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| LATEST
RACING NEWS: 12th February 2007 |
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Another Strong Performance from the UK's No1 John Mitchell |
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Saturday 11th February saw this year’s Le Touquet three-hour beach race, one of the most exciting events in the off-road world, and the most gruelling track in the race season by far. With 350 quad entries, it was always going to be a demanding event. John was well prepared for the challenge, going into the race having just completed extra training in Dunkirk as part of his rigorous winter fitness regime. |
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Due to illness, the ATV World team mechanics were unable to prepare John's race bike for the race and John was almost forced to cancel without a ride. Fortunately, the Dutch W-Tec team were able to offer him a fully race prepared quad, although John had never raced on the W-Tec before.
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Despite this being the first time he had ever been on the quad, as the race started John showed no fear, racing along the three-mile straight and charging into third place on the first corner. Choosing to ride alone at this event meant competing against fresh competition and as a one man team, John knew he would have to be at peak performance if he was to have any chance of getting inside the top ten. |
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Two and a quarter hours into the race and John was holding a strong 3rd position when his chain broke. Pushing a quad through heavy sand is hard work; thankfully John was helped by Paul Winrow and Joey Maessen, for which he was most grateful. The precious minutes spent replacing the chain lost John race positions and time, but as we've come to expect from the UK’s number 1, he managed to get back out there and put in another stunning performance, finishing 8th overall and an incredible 2nd out of the singles teams, 1st British rider to finish.
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Other British riders had mixed fortunes, Paul Winrow and Willy Waggot had mechanical problems and finished in 83rd, Paul Holmes and Stefan Murphy had a good ride and came in 58th, and Jason Macbeth had a strong race, finishing in 16th.
John finished with 740 euros prize money and wishes to thank W-Tec, Planet Quad, ATV World and their sponsors.
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