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Return from Europe:
Hi People.
Tim & Noel arrived back in NZ at lunch time today after 38 hours nonstop traveling and are a bit tired !!!!!!! after a 3.30 am start in Schwerin to drive to Amserdam to catch the plane, all went well till it was time to return the rental to the center of town, what a nightmare, lost in a 1 way system for 90 minutes, buses & trams and push bikes everywhere. After 3 stops for directions and 3 trips over the foot path and a couple of trips up one way streets the wrong way and running red lights, we got there.They had to hold the plane for us and were not pleased !! but we made it. Then a 12 hr flight to Washington, USA, then 5.5 hrs to LA, USA then 13 hrs to Auckland and back to Wellington then home.
Surprise suprise all our bags arrived as well, 2 had "split" open and were repacked in plastic bags but seems everything was still there. The last few days in Germany we rode 4 different tracks and were supposed to train at an indoor Supercross track late Saturday afternoon, but due to a 2 hour traffic jam the track was closed when we arrived. The last track we rode on Sunday was Teutshanthal ? Central Germany. The world GP Track for the GP of Europe this year ( Coppins was 2nd and Pichon crashed and was 8th ).
The track was still pretty rough and very slick and dry. Team MoBu were very keen to see how Tims lap times stacked up. M Mashio ,world 125 GP leader 2.03 a lap. Maximillian Nagl the German 125 champ 2.13 a lap. Tim managed to race the YZ 125 around on practice tyres and an 8 hour old engine on the under prepared track, to equal the German champion`s qualifying times on 3 consecutive laps in his 2nd session, much to the pleasure of Dirk the Team owner.
This effort has been rewarded with an invitation to return to Germany to race the German national SX series with 4 races in November and the last 4 in Febuary 2003 for team MoBu, then stay on and race selected European MX meetings.
Dirk the team owner and former East German army MX Team member / trainer (The way the eastern block countries paid their athletes to train full time) has put in a lot of time with Tim on riding style etc. and believes he has the ability to advance to the GP curcuit in the up coming seasons.
Thanks for all the support from NZ over the last 2 1/2 weeks. We hope to catch up with everbody once the photos have been developed.
Noel & Tim
