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Photo by - Andy McGechan:
Hi New Zealand.
We have been pretty busy for the last month. Been on the road for three
weeks. I have raced the WEC in Italy on 24th, 25th April and in France on
8th. 9th of May.
I will start with Italy.
We arrived on Wednesday afternoon. Preparation
began with the usual walking of the tests and testing. There had been a lot of
rain in the area and the tests were a bit wet, but the weather was fine and
the tests were drying fast. But on Friday night it started to rain again
and by Saturday morning everything was soaked. The rain held off most of
Saturday but the tests were slippery. My test times were consistent.
At the end of the day I decided to change my front tyre as the conditions
had dried a lot and the mud tyre on the front wasn\'t working so good. In
the fifteen minute work period I changed the rear tyre ok and started the
front, but had problems. The moose kept pushing the tyre off the rim on the
opposite side to which I was working. The problem was the moose was too big
for the tyre. I ended up running out of time and had to put the bike in the
parc ferme without a front tyre.
Then things got really complicated. Since
there had been new rules and changes this year I had involuntarily become
a test case. The officials originally said that I wasn\'t allowed to finish
like this and I was excluded from the day. Later that night the jury
decided I was allowed and I could finish Saturday and start Sunday which
was good, as I finished 4th on Saturday.
On Sunday I finished 7th. I was
really happy with these results as Sunday was extremely wet and it was just survival. I had some good times in the tests. I actually finished 6th but
somehow the organisers say I lost a minute somewhere. There was a lot of
confusion at some check as some sections had to be cut and rerouted and time
allowances were given to allow riders to follow a new course to the original
time control, it all got really messy.
Anyway on to France and guess what? More rain!
It rained all week in the
lead up to the race and the tests went from wet to drenched.
There was a wicked xtreme test with some steep (vertical) hills and rock
sections.
The day for me started slow with some average times and in the second cross
test I crashed twice but I pulled it together and had some good times. IN the
last test around a grass hill, with some tree sections I finished second
overall, one second behind Salminen (the class leader).
I impounded the bike and walked back to the pits. I was greeted with the
great news I had finished 3rd for the day. My first podium. I was really
pumped. I had to go to media conference and jump up onto the podium. Only
problem was, I have had no voice for about three weeks and this made the
interview tricky.
Sunday was not so kind. I had a big crash in the first xtreme test. I got
off line on the bottom of a rock ledge and didn\'t make the top. I fell
back down and did some damage to the bike, resulting in a lot of time being
lost in the test. I was fighting for 14th place mid way through the day. I pushed hard and fought my way back to 7th. So I had salvaged some good
points from a bad day.
In four weeks time the WEC will be in Sweden, with a Fast Eddy before then,
so until next time
Paul
