Race Evergem 040911-12

[ypvs]

Kanske lite jobbig att läsa i text såhär. Bättre om man öppnar filen så om nån vill ha den så hojta till...

Everem 040911-12

I'll just start with welcoming a new sponsor to our team.
This is Motana Accessories the Belgian importer of Boost Helmets and Smith's goggles which they supply me with.
Smith's most of you guys a familiar with and know the quality of but check out the Boost helmets, really nice. (www.boosthelmets.com)


This time we had a typical Daniel and Sara race weekend again. Problems piling up, gods trying not to make us enter the race, then at least trying not to make us finish it. But we're from Vikingland and our gods is much stronger than the ones in Evergem so it was all feeble attempts, very annoying though.

Really all this started with the last race that I didn't even write about, sorry. That was the one in Chimay. In fast:
Qualy, 6th.
Semi: Crach on first lap, stood still for two laps. Came back to 20th from 36th. Not qualified. 4th best laptime however.
Repechage: Top six qualified back, I was one of those.
Final: Started 34th, stalled from 19th, retired with noisy engine.
Reason, engine block cracked.
Went home not too sad, after having calmed down from the adrenaline fuled rage that comes with having to pull out from a race. At least I had gotten some good results. (Had a very nice chat with an English woman who came to say she really loved these stories and were looking forward to them after every race... Stuff like that I just love. Makes it even more worth it too sit down to write for 3-4 hours after the races and it's nice to hear that there actually is an audience.)

This is the story of my life in Belgium racing this year really. Not that I've had a lot of tech problems during races but always something. Startcrashes etc. Normally I come home with a poor result but with a good qualy or a bad qualy a good semi and a crash in the final or something like that. There's been exceptions but not so many. Thing is that I know I can fight for 5-8th positions here which I've proved to myself when things have been working out so It's all a matter of working a bit harder to get better consitancy I guess. Thing is I train so much MX that people start to complain that my bike look like shit even after I cleaned it for 3 hours before a race. I say, better to train and get fast than to polish and stay slow. However, as soon as time is given to me I will take the bike to pieces and fix it up as new.

