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Hi there.
Since I last spoke to you it’s been all France: I’ve had the French GP, I’ve been to a Moto GP and met Valentino Rossi and I’ve done an International at Brou. Here’s how it went.
I drove to the French GP with my girlfriend Katrien and a friend Steve, who helped me drive. It was an 8-hour trip and I don’t like to get to the track too early so I decided to do it in a day trip.
We arrived to rain - it had rained all the way. But the track was in good shape and Saturday was hot.
I cruised in for a 4th place in qualifying. I was happy enough with that, people say that there’s no points for qualifying which is totally true but it’s good to know you’re on the pace.
Saturday night it rained really hard so I prepped myself for a mud race. It turned out pretty good for me, I was happy with a 3rd place.
From there I took my practice bike up to Belguim and got in some good riding with the Vangani boys. We trained really hard, hopefully it shows in the upcoming GPs.
That Saturday we headed to the Moto GP at Le Mans (Ben Townley, his dad and mechanic plus my girlfriend). We arrived Saturday night and slept at the track among the 150,000 spectators.
It was chaos, chaos like you’ve never seen. There were heaps of people camping, they all had fires going. Along with their bikes they had car engines they had towed there: the idea was to see who could be the loudest and whose could go the longest flat out.
There were drag races, burnouts, wheelie competitions … it was awesome. Eventually the police turned up and it was time to get some sleep!
On race day I met up with my teammates and mechanic Fabio. We had pit passes courtesy of our good backers Alpinestars and Honda.
We cruised along to the Honda pit box to meet Valentino. It was awesome, he’s a real cool guy and I couldn’t believe how relaxed he was on raceday morning! I sat on his race bike … it felt real strange compared with my CR250R.
Valentino took us out to the pit wall to watch the 125 race start. He wants to come MX riding with us sometime (he has a CR250), that should be a laugh. Mmmm I wonder if he’d let me have a go on his race bike?
After he signed me a couple of posters we headed to Alpinestars hospitality for lunch. All in all it was a great day, I had a blast.
The next day we raced the International at Brou, just down the road.
This is where I caught my first grand prix podium, a couple of years ago. Needless to say I like the track! I rode OK this time but I took it a bit easy as I’m hoping to pull off a big one at the GP this weekend. Anyway I finished up third for the day after Pichon and Smets - not too bad.
My poor teammate Andrea Bartolini over-jumped a tabletop and landed hard, dislocating his braking finger It’s bad luck for one of the nicest guys in the paddock, just before his home GP. I hope he gets better fast.
Since Brou I’ve been in Levane at the team headquarters before heading down here this morning to the Italian GP at Castiglioni del Lago. I guess this is the closest I’ll get to a home GP so I’ll be doing my best for a big result.
Anyway I’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you soon.
Lizzard #6
