La Ronde Des Sable through Auke Theuninck's eyes.
On Saturday, November 22, there was the second appointment for the sand hares during this winter season. The battle between the French sand specialists and the rest (mainly Belgians) took place on the famous circuit of Loon Plage (Fr).
The two-hour quad competition started around 14 p.m. Three Frenchmen immediately took the holeshot, I (Auke Theuninck) was able to move up to fourth place after two corners. My brother-in-law Jan Vlaeymans was also well in front with his tenth place. In the initial phase, advancing was extremely difficult, the imposed pace was extremely high. However, after the first two laps the course started to become more and more difficult. In those kinds of conditions I feel much better and I moved up to third place. Then the problems started with Jan (Vlaeymans). First there were problems with the glasses for him and then he disappeared completely from the race with mechanical problems.
Halfway through the race, the traditional pit stops came, just to refuel and change glasses. This stop went very smoothly and I was immediately able to continue my way in the right rhythm on the now very difficult course. Due to my quick stop, I had already moved up to second place. In the last two laps I was able to close the gap on the first man in the race, Mathieu Ternynck, but I could no longer threaten him.
After two hours I was very satisfied and finished second, 32 seconds behind 1st place. With 1 minute and 10 seconds I could have widened the gap to Jeremy Forestier who came third.
The other Belgians also did excellently: Oliver Vandendijck came 8th, Antoine Phillipront 9th. Kelly Verbraeken also became first lady with a 12th place overall.
Text: Auke Theuninck
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