Ok, back to the subject at hand.
The time coming up to the race in Evergem was spent fixing my engine. The cracks were welded by the welding magician at Bike Parts, bearing, that needed to be changed was changed and I desperatly wanted to find the problem with my fourth gear that I had been trying to fix for some time. New sprockets and forks so far but still it didn't work ok. This time I checked everthing, forks were just fine, sprockets fine, shiftmechanism fine etc. A washer between two sprockets were bent and therefore corrected and engine reassembeled. Teststart, sounded like new. Testrun, power really good. 4th gear.... The fucking same problem!!!! Godverdome, förbannade skit, vittu perkele, elif air ab tizak!
So, with not enough time to get into my engine again I had to ride another race without fourth gear. Well, I've had worse problems than that and are actually getting quite used to double shift from 3'rd to 5'th as it is. Low rev power is great so usually there is not a lot of time lost doing this, on most tracks that is. On thursday the bike was put in the truck, Sara shopped for supplies and we were set for Evergem in good time. This time we were also gonna bring Sara's bike as she we're gonna go for a ride with it and a possible buyer was gonna come by to check it out in the paddock. Luckily, luckily it was with us. The maybe-buyer is actually a girl from Gent btw (a nice one at that) which is a bit remarkable as the bike in question is a KTM 625 Supercompetition with only kickstart. Bike is beautifully fixed up with replica plastic and a perfectly noisy Bos carbon system. If both the first two owners on this bike is girls it would be a first I think. The kick thing impresses most guys we meet when we're out riding as little Sara kicks it to a roaring start the guys come by, read 625 on the side and goes "Woooo". That it's so easy to start that I can do it with my hand we don't tell them.
So, friday came. Sara's bike was loaded and off we went. 50km to the track after 40 we were standing still with kind of a problem. Generator boke, lights dimmed down by the second and daylight disappeared in the same tempo. 10 kms from the track we got pulled over, and sent in to a parking at a supermarket to spend the night by a transporter full of cops that luckily had somewhere to be like right now. We parked up and then the truck stalled. Battery was now totally flat. Godverdome, förbannade skit, vittu perkele, elif air ab tizak!
We had to do what we had done once before, call Bandit. We thought we were something like 3 kms away from the track and maybe he could take a small detour and start us up and lead us there slowly with hazards blinking. It turned out that there were a highway stretch of about 10kms still to go so that was out. The probably stolen and abandoned car without license plates on the parking was already missing it's battery, damn vultures hehe, so we were running out of options. 11pm and we really had a problem. With nothing better we went to bed planning to try to make someone bring a battery the morning after as the track was close.
WHAT A HELL WAS THAT!!! Someone just tried to open the door to the front of our truck. Daniel woke, got on a t-shirt and was actually a bit happy about the prospect of beating up a junkie for trying to brake into our truck. That would be a nice way to get some stress relief after the strains. Time, 5 am. 10 seconds to start, red lights coming on, engines roaring, well just to explain the way the adrenaline started to pump as I got out expecting to have a face planted into my fist in about 5 seconds. Outside was 3 cops. Engine blew before the red lights were out. Race was over.
What are you doing here!
Your colleges sent us here 6 hours ago to spend the night as our generator broke and we had no lights. Just going to a race in Evergem.
Who owns the truck!
It's in the name of my girlfriend.
Papers! (He got them!) And it was actually now for some reason I came up with the plan to get us out of the problems with the truck...
Were is this girlfriend of yours!
In the truck sleeping. (rather shivering but still)
Hi... (Sara answering with a 2000w flashlight stuck in her face)
It turned out that there had been an attempted brake-in into the supermarket outside which we were parked. We have an Iveco truck that is rebuilt into a mobile home with no windows and the front of the car were now full of cables and unsorted materials that before took up space in our bed. Just like any junkie brake-in truck really. As the truck and we were cleared, off they went. I was fully awake at this time however and started to present my genious plan to Sara.
No fucking way!
Why, not? (I was totally not understanding why this was not greated with a: Ah, that's a really good plan darling)
I am NOT gonna stay here alone for 2 hours with the back of the truck open guarding material worth 10's of thousands of Euros without even having the chance to close the rear lift of the truck!
Why not? (I still didn't get it. With a track 10kms away, corners that needed to be slided into and jumps wanting to be jumped I wanted to go desperatly)
BECAUSE THERE IS APPARENTLY BAD PEOPLE AROUND AND IT'S PITCH BLACK OUTSIDE AND WHAT THE HELL AM I GONNA DO IF SOMEONE COMES AND SAYs "GIVE ME THE BIKE AND WHATEVER ELSE YOU GOT"!!!!!
Ah... (Still, tried to find out a way to arm Sara in some way but there is no way to make here look threatening enough)
My plan was to open the rear lift, get her street legal bike out. Use it to drive 40kms home, change to the car and get back to load the battery of the truck with starting cables for 30 minutes or so so we could get to the track. There was however no power to get the electrical lift up again after this was done so she would have to sit in the back to guard it while I was away. +/- 90 minutes...
At 5.30am I started to try to stop cars on the road to get them to let us use starting cables off their car to get the lift down and then back up again. With the doors closed and locked Sara would have to endure some time alone, I am gonna race no matter what. Problem was that the first 100 cars didn't stop and there was no chance in hell that anyone was gonna stop for me in the dark outside a supermarket in an industrial zone.
Sara, come here!
Next car stopped. It proved to work better with a blonde with pigtails on my side. 10 minutes later the bike was out, doors were closed and locked with Sara inside and off I went. Had a nice ride really. A few kms on the rear wheel on the highway to Antwerp through the morning fog can calm down even the most stressed Daniel.
90 minutes later I was back, Sara looked relieved, sun was getting up and I sat down to eat breakfast while the car charged the truck. No point in loosing time doing feeble things like eating trackside. Time management. A few sandwitches later the battery also was decided to have had enough for breakfast and we went to the track without any problems. Arrived at about 9. Parked up at Bandit and Yves and got the bike out. Checked the track, got transponder. Did some checkups on the bike etc. At 10.15 the guys crawled out of their cocoons. I can never sleep like that on a race weekend. However, we were now on location and I (and the bike) were ready for action.

