By Dick Law. More than 1500 mad motorcycle racers will be taking to the beach in Northern France for the world’s biggest and best beach race at Le Touquet this weekend where speeds reach over 100mph on the wet sand as part of lap which takes more than 20 minutes The rest of the course is made up of rough, drier sand that cuts deep and makes bottomless holes all over the place. Apart from surviving all of the three-hour race, the top riders struggle to pass the slower lapped riders that are often on the border of falling off.

This year we stand the best chance of having a British rider on the podium since David Knight as factory Red Bull KTM rider Nathan Watson has been competing in all the French sand racing championship rounds. Watson has won three out of the five rounds but had his points from the first round taken away as he wasn’t a member of a French club at the time. He can’t win that championship but winning Le Touquet would look very nice on his CVs and the €10,000 first prise would be handy too.

Le Touquet is close then you may think as it’s just 45 minutes from Calais port or rail terminal so if it’s just the main race you want to see it can be done as a day trip. There is no entrance fee but when the weather is bright and sunny they have had crowds of over 250,000 turn up. Parking is no problem either as cars are parked at the airport with free busses taking spectators to and from the sea front as cars are banned in the town on race days.