Open de France 2008
Enormous thanks
to all who made this happen – not least: Philippe Lacoste ( The General) Santi Oliver,Javier Estarellas, Peter Bresnan
, Johan Das and others!!
An event too good to be cancelled, the French
Open at La Franqui, was resurrected by pilot power only to have excited anticipation appear doused at the last minute.
Southerly winds and heavy rain had left the site
more suitable for dinghy sailing .
And so, arriving on the shore of one
of the finest blokart sites in Europe- we were reassured by the determination of the Spanish
and French pilots who had relentlessly scoured the area over the previous 24 hours for an alternative . After considering
an area near Gruissan, the nearer beach South of Port-la-Nouvelle offered enough dry hard sand to roll over.
Relief from everyone as on the sunny Friday afternoon,
39 blokarters were having fun turning the marks at speed. Saturday stayed dry and a straight up and down course was laid.
Two weight classes only – the heavies and
lights took turns to sail back-to-back pairs of 5 minute races. The first batch of these took place in 10-12 knots of wind
and the 5.5 ‘s were out in numbers.
The Spanish team from Mallorca
were dominant in most races with wins for Peter Bresnan and Santiago Oliver in the heavies where Mike Moody (USA) and Johan Das (NL) put up good competition.
The lightweight places were fought for all behind
the pulley whips of Richard Chardet (NL) and Javier Estarellas (ES) who were almost in a match racing situation for the day
with Dutch supremo and Birthday-Boy Richard having apparent effortless advantage at the end of it.
Production lights saw a close run fight between
Sandra Smits (NL) and Cata Pol (ES) with Cata (now named “Catapult”!) finishing the day with a single point advantage.
