if they depoll their names to Didier le Watt and Denis Le Tetmonson. There is an audio update on this at the web address above.

Stan came in 13th today and moved back up to 13th overall(2h 01m 57secs back), but is only 23 mins off the production class lead (5th in class). The 450s are all at the top of the field, the first KTM is in 5th! In fact there are only three 690's in the top ten, with seven 450's. Honda and Yam sent their factory boys rather than doing the Central Europe Rally fiasco. We'll see if the little motors can stay in one piece for the remaining 5 days Derrick was 20th today, moving up to 17th overall, 2h 20mins 46 secs back and 8th in class.

Jon Stamper was going really good and looked to be catching Derrick on the satellite tracking, but then slowed dramatically when they hit the dunes, so i imagine he got somewhat stuck. He finally finished 30th which takes him to 30th overall.

With regards to the other brits we know of, Justin Carter is 27th, Jonathon Walter is 29th and the scottish trio of John Whiteford, Ewan Buchan and Calum Mckenzie are 40, 41 and 42 respectively. There were 66 due to start today and only 57 made it to the finish of the special, so the first day of dunes has taken its toll already. Tommorrow's stage of 300k's looks to be mostly sand, with 80k's of full-on sand sea, which im sure will take no prisoners.

All in all a good day for FrontrowGB, but a bad one for Boundsy, we hope he's okay.

Stan Watt from FrontrowGB is giving daily phone-in updates from the rally at http://www.adventure-spec.com/rallyraidio 

23 April - 3rd May

Entry List

A Fast Start

As an historical and mythical off road African rally, the 2008 Tunisia rally will start downtown of the important French city of Marseille. With a Parc Fermé in the Vieux Port, in front of the city hall and a scrutineering inside l’espace Saint Jean on the 22nd and 23rd of April, the spectators will be part of the adventure, and will be able to have an accurate look at the vehicles and to meet the competitors.

The Rally will start with a night prologue in Marseille as a public spectacle prior to the rally heading for Tunis' This “Super stage”, short but important, is organized in the “Coulée verte” site of the grand littoral commercial centre. The track is FIA/FIM homologated: 2.5 km length, variable width (4m mini) with a few hazards such as jumps.

Hundreds of expected spectators will be able to assist, for free, to this time trial event from a panoramic area. Indeed, the audience will be placed on the commercial centre up-above parking, overhanging the prologue track. At the end of the prologue, the vehicles will stop for 15 minutes. Here, the viewers will enjoy an unforgettable moment with pictures and autographs possibilities and sharing some time with their favourite teams.

This 23rd April night is expected to be a party and friendly atmosphere. A podium bus will assure music activities and live comments of the race; Also VIP and stars will enjoy their first race drives during this night event.

Prologue provisional timetable: Track check 23rd April at 6.15pm: bike, car, truck opener

1st bike start at 7.00pm (one start every 30 seconds)

Last bike start at 8.00pm

Itinerary

Wednesday 23rd April MARSEILLE 22,5 Km - Liaison Port 10 Km - Spéciale Prologue 2,5 Km - Liaison Port 10 Km

Thursday 25th April TUNIS / MATMATA 437 Km - Liaison Tunis / El Fahs 87 Km - Spéciale El Fahs / Barrage de Nabahala 25 km - Liaison Barrage de Nabahala / Matmata 325 km

Friday 26th April MATMATA / NALUT 437 Km - Liaison Matmata - Techine 21 Km - Spéciale Techine - Oueni 295 Km - Liaison Oueni - Nalut 121 Km Station Assistance à 28 km du bivouac

Saturday 27th April NALUT / AL QARYAT 387 Km - Spéciale Nalut - Gharbiyah 359 Km - Liaison Gharbiyah – Al Qaryat 28 Km

Sunday 28th April AL QARYAT / IDRI 623 Km - Liaison Al Qaryat - Shuwayrif 154 Km - Spéciale Shuwarif - Idri 459 Km - Liaison Ass – Bivouac Idri 10 Km

Monday 29th April IDRI / IDRI 426 Km - Liaison Idri – Barquin 60 Km - Spéciale Barquin - Idri 359 Km - Liaison Ass – Bivouac Idri 7 Km

Tuesday 30th April IDRI /SINAWIN 635 Km - Transfert Bivouac – DSS Idri 10 Km - Spéciale Idri - Darj 502 Km - Liaison Darj - Sinawin 123 Km

Wednesday 1st May SINAWIN / EL BORMA 488 Km - Liaison Sinawin - Dehibat 162 Km - Spéciale Dehibat – El Borma 314 Km - Liaison ASS – El Borma 12 Km

Thursday 2nd May EL BORMA / KSAR GHILANE 330 Km - Liaison Bivouac - DSS 46 Km - Spéciale DSS El Borma – Ksar ghilane 282 Km - Liaison ASS – Bivouac ksar Ghilane 2 Km

Friday 3rd May KSAR GHILANE / DJERBA 338 Km - Transfert Bivouac – DSS Ksar Ghilane 2 Km - Spéciale Ksar Ghilane – El Kantara 286 Km - Liaison El kantara - Djerba 50 Km