Chasing Races - Part 2 (Paradijs Death Circuit)

Several of the gents from South Carolina (by now being called the SoCar Posse by Rich, Dash and I) are Cat1/2 racers. Wanting to add some thrills to their Monday.... they found a local race to go join. You can read the inside story of the race here. Below is the spectator view through several beers.

Rich (by now being called "Pigeon" by Dash and I for his uncanny ability to find the way back to the apartment) hopped behind the wheel, I in the navigator's seat and Dash in back of the VW Golf. The SoCar boys had told us that the race was just 7k down the road near Mouscron. Our original thought was that we would just roll over to the city center of Mouscron and find the race. How wrong we were. After driving all over the town for an hour we were about to give up when I got a response to my text message for better directions from one of the SoCar Posse. The response reads.... "E-17 south, exit 500 meters before French boarder, on the left." Well, that explained everything! Turns out, it was not in Mouscron, it was only near Mouscron. It was actually in Paradijs which was a couple Kilometers away. After wandering around for another 30 min..... complete with a short trip into France and back.... we found the race. So, with that background...lets go to the pictures!

The race headquarters was in Cafe 't Paradijs. In Belgium, Cafe does not necessarily mean a place to get coffee and a pastry. It more often means bar. We would discover this in detail later in the week.... but that is a different story.


Race sign up requires that guy wanting to race has to make his way through thick cigarette smoke to the back of the bar. All the while, old Belgians sit there sipping a beer and him sizing up.

Naturally, we sized up a round of beers and went out to "manage" the SoCar Posse. Turns out, you need to have your own safety pins and zip ties to put on the required numbers. For reasons unknown till just before this picture was taken, I left a roll of electrical tape in the bag I took over. It came in real handy to attach the numbers to the bikes. This is Rodney for SoCar taping on his number.

This race was PRO.... complete with police escort.....

..... and a closed course with medical and sweep vehicles.


After the race started, we decided to wander the course a bit. We could see from the start/finish area that the race looped back through the town a couple blocks away. Turns out.... the town of Paradijs gets rural in a hurry.

We found a good corner to stand on and yell for the Americans as they rolled by. Here is a quick video of what the pack looked like early on.

Lucky for us, we spied another bar! This one was a hoot. It was adorned all around with angels. A poster of Jesus hung right next the bar and a fish tank on the bar that had not been cleaned in at least a year. I could not tell if there were any live fish in it. The beer selection was limited to Orval and Stella. So, we head to break our established pattern of not drinking any Belgian beer that we could get back in Colorado.

But the part that really cracked me up was the calendar behind the bar. I guess, in a way, one could argue that it stayed with the angel theme.



We ordered up a round of Orvals to enjoy. Every 7 minutes or so the race would come buy so we would go back out, wave Rich's American flag and shout insults/encouragement at the SoCar guys. Here Dash Riprock licks his wounds after getting caught staring at the calendar and then being chastised by the cafe owner.


Wurth angel on the left, ceramic angel on the right. Perfect symmetry?

We finished our Orvals, and wandered up to the Start/Finish area.... only to find.....Another bar!!!!....er.... I mean Cafe.

The bet board from the previous days RVV was still up in Cafe Louis.

The Paradijs version of Dave Towle..... I swore I heard "They are absolutely throwing body blows out there!!!!" in Flemish.

Paradijs has a semi-permanent stand right at start/finish so that the officials can stay out of the rain. It stays after the race. Also, if you look at the pic above, you will notice that the Finish line was permanently painted on the road. The whole main street was wired with external speakers so that you could be half way across town an still hear the announcer......We got the feeling that they did this quite often. On thing that was interesting, there was no photo-finish camera on the line. They put one up with about 3 laps to go, but it was a good 15 meters before the line. From the nearest we could tell, the old guy with the mic was going to decide who won.

About this time, we figured out that this was something like a 75K race. It was over 20 circuits and lasted nearly 2 hrs. During those 2 hrs, the officiating crew stood around, chain-smoked cigs.....

And drank beer....... a lot of beer. Not as much as us.... but still... a lot of beer.

A Podium Girl Sighting!!!! This was about 3/4 the way through the race. Several of the SoCar posse were trying bridge across to the break. The locals had figured out that they were American and were having none of it. Every time one of the SoCar boys went, there were at least 3 Belgies on his wheel. Then, when the podium princess arrived, all of the SoCar posse were suddenly content to let the break go.

We watched this kid sit around with all the officials for a half hour and wondered what his job was. He was sporting an officials shirt but did not seem to have a specific duty. Then came one-lap-to-go and it was all cleared up for us. Right behind the yellow tarp is the bell. His job..... Official Bell Ringer.

On the final lap, all the bars emptied onto the street. At first I was wondering how they knew... but then I remembered that the town is wired with speakers.

Just like the pros..... Flowers, trophies and kisses for the podium. There were about 7 guys in the break. The dude in the all black kit smoked everyone in the break to win it easily.

Rodney from the SoCar posse won the field sprint. Due in part, I am sure, to that fact that he had my tape holding his number on. Being a American speaking person in a spot where all things are Flemish, it took a bit of convincing for him to get his prize money. While he was inside the bar arguing his case, I rolled across the street and acquired 3 big batches of Belgian friets with Andalous sauce for a post race snack to share with the SoCar gents before they rode back into Kortrijk. Man, are those things good.

Next race..... Scheldeprijs.