Race Reports - Belgium 2000

The second Freebike race would be even more fierce than the first one. Louis started well but had to let go Jennes and Kempener very soon. But in that competition between those two, Jennes fell very hard in the next turn. This resulted in the immediate ending of that race. Little anecdote: Kempener did not see (as he said afterwards) the red flags and drove on for some time before he also stopped. This is very strictly forbidden. Jennes his fall was not so bad after all; he could return to the pits and prepare himself for the second race. That second race's scenario was going to be the same as the first one except for following small incident. The few rounds before Jennes fell resulted in a wrong calculation (or it was forgotten...) of the amount of fuel because Jennes (very frustrating for him) saw in the last round his title gone because he had to abandon because of no fuel. So Kempener finished first before Louis. Kempener's team was already celebrating when the race direction mentioned the sanction given to Kempener for discarding the red flags which is a backstep of 5 places in the standing. So Louis's team could now start to celebrate since not only he won the second race but he also became overall  Freebike champion in Gedinne. 

In the second race, again Louis Wuyts and Kris Jennes were the men to beat. Joel Smolders tried to mangle in the battle but had to let them go. After another clean race, Louis finished first again.

The first race (for the Dutch open championships together with the Belgians) began with a difficult start; but one after the other was overtaken to reach at last the 4th place. The first three dutchmen were too far gone already.

The second race (for the Belgian Championships together with the Dutch) was much better in the beginning and here Louis could even take the second place. The first place was even in the picture but was just not obtained.

Due to the fact that there were more than 40 competitors and the Dutch level is rather high compared with the Belgian, this was a very nice result. Beside this second place overall, Louis was the first Belgian and also the first Honda pilot!

After obtaining the pole in both classes, the first supersport race could start in good circumstances. At the start De Meulemeester was again very fast on his Yamaha and Louis on his Honda Supersport followed on his heels. His tactics was based on staying behind De Meulemeester and overtaking him in one of the last rounds. This was almost going very wrong when De Meulemeester had to brake harder then expected causing Louis almost to crash against him. Louis had to brake very hard too, and De Meulemeester could take a small gap. But in the one before last round, Louis overtook him and finished first.

The second race was a 3 hours freebike race (called probike). In this race Louis and his teammate Albert Aerts had the pole. But at the start, the motor had problems and Louis had to start 20th. After a while they could climb back to the 7th place and after a pace car event they could regain the first place. They made the first pitstop and took off again in 3rd position, but after the other teams also went in the pitts, they could regain the first position till the end. Amongst his competitors were Kempener and Jennes on a Yamaha R1.

The second Supersport race of the day, had a serious incident at the start causing the drivers to re-start. Louis took the lead and when De Meulemeester was going to do the same strategy as Louis did in the first race (staying behind till at the end), Louis increased the speed to the maximum and obtained a new lap record. De Meulemeester could not follow and made a small mistake in a turn. So, Louis went away as fast as he could and finished 10 seconds before the second one.

It was a beautifull day at the coastside of Ostend and many people were enjoying the spectacle (and the weather). Louis however could not enjoy much of the day since fighting the Yamaha's was going to be very very hard.

In the first Series600 race, De Meulemeester was leading and Louis tried to keep pace by braking later at the end of the straight line. But after mid race, De Meulemeester could make the gap with his Yamaha. Also Kempener, not started that well, could gain terrain on Louis and overtook him at two third of the race. Louis could not do anything against it.

In the Freebike race, Kempener had the pole but Louis started first in the first corner. In the second lap however, Kempener could easily overtake Louis in the straight line and gained terrain round by round. Louis firmly stayed in second place and on his turn gained on his competitors who were fighting for the third place.

The last Series600 race was the same scenario as the first one except that Louis had technical problems and had to leave De Meulemeester and Kempener and also Jennes (all three on Yamaha). In the last round his switchgear collapsed completely and Louis had to drive to the finish very slowly so he had to see disappointingly another 8 drivers racing beyond him. He ended 12th.

The second race of the day was a Supersport 600 race. Here again, Louis had to be satisfied with the second place after Wim Van Achter and before Stefan De Meulemeester.

Then, the first freebike race of the season became a first disappointment because of technical problems. After a good (no problem) training with the bike in the morning, a strange problem was detected just before the race. The radiator of the bike had a hole in it??? Could this be from a stone during the morning without noticing it afterwards? or was there another reason... we will probably never know. BUT; the second bike was not ready yet, meaning that Louis could not start defending his title in this category. Since there are only 3 races here, a kind of miracle has to happen for Louis still becoming champion. A very big disappointment for the complete team!

The last race of the day was again a supersport race and since Louis did not yet win a race that day, he went for it, racing on the edge of sliding and in a very spectacular race he once again braked Wim Van Achter on his Yamaha in the last round and won the race before Van Achter and De Meulemeester both on Yamaha.

1

The first race of the season was on the small circuit of Erpe Mere. The only race for Louis on the program of the day was the Series 600 race. Louis was afraid that his bike would not be fast enough yet to compete the, on paper, faster Yamaha's. But on this short circuit, the speed of the motor is not of so much importance. What matters here is the driving capabilities of the pilots. This was shown in the results since Louis finished first before David Drieghe both on Honda and before Mark Wauters on Kawasaki. The Yamaha's could not profit from their speed.