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ISDE Report - By Peter Birch:
Hi,
Apologies for taking a while to write,but as you can imagine things have
been pretty hectic here in Brazil.
The opening ceremony last Sunday was cancelled.Everyone (except the yanks )
had been waiting all week for decent petrol to test and set up bikes.This
was promised every day,coming by 3 road tankers from Sao Paulo about 3000km
away.It finally turned up Saturday afternoon shortly before the ceremony
was due to start, after the organisers sent out a helecopter to find it!
Everyone was frantically firing up bikes and setting them up for the
extreme conditions of very deep sand and temperatures of 32C +.The final
impound eventually had to be extended right through to Sunday night.
The tracks on Monday were open,fast and very dusty,with 5 terrain tests,3
of which were in very deep sand.Chris ran out of gas in one test,and ended
the day about 50th in Class out of 120.Stephan Merriman won the day overall
.The Swedish Trophy Team were out with a dead Husaberg,and many others
suffered seizures as the bikes have to be absolutely caned in the soft
sand.If you back off,you stop!
Today (Tuesday ) it was even hotter ,with more deep sand to start and
finish ,with really technical single track and dusty hard terrain tests(and
more sand).The tests today were so dusty that Chris reckoned that if he
caught up a rider he couldnt see to pass.There was a really tightly timed
semi - road section on which a Belgian Trophy rider hit a car and was very
badly injured.Another Belgian Trophy rider also went out with mechanical
problems,so their Team is pretty shot.
Australia lost a Junior Trophy yesterday with a broken wrist in the second
section,and last night were 5th overall in the Trophy. The trails are very
dry and dusty with some very fast riding. You never know when a
kid/car/goat/truck/donkey/ will apear in the middle of the trail!
Chris has stayed on time,but is suffering a fair bit in the heat which away
from the coastal breeze is murderous. He scored a top ten result in class
in an early terrain test today!
We have met Kelly Patterson from Christchurch who is riding in a British
Club Team,and also Terry Bridge and his wife from Darbi Accessories in
Auckland.Kelly got so badly stuck in a Mangrove swamp that he ended up
paying a bunch of local kids to dig his bike out!
Will try to send more infon.later in the week.
Cheers for now.
Team Kiwi.
