Update from Round 8 of the World Trrials Championship
Brazio, Italy.
The weather over here is great, warm and sunny. After I picked up Mum and Dad from the airport in Barcelona we took a ferry to Genoa, Italy. This was a good chance for me to catch up with what has been happening.
We then traveled to Brazio, Italy where we found the pit area and a hotel for this race. Friday I had practise which went well apart from one crash where I bruised my hip. I also had a first look at the sections and technical control (Sign in and bike scrutineering). The sections looked good but we knew half of them would change as they were being used for Saturdays European Championship. Sections 1, 11, and 12 were set near the pit area in a small river. The rest of the sections were set in the hills around Brazio under trees, in dried up creak beds, and some had hill climbs and off camber turns. I liked the look of the sections and they were similar to New Zealand terrain.
Saturday I had practise again which went better, and another look at the sections with the changes. I liked the changes, even though section 2 in particular was now more testing with a large technical step in it.
Sunday morning (Race day), I started at 9.36am. I rode section 1 with a large crowd watching and cleaned it, which was great to settle the nerves. But my bike began to run not so well and lost a lot of power. I tried some usual fixs for the problem on the next two groups of sections, however no improvement. So between section 7&8 Dad and I swapped carburetors which cost us a lot of time and didn’t fix the problem. At this point we decided that I would just try ride the bike as it was (Underpowered and missing) for the remainder of the day. I felt like I was riding much better than in the other events I have ridden in in europe, but my bike problems were holding me back. I also got a puncher late in the first lap as well which was very large and leaked for the rest of the day. I finished the first lap on 36 points. My second lap I improved a lot, but it was slow as there were many youth riders infront of me and infront of them were the world pro riders which always take a long time. It was very pushy at the start of the sections to make sure you kept your place in the line and all the riders were running behind time so were tring to get infront any way possible. I finished my second lap on 26 points which was a great improvement as it was my second lap at the last competition that cost me positions (Not this time). My third lap was good as well but rushed as time was very tight. I made a few more mistakes on the third lap compared to my second but still finished on 33 points for the lap, how ever I ran over time and I received 10 time penalties to add to my score. I finished the day on 105 points and in 16th position. Although I finished back a couple of positions from my other events in Europe I was happier as there were 25+ riders in my class (Which was more than the other events with around 15-20 riders). I had also had the bike problems and with out these I think I could have dropped my score a lot and come up the field.
I was also very honered to be presented with a trophy “Campionato Mondiale Trial, Moto Club Monza, Memorial Giulio Mauri, Barzio, 7 Luglio 2013.” This was prseneted to me by Mrs Mauri (his widow) for being the rider that traveled the furtherest to the event.
We have now found the problem with the bike , which was electrical and are now training and preparing for round 9 of the World Trials Championship held in Kramolin, Czech Republic.
Photos to follow soon.
Thanks to my Sponsors and supporters.
I will have a letter head with a list of my sponsors soon.
Blake Fox