King Christophe!
By TMX Archives on 15th Nov 06
CHRISTOPHE Pourcel may be the new 'King of Bercy', but the introvert French teenager found an almost cool welcome from his home crowd. But how the Parisienne public took 'le jeune anglais' to their hearts as 'Prince' Max Anstie not only swept two of the three nights in the new 85cc class, but also wowed the audience on the podium as he took the microphone and had Francis Magnanou and his lady assistant announcer in stitches with his stream of chatter.
After 23 years, Britain finally had a main event winner in Becy!
The 13-year-old was not overwhelmed by the occasion – "I've never ridden anywhere like this before, but it's just great."
And he didn't even get the bird like Mike Alessi for slamming his way to the win on Saturday, particularly after he brought up the incident first – "I tried to make a clean pass, but we touched and Yohann (Lafont) went down," – as the perplexed French kid accepted Max's hand of condolence on the podium. Talk about 'entente cordiale.'
He wasn't even overawed by the most imposing Bercy track in 15 years, which had champions shaking in their boots: "They should come to my practice track. That's much rougher!" Magic!
Some of the adult stars were already splattering themselves all over the whoops in Friday practice. Craig Behl, BT's mechanic who had brought over a full Pro Circuit KX250F for Pourcel and had strict orders from Mitch Payton not to let any of the GPKR mechanics get their sticky paws on it, laid it on the line: "The ground's not quite as hard as in California, but the whoops are much higher than anything there."
Vegas Lites winner Josh Grant had already landed face down in the afternoon, and took the opening win from Pourcel in the Friday evening heat with his eyes crossed as he went through the dozen ripples wide open and nearly cringed the last time through.
It was Damon Bradshaw 1990 all over again, and Steve Bruhn shook his head minutes later as the action took its first break: "Josh is never going to get through there like that every lap for three nights'', said the ace American snapper.
And indeed the Factory Connection teamster made it just twice more before the inevitable happened as he led on the third lap of the first main event.
The Honda front wheel hit the face of the third whoop, Josh was flung four humps further and had the sails knocked out of him as he landed on his chest, and was incredibly lucky when his cartwheeling bike narrowly missed nailing him into the ground.
That was that for Friday as he was carted off on a stretcher, but amazingly he returned for more, quite literally, on Saturday.
Already in training, Josh had set fastest time and he had come back from a first unforced error in the big race to block-pass his way into the lead from Pourcel – for half-a-lap!
Paris Bercy Supercross
Bercy Stadium, Paris, France
FRIDAY: 1 Christophe Pourcel (F) Kawasaki, 2 Justin Brayton (US) Yamaha, 3 Pierre-Alexandre Renet (F) Honda, 4 Eric Sorby (F) Kawasaki, 5 Mike Alessi (US) KTM, 6 Marco Dube (Cdn) KTM, 7 Marvin Musquin (F) Kawasaki, 8 Mike Brown (US) Honda, 9 Toni Cairoli (I) Yamaha, 10 Kounsith Vongsana (F) KTM, 11 Daniel Reardon (Aus) Kawasaki, 12 Cyrille Coulon (F) Honda.
SATURDAY: 1 David Vuillemin (F) Honda, 2 C Pourcel, 3 Jason Lawrence (US) Yamaha, 4 Renet, 5 Brayton, 6 Benjamin Coisy (F) Honda, 7 Nicolas Aubin (F) Yamaha, 8 Maxime Lesage (F) Honda, 9 Sebastien Pourcel (F) Kawasaki, 10 Sorby, 11 Dube, 12 Reardon.
SUNDAY: 1 Vuillemin, 2 Josh Grant (US) Honda, 3 Renet, 4 Sorby, 5 C Pourcel, 6 Coisy, 7 Soubeyras, 8 S Pourcel, 9 Musquin, 10 Loic Rombaut (F) Kawasaki, 11 Zack Osborne (US) KTM, 12 Brayton.
KING OF BERCY: 1 Christophe Pourcel, 2 Renet, 3 Vuillemin.
For full report, results and pictures see T+MX News, Friday, November 17, 2006