 

[ypvs]

More problems were to come however. Not for a little while however...
A really nice thing about this weekend was that there were some guys we know that normally don't do championship races that was there to ride and we have also been accumulating friends over the year on all the races we have attended so the paddock-life side of the races are now getting to be really really nice. When I started I more or less only knew the prestiege guys as I traveled with them for a few years as a mechanic for Husaberg but now with all the races in Holland and Belgium we have gotten a lot of very nice new friends and "getting to be friends". Really pleasant to stroll around the paddock to speak to people, help them out, get help ourself when needed etc. Share a beer on saturday night and just live the race.
We used the few hours we had between bike was ready and timepractise to walk around and see who was there and get to know the place. The one and ontly Phantom was there, Race Rat was there (handels off the Belgian Supermoto forum, we use them as names a lot). After that I just wanted to get out, get a feel for the track, that looked really hard, and get a good time for the line up in the Semi.
I watched the 450s for a while and then went to the parc ferme. The 450s went off and I fired up my engine to finally get some riding done. We didn't even get out on the track. The cops closed down the race. There was problems with the stretch of the track, security, flag guys missing etc. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!!! It looked like it was a cancellation and then after 1h and a half it was suddenly on again. Mother of God!
We were out on the track. On foot this promised to be a tough one. Especially for me as I don't like soft cross parts, sand and loose dirt ets and there were plenty of it here, plenty. However I've since Holten in Holland trained with a target of getting better on just these kind of tracks so I hoped that it would be at least ok.
Let's start with the track. It's a 300m start/finish anding up with a 90 left into semi loose dirt. Hard slide into this one and then hit the gas as the bike is lined up and you hit the dirt. Very wide here. 10m and a 120 right. Another 40m and you get back to a very narrow tarmac stretch doing a 90 left. Difficult to accelerate here as there is a lot of dust on the tarmac and it's narrow. You come out, and have 2m to turn and then accelerate. The following part was an acceleration on 2'nd, 3'rd directly to 5'th (for me) and then a double down to 3'rd and slide into a highspeed left that ended with a really difficult mx-part. 20cm deep sand. You hit it doing 80km/h with the bike at a hard left angle. Squeese with you knees for all you got to keep it reasonably straight and then there was a jump, not a difficult one but you needed speed here or you were in trouble as the jump was more or less not possible to drive over, you neeed to jump. No problems for me so far increadbly as this was my place of concern. The landing was sometimes problematic here in the loose sand and you never really knew which way the bike was gonna take after. But as long as you held the bike firmly with your knees here and kept on the gas you were usually ok. Let go of the gas and you were down. Back on the tarmac for just 30m and then a chicane also on sand. Here I was down two times during the time practise, nothing seriously but maybe a concern for the race. I used a few laps to get better on this part of the track. After the chicane there was an acceleration up to 5'th (-4'th) a very nice highspeed left on 4'th which I didn't have so screaming through it on 3'rd or using 5'th carrying a bit higher speed through the corner but loosing a bit of acceleration coming out. After this corner a 200m straight almost going 6'th all the way out. This ended with a 90 left entering the final mx-part. 3 gears down, NICE slide. Just at entry to the dirt I went down to 2'nd hit the gas and held on in the again soft dirt. A technical jump, landing 10m before a 90 right after which you hit the tarmac again. After a 120 left on dusty tarmac we were back on the start finish.
After I had shaken hands with the track and we knew each other by first names I hit the throttle. 2'nd directly. Wooohaaa! I really love Sara when she writes numbers like that on my pitboard. I kept on pushing hard. When I missed somewhere I used the rest of the lap to explore alternative lines as this is also one of my weaknesses. When I find my lines I have real problems to change that according to circumstances during race. On the tarmac, no problems I go inside outside or in the middle when I want but on the mx I keep to my lines that I know. I'm getting better at this but not good enough yet. A few laps before finnish I was down to 4'th and stayed there. Still a marvelous result for me and proof that targeted traing is the way to go. On this track 1 month earlier I would be happy to be top 20. As it was I did a 1.29.928 the best time was 1.28.068 and the 2'nd best 1.29.230. Me happy. Another nice surprise was that Koen was the guy on 2'nd. Always nice to have friends doing well. Bandit and Tom was also on very nice positions, 8'th and 5'th. Yves, Phantom, Race Rat, Jo and Joost to say some struggeled hard with the really difficult mx riding you had to do here but kept their heads up for the semis. All maybe not expecting to qualify for the finals but to do the best of it and otherwise fight in the Repechage and consolations. And for all of you that haven't done this most of this guys will ride the crap out of you. 1. It is NOT easy to ride loose sand tracks with slicks and 2. Belgium has some stiff competition to offer any rider in the world, and there is not just a few top notch riders here, there is hordes.
Time coming up to the semi was not so hectic. My bike was riding good, I really missed my 4'th gear for the first time as I actually really needed it here on a few places. I think I could have dona a sec better with it. But I was happy to even be riding, let alone be there at all. Points not so important for me as I don't stand a chance in hell to make a good over all result this year in the championship in Belgium with all the problems but this weekend was important anyway as I need to show that I can to raise the level of possible sponsoring and support for next year. And there was some of those possible sponsors present. The only thing that I am more or less certain of is that I will stay with Husaberg for next year as they offer what is for me the best bike. Fast like hell, light and with an increadible chassi 2'nd to none. AND, the importer in Belgium Fesial ALWAYS deliver the parts to Joramo that is my sponsor for parts within 24 hours of order, whatever it is. For racing that is crucial as there is often not a lot of time in between races when you do double championships.
