Adrien Van Beveren wins the 50th annual running of the Enduropale du Touquet’s Vintage class beach race
Rather than relaxing after another recent Dakar Rally podium finish, Monster Energy’s Adrien Van Beveren returned to his home in northern France, spun some wrenches on his vintage 1996 Honda CR500, and then booted up and won the prestigious 50th annual Enduropale du Touquet for the second time in his stories off-road motorcycle racing career.
Started in 1975, the Le Touquet beach race is a longtime February tradition in the popular French tourist region, founded by the legendary Dakar Rally originator, Thierry Sabine. Drawing more than a half million spectators on race weekend, the Enduropale du Touquet is not only a major attraction, it’s also something Van Beveren followed and dreamed about racing as a youngster. And now he’s won it once more, totaling five wins at Lt Touquet (2 vintage, 3 main motorcycle class).
“We finally made it again. This is cool,” said an elated Van Beveren. “It was a tough race, but I really enjoyed it a lot. High rhythm. A really good level of motocross. I had to push. To win this race again on the beach, I do it for fun, but when you put the helmet on with 750 other competitors at the start of the race it is a really big moment for sure. And to go for the win is something I really love here… (it) gives me a lot of emotions. And once again was a good moment to share with my friends and family, the people around me and yeah, it was nice.”
Out of those 755 racers at the start, Van Beveren grabbed the lead towards the end of the opening lap and led the contest from wire to wire, topping French vintage class great Nicolas Dercourt by 14 seconds at the finish.
Unlike picking up a bike at the local shop and going racing, vintage class motocross, especially in sand, is highly tricky. According to Van Beveren it sounded, from a racer’s perspective, that practically as much went into the preparation of his private Honda for this year’s Touquet vintage class beach race as goes into prepping his factory Monster Energy/Honda HRC Rally Dakar Racer – especially the inner workings of the motor.
“Two years ago we won the race, then last year I broke the engine,” said Van Beveren. “So we had to rebuild the engine, then I finally bought another (CR500) Honda. I brought some parts back from the U.S. when I was there testing, and (American off-road great) Johnny Campbell helped me find some new parts, because they’re really difficult to find in Europe – the cylinder especially.”
Van Beveren said from there he enlisted the help of Honda HRC mechanic Pedro Almeida to assist with the chassis work, even taking the bike to Portugal right after Dakar to get in some time testing in the sand.
“The bike was looking really good, but not as fast in the straights as we’d expected,” admitted Van Beveren. So it was back to the drawing board in an attempt to wring out some more top end speed from the old ’96 CR500.
“We had to go back through the preparation of the engine specs and tried to make it faster on the straight. And we were testing up to the day before the race! (Laughter). You know how the vintage bikes are… you change one part on the bike and the carburetor is off, the whole function is different, so you have to adapt, go back and fix it every time. It’s kind of tricky.”
But Van Beveren and Almeida got it sorted out and everything came together over the weekend in the sands of Le Touquet.
Up next…
FIM World Rally-Raid Championship racers remain in the sands of the Middle East for Round 2 of the ’25 WRRC with the running of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, Feb. 21-27. For more information, including “Live” timing and scoring, visit www.worldrallyraidchampionship.com
