What more could we dream of...

An enormous crowd moved over to press up against the endurance stall to admire more closely the champions present. All of this took place under bright sunshine! Conviviality, curiosity and wonder were the feelings shared by everyone. All the old bikes exhibited in the ‘old’ pit lane reawakened a lot of memories, with many people finding them more appropriate situated here than in the F1 parking positions.

The largest and best equipped of the garages was without doubt that of Ferry Brouwer’s Yamaha Classic Racing Team, which recently got official support from Yamaha. The collection of old bikes from the standard factory production was impressive, both in terms of quantity and quality!
After two warm-up sessions, the send-off of the first round of the 4 Hours of Spa Classic took place under a light rain. The race was true to its promise, both in terms of the level of the show and the sudden new developments.

The competitors dashed before a grandstand that was nearly full for a race lasting 2 hours, 30 minutes. From the first circuit, bike no. 2 of the AXA Collection team driven by Jean-Paul Lecointe and Gilles Hampe had to come back to the stand due to a clutch cable failure. They lost 2 minutes over this mishap but made a superb recovery and finished in provisional sixth place. During the start of the race, among those in the lead were drivers such as Richard Hubin, Michel Siméon, Patrick Orban and Jean-Luc Chemarin. If you didn’t pay close attention, you might have thought you had been propelled back into the rich past of the golden age of endurance racing!

The competition was fierce and there were many who gave up. Among those who did best, one has to mention number 5 of Richard Hubin and Patrick Chavanne who left after breaking a track rod on the 12th circuit. Michel Siméon, who also had to give up, in the 25th circuit, told us that ‘it was a pity about Richard, since we had a good time overtaking each other all the time!’ Among those who also did not make it to the final ranks though they fought hard in the front positions earlier on: number 119 driven by Andreas Peck and Manfred Kaiser left in the 3rd circuit due to an engine breakdown; number 3 driven by Stéphane Mertens and Yvon Gilissen, who quit in the 26th circuit due to an oil leak; and number 97 driven by Christophe Basle and Philippe Mosbeux, who stopped just three circuits from the end…

Provisional first place went to bike number 88 of the team P+M F1 Kawasaki. They were followed by bike 67 of the team Blaauboer-Engineering on a Suzuki GSX and number 93 of Club 14 on a Kawasaki 1135 Performance driven by Jean-Claude Chemarin and Eric Laleouse. One should also note that despite a difficult start to the race, 4th place went to the winners of last year, the Triumph Rob North, number 8 of the Peppo racing team. We could only hope that the second round would cause the public and the participants to hold their breath as happened in the first round!

Saturday evening ended with a concert by the group Bouldou and The Sticky Fingers, who performed the greatest hits of the Rolling Stones with great mastery. The celebration went on late into the night, to everyone’s great pleasure!