With al this in mind I put my bike on the first row on the grid for the final. Put my brain on Stand-By and put in 2'nd gear to start. Mario America to my right, Koen on the side of him and Anthonis on pole. Nothing in front of me, nothing more beautiful than to do a start with noone in front of you. Suddenly my front fender was blocking the view down the track and I realised that we had started and it was time to put in 3'rd. Hit first corner as 3'rd, Koen was not in front of me so I guess he had to be just behind. the right in the first mx cost me two positions of which I got one back coming back out on tarmac. Into the first jump I had to go wide into the deep deep sand and lost some speed and direction and landed after the jump sideways, not falling but had to start from a standstill. Lost maybe 10 positions here. Damn, but I new that those passing me was slower and I wanted a top 8. As soon as I had hunted one down I locked on the next one. I took them down one by one and by the time the 2 laps sign was up I counted 4 guys in front of me and Anthony missing, not crashed so probably out of sight. Certain of a 5-7th position a took the chequered flag doing 90 on my front wheel, noone close behind anyway. Except the first lap my race had been really good. My confidence in my ability to handle tricky mx-riding has increased dramatically and there is nothing like confidence to boost speed.
I parked up the bike at the truck and went to the track to try to find out which position I actually had. Then I saw it.
I was on the list as 18'th. Second row in the repechage, not qualified. A quick think through because you tend to trust the results when printed from a computer. No way.
The closest official was found.
There is a probem, I beat that guy on second position to start in the repechage with one lap.
No, the list say you are 18.
Nah, nah, nah. (Godverdome, förbannade skit, vittu perkele, elif air ab tizak!) Sara, run to the timing make a protest and get them to double check the lists!!!
I ran for the bike, filled it and got back just in case the protest would be turned down as it probably would knowing race officials.
Start getting closer and closer we got help from Harmens lovely girlfriend and Yves as well. They speaking french me not so good. They having better temper, me not so good. I got called to the finish line as Sara couldn't make a protest in my name. Sara was there, the other girls came to help, thank god. I am not a good diplomat under these circumstances but I will never cheat. The protest was legit. They went through the lists, no result. The girls made them double check, no result. Then came an old lady out with hand written papers. She had been sitting writing down all that passed lap after lap by hand and after consulting her lists which was a science in itself I was cleared and put back on 7'th position, the transponder hadn't picked me up on one lap. PEUH!!!
Thank god for old ladies and nice girls... )
I went back relieved, so relieved.
The repechage put most of our friends out of the race that hadn't qualified from the semi and to single out two I was especially sad for Tom and Koen. Tom is a very fast rider qualified 5'th for the semi but had problems both there and in the repechage. Koen qualified 2'nd for the semi as you know but crached in the semi and was out. In the repechage he didn't quite seem to find the rythm back and he too was out. Tragic. The only upside to having frinds not qualify is however that you normally have some extra support around the track during the finals which really helps to push you a bit further, but I would rather have them all to fight with on the track instead.
Problems for me was not over however. After that semi and Repechage fuzz I checked over my bike and found some oil leaking. The block had cracked again, in the welding. (Godverdome, förbannade skit, vittu perkele, elif air ab tizak!) I was not giving this up no matter what. I cleaned the crack really well with brake cleaner and siliconed over the whole area of the engine where the crack was. After 2 hours I test started to see if it held up. It did, at least for a while so I stopped.
That night we had a nice barbeque with the gang and had a few beers and then stumbeled to bed early. This had been a REALLY long day as it started already when the cops woke us up in Zelzate outside an Aldi at 5am.
The morning after I was up early as we had some things to do before 10 when the first race was. Sara had gone back home the day before to pick up her bike as it was gonna be showed to Suzi-Wan the "maybe-buyer" and we were also gonna display it on the race so we had some polishing work to do on it and a tire change as well. The tire change Sara did herself, I only helped her with a stuck axle the rest she did. Cool, eh. I rode my bike a bit more to see if it was gonna start to leak but nothing so I took it to the start. I had my 7'th place from the semi transfered into a 15'th starting spot in the final and stood side by side with Bandit that came from a 7'th position in his semi. We made a fist to fist as the red flag went away and it was 10 seconds to start. Reasonable start, I trailed Bandit on 11'th-12'th position for laps, never finding a way to pass an not getting passed but on lap 6-7 or something I stalled my engine in the slide after start/finish and was effectively out of the race as 10 people had passed me when I was back out. Next lap I did the same on the same spot and started to think that I might had forgotten to put the idle speed back up after the last mx-practise. (Godverdome, förbannade skit, vittu perkele, elif air ab tizak!)
Finished 29'th. Heureka! (
6h to the next race was killed swearing and again checking the bike over. Increadibly enough no leak and no noise. I was gonna ride the last one as well. And I was gonna show them. Bandit had finished on a very very respectable 10th position. And now stood on that position for the start in the 2'nd semi. I was first in the 8'th row.
In the Parc Ferme I made a decision. This time I don't put my brain on Stand By. I shut it down totally and give Sara the key not to be returned until after the race. Out I went. 100 meters after the first line I stood like a braindead adrenaline filled piece of blue and yellow Kamikaze pilot. Redlight out. I kept on the right side. I didn't brake going into the first mx on the far outside. This meant that I had to take the inside for the right on the sand and there where 20 people just cutting the apex there. I took aim on one of them and hit him in the front fork with my front wheel expecting to go down but my mathematics proved to be correct and we bounced off each other sending me in the right direction and him not exactly there. Finished first lap on 13'th position. That's a start for you!!!
This time I had fun. I kept my 13th for most of the race but made a small mistace on the last lap just before the last jump and got passed by two rider of which one was a stinking two stroke. Again a suicide run trought the last corners and I was on his ass coming out on start/finissh but the double shift to 5'th lost me enough time not to be able to take him. He won with 30 cm, had the finish been 10m further away I'd been 14'th, now 15'th. But, a good race it was...
Bandit again on 10th, I actually had him almost in reach but I guess it's easier for me to go from 29 to 13 than for him to go from 10 to 8. Very nice race by him it was. Two 10th positions in a race like this is not easy.

