Rallye Tout-Terrain Dunes et Marais 2022

The Rivet Nissan of Joël Chopin and Bixente Castege in opposite lock and kicking up the dirt.  Fantastic!

 The Rallye Tout-Terrain Dunes et Marais is probably the biggest motor sport event in the Charente Maritime department of France, being a round of the Championnat de France des Rallyes Tout-Terrain.  This was the 45th running of the event which takes place near the city of Royan.  Held on the 8th and 9th October 2022, I attended the ES3, the third special stage "Les Alluchons" near the town of Coze.   I had intended to  attend a second special stage but having taken a shot of every runner and such a large variety of shots on this stage, and following the usual delays, I decided to be content with the photos that I have already taken, many of which I share below.

This is an off road rally which is fought over mainly by specialist vehicles.  The cars were quite quiet but very spectacular in terms of kicking up the dust, yumping and opposite lock sliding on the corners.  Most of the cars were prototype cars designed specifically for cross country rallying but which have engines derived from production cars.   The entry list is quite large and varied with over 150 vehicles.

As I had just a 45 minute drive to see this spectacle it will be a permanent fixture on my motor sport photography calendar from now on.

When I saw the entry list, I was pleasantly surprised to see more than a half dozen British crews taking part and that a familiar French driver, Christophe Wilt, was also competing.  I had taken notice of Christophe's driving on the Epernay rally earlier this year.   See below how they fared.

Top Ten Finishers

The top ten finishers were all four wheel drive prototype cars competing in the top T1A group.

Overall winners of the rally were Christophe Wilt and Antony Bois in a Rivet Porsche.  Nice to see a familiar name amongst the runners.

Another view of the winning car a few seconds later.

The Dronde Nissan of Benoit Bersans and Cédric Nicolau finished second.  Benoit is leading the driver's championship after eight rounds.

Third at the finish was this Fouquet Nissan of Yannick Lonne-Peyret and Vincent Marestin.  As you can see the front runners are often very spectacular.

Top British runner in fourth place was this Lofthouse BMW of Justin Birchall and Andy Powell.

Looking more like a normal rally car was this Dronde Porsche of Bastien Dronde and Lucas Campane in fifth place.

Flying over one of the yumps is the BMC Susuki of Jean Garicoix and Thomas Garispe.  They finished sixth.

Heading towards us through the Colza field are Joël Chopin and Bixente Castege in a Rivet Nissan.  They finished seventh.

In eighth place was the Rivet BMW of Fabrice and Morgane Rivet.

Top championship contenders, Stephan Barthe and Denis Podevin in this Fouquet Nissan could only finish ninth.

The second of the Brits to score a top ten finish was this Rmoffroad Jaguar of Richard Mann and Rebecca Clarkson.

The Top Two Wheel Drive Finishers. 

Winner of Group T1B and eleventh overall was this Cledze Susuki of Yann Clevenot and Romain Dupouts.  Yann leads the 2 Wheel Driver's Challenge after 8 rounds.

Second in T1B and twelfth overall was this Caze Tomahawk Susuki of Axel Zielinski and Maxime Bourdieu.

Third in Group T1B was this Fouquet Honda of Grégory Boucher and Romain Brocheton.

Fourth in Group T1B was this Rivet Honda of Hervé Brient and Aurélie Montus.

The Top 4x4 T2B vehicles

Winner of the T2B 4x4 Group was this Jeep Grand Cherokee of the Trophée Rallye 4x4 leaders Joris Beyer and Lorraine Claudepierre.

Second in this Group was another Jeep Grand Cherokee crewed by Hervé and Pierre-Antoine Dulondel.

Yet another Jeep Grand Cherokee came third, this one crewed by Fabien Daigneau and Baptiste Caquelard.

In fourth place were Bruno and Denis Bourland in a Mitsubishi Pajero.

In fifth place was this Nissan Patrol of Pierre Gourragne and Mickaël Riva.

Top SSVs

Top SSV was this Can Am BRP of Anthony and Alison Menanteau.

Second of the SSVs was this Can Am Rotax crewed by Guillaume Noirot and Alexis Correia.

This Can Am Maverick XRS QRB was third in the SSV Group crewed by Sylvain and Arnaud Lapeyronnie.

Fourth in the SSV Group came Stéphane Azaban and Cécilia Pouchou in this Can-Am Rotax.

Group T3.

The only finisher in Group T3 was this Yamaha YXZ of Sébastien and Lilou Colome.

This YamahaYXZ 1000 R did not finish the rally.

John Etherton asserts his copyright to all of the photos on this blogpost.  However, you may post the photos elsewhere on the web as long as you credit the photographer, John Etherton, and this blog post, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com and provide a link to this page.

John Etherton affirme son droit d'auteur à l'ensemble des photos sur ce billet de blog. Cependant, vous pouvez poster des photos ailleurs sur le web à condition de créditer le photographe, John Etherton, et ce blog, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com, et de fournir un lien vers cette page.

The yump was a long way away and was testing even my 400mm zoom but this is a reasonable shot of a Phil's Car Suzuki taking off.

An Urrutia crewed by Sébastien Marroyer and Kevin Chotard applying opposite lock.

This shot shows the large crowd that was present on ES3 as a Caze Nissan kicks up the dust.

A Caze Tomohawk comes in to land.

A Dronde Nissan kicks up the dirt as it heads along the vines.

A lot of my favourite shots of the day included an old windmill in the background.   This car is a Rivet Mak Sport.   This short was taken at 1/160th of a second as the car headed past at speed towards the moulin kicking up dust from the field.

British driver Chris Bird was in the top ten of the championship heading into this round.  Here he crosses a field of colza towards me in his Rivet Ford.

Some of the cars looked almost like normal rally cars but weren't.  This is a Sansot Honda.

A Fouquet Nissan heads away from us onto another part of the special stage.

Another British crew - Martin Cox and Peter Widdop in a GSR V8.

A Caze Renault.