07-2016 The first weekend of July saw the French Mountain Championship in the Doubs region, at the traditional Vuillafans-Echevannes climb, organised by the ASA Sequanie.

This is a 4.8km climb, with tight hairpin bends separating some extremely fast stretches between rock and armco, where the quickest cars reach some 200 kph.

44 Historics were entered, including the two current Group 6 leaders, our very own barquettes driven by Pascal Ferretti and Gilles Coursoux. There were no surprises in practice, Pascal taking 4th place overall behind the three single-seaters of Gustarini ( F2 Chevron), Bady ( 1600 Martini) and Debeaune (Van Diemen).

Gilles, however, was being handicapped by ignition problems which prevented him from reaching maximum potential. Sunday's timed runs were punctuated by several "offs", both Historics and Moderns.

Fast and reliable, Pascal took the Group 6 award, and 4th place overall after Debeaune, who went faster in the second timed run. Gilles took second place in Group 6, and 11th overall despite mechanical problems affecting his ex-Coupe de l'Avenir Simca-engined barquette.

The overall winner was Gustarini in his magnificent Chevron, followed by Bady's Martini and Debeaune's FF2000 Van Diemen.

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