We were home at 8pm, no more problems...

Joramo, Bike Parts, Bike Design, Boost, Smith, Putoline, Motana nice girls and old ladies are all on my Christmas Card list after this. Thanx a million folks.....

Daniel...

 

[SM 570 RR]

orkar inte....

 

[ypvs]

Nä, det tar några koppar kaffe... För mig är det rena terapin. Gillar inte korgflätning nåt vidare.

Förstår fullständigt att det kan bli tungt att läsa när det drar iväg men jag skulle skriva även om det bara var för mig själv så när jobbet ändå är gjort så slänger jag ut det lite här och var utifall nån intresserar sig...
Snokar fram lite bilder, mer lättsmält tror jag...

Daniel...

 

[ypvs]

Här är några, får mer och bättre senare...

Daniel

 

[von reisen]

bytte till lite större text så gick det fint och läsa. Långt, men bra flyt i texten, skoj läsning.

Hur är fördelningen på banorna i racen ni kör, verkar vara mkt grusparti, eller crossparti? Här är ju tanken att det ska vara 70/30 asfalt grus.
//Frank

 

[ypvs]

70/30 är tanken ja. Men reglementen angående banor är en ledtråd inte att läsa bokstavligt. Huvuddelen asfalt och resten cross.
Banan i Evergem var i ett industriområde, tippar på att ca 40% av rejsen vi åker är sådna banor. Kul, man kommer närmare publiken och det gör att det blir mer folk, de behöver ej leta upp en bana nånstans i avkrokarna...

Daniel...