Nearly ten years ago I wrote the first version of this story. It was a lament for the Bol d’Or, more specifically for the Bol at Circuit Paul Ricard before it shifted to Magny Course. Mercifully it returned a couple of years ago and happens again this weekend. Endurance is almost back where it was in the glory days of the ‘80s, with loads of factory teams and a proper tyre war. The only real difference is that you don’t get half the Grand Prix grid having a one-off ride any more. But times are as close as in GPs and the only way to win is to go flat out for 24 hours without a mistake or any mechanical problem. So much easier said than done, lose a couple of laps through a minor problem and it is impossible to get them back. The jeopardy is strong in endurance.

The Bol at Ricard was one of those great events, as much festival as race, like Daytona was or the TT is. But it was that end-of-season blast down south to Provence for that last great festival of the year, before that dank ride home with the weather getting increasingly miserable and heralding autumn as you got further North that made the Bol so special. A long weekend in Bandol's beaches and bars, eating soupe de poisson and salade nicoise for lunch; that blast up to the circuit from the coast, a road the Isle of Man would be proud of. Total immersion in an event so completely French yet so accessible to us rosbifs, a unique race apart even from the other great 24-hour events at Le Mans and Spa.

I first went to the Bol in 1980 where I saw the underdog Suzuki GS1000 beat the factory Hondas, Kawasakis and Yamahas. Hang on; big 4-stroke Yams in 1980? No, three TZ750s with lights on and piloted by Sarron, Roche, Rigal, Van Dulmen, Asami and a factory tester called Kinoshita. The impact that race made on me shaped all my ideas of what motorcycle racing should be about.

Then there were the glorious Kool Kawasakis, the first incarnation of the Elf, and later the beautiful Yamaha Genesis and the awesome all-conquering Honda RVF750 backed up by the Honda France pit crew. This legendary band of men could change a V4 motor in 45 minutes, replace an exhaust system in four minutes, and accomplish the seemingly simple but in reality fearsomely complex task of changing a rear wheel, refuelling the bike and getting it out again in around ten seconds. Their chief mechanic Guy Coulon invented the single-sided swinging arm when he was at Elf.

This race sold motorcycles: when Jacques Cornu was world champion for Kawasaki, the whole of Europe appeared to be riding loud, green Z1000s. No wonder Yamaha spent shiploads of money trying to win with the Genesis in the late '80s. Instead of their man Christian Sarron taking victory they had to watch his little brother Dominique win five Bols with Honda before the brothers finally joined forces and Christian got his just reward. 'This is what we go racing for, this is sport', said Yamaha Motor France's MD, voicing the thoughts of a biking nation and quite a few foreigners as well.

My most memorable Bol? Foggy, Hislop and Rymer in '92 winning the first all-Brit Bol since Triumph- powered Tait and Pickerill. Or was it Wells, Haslam and Marshall being eliminated while leading due to a mechanic's mistake? Or was it the one where a dodgy mussel confined me to the very close proximity of Ricard's shanty-town loos? Or was it the first time I discovered the Ardeche Gorge road on the way home? Or the time I went south via the Ardeche and was overtaken by a French Yamaha trail bike on Avon Mudpluggers being piloted by a bearded motard wearing a pudding-basin helmet, Grateful Dead T- shirt and flip-flops? Or that time when a cloud of dust on the way up to the circuit concealed an XS1100 dragging a tree? Or when I got home so quickly on a Katana 1100 I should have been in the damn race? I think it's now safe to ask Suzuki just what that motor was in their 'test bike'...

The Bol d'Or was and will be a test of endurance not just for the racers but for the spectators; just finishing it is a triumph. One of the weekly French mags used to give away a sticker before the race saying 'J'y vais' (I'm going), while you had to be at the track to get the matching 'J'y etais'

(I was there). I've still got mine.

But for me the spirit of the Bol was embodied by one team at that first 1980 race. Two young French racers (only two men in a team then) had lost their sponsor and their ride the week before the race. So one of them rode his brand new Honda CB900 from Paris to run it in, they gave it its first service before qualifying, then they raced it. And they finished.