Despite a lot of stress and still work to do, Didier VALADE, chairman of the Cahors Trial Club and organizer of this 2016 EnduroGP AMV of France, gave us few minutes to the promoter ABC Communication to answer to our questions…
Hello Didier, first of all, why did you take the decision to organize a World Championship in Cahors this year?
Didier VALADE: “For nearly twenty years, we’re organizing the Urban Trial in Cahors! But I don’t really know if we can go on for more years… It’s really tough to organize and we all needed a new challenge in my club. We already had the occasion to work with ABC in the past, for the 2015 SuperEnduro final held in tough conditions; we were noticed of the possibility to organize it just three months before. The final of the EnduroGP is like an achievement for us. Even if the Urban Trial is a huge event, this one steps higher! It’s bigger, much more complicated, but the challenge is interesting and we were already to face it!”
Speaking about challenge, organizing a Grand Prix should be very tough…
D.V: “First, we had to find the good sites; the EnduroGP is a big machine… The priority was to be as close as possible from the city center and we are. The Xtreme is very close, in the Commercial Area of Pradines and the two other tests are in the town next to Cahors, in St Pierre La Feuille. We’ve decided to bring the Paddock in the city center even if it was not easy to find the necessary place. We faced also more issues due to the French, European and World Wide events; I’m talking here about terrorism… Today, we have things that gave us much more trouble than expected. We had to close the Paddock and also the Super Test. That more things that we’re not used to face so we had to adapt and that’s bring much more cost on security side. Public and professionals will not really see it and we’ll do our best in order to do a great event!”
When did you know that you had to put more security?
D.V: “Everything took another dimension after Nice terrorist attack beginning of July. Every prefecture took enormous decisions. But I have to say that they were really permissive with us. They could simply cancel the event as they have the possibility to cancel every free event gathering more than 3 000 spectators… They’ve accepted to discuss with us in order that we can organize this GP. We have some issues but we’ll do our best to hide them…”
What are you waiting of this 2016 final?
D.V: “A huge sports and popular event! I’m a Sherco distributor in France so if Matthew PHILLIPS (AUS) would win the supreme title here, it would be awesome for me! We have also a lot of riders from my Academy and I hope they’ll do well… It will be a big celebration! We’ll have shows, Dee Jay and concerts all along the weekend; we’ll try to something sympathetic and unforgettable for the people present in Cahors!”
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