Wintercup 041211
After having to miss the first round of the Spa Bikers Challenge (Belgian wintercup Super Motard) I planned to go to the second round instead. Only doubt was about the track as I heard from the guys riding there the first time that the track was not that good. 70%mx was the word. In short not that good for me but that was the point a bit. Sounded like really good training.
Problem was that I got sick 9 days before the 11th and was really bad for a few days and quite bad the rest of the week. Not an easy week to try to prepaire for a double endurance that was to be ridden alone just like last winter, especially if there was as much mx as they said. My plan was to condition train 2h/day the last week coming up to the race to get in good shape. Why is this needed you might wonder:
Well, for you guys not living in Belgium or beeing familiar with the concept of wintercup racing in Belgium I'm gonna explain the layout a bit.
The wintercup is raced as follows. You enter either as a one man team or a two man team. 80% of the riders enter as a two man team and the rest go alone. Most of the alone guys ride til they drop and then rest, have a drink and go back out. I like better to ride alone for a few reasons. If I fuck up noone else suffers from it but, more importantly, if it goes well I can go home and congratulate myself and take all credit, hehe. You gotta have an ego, right? Nah, for me the number one reason is that if you can go on top for 90 minutes two times in a day you can really go on 105% for the 20 minutes that a championship race take. On top of that it's better race training than you can get anywhere else for that amount of money. 50 riders of all levels on the track at the same time for such a long time makes for fights everywhere. Everybody finds someone of about the same level as themselves to fight. If you are a bit faster than the average Joe you get very good overtaking training as well as every lap faces you with the opportunity to pass a few guys. Rule is not to be too aggressive though so you always make an assessment of the guy in front of you before you pass, it can be a first time 14year old kid on a 125 or just someone that is quite nervous anyway from beeing in a race for the first time. If you see that the person is confident enough the Wintercup is the Mecka off blockpasses though as getting people off your back is just as important as it is to pass them. These races go over aprox 60 laps so often you pass guys that are fast but still are a lap or a few laps after you and be mixed up in a fight with one of those is just a big waste of time so to make good results here accurate pitboarding is an absolute must. You will never know just who is in front of you otherwise. You also need to know when to go in for gas. Every lap I want to know my position, who I am chasing and how far in front of me he is. That keeps you on your toes all the time and gives you some structure in an otherwise totally chaotic race. As an example, the last race of the two yesterday I started to lap riders after 3 laps (out of the 62 I rode). Some fast guys crash and need to go into the pits to change bike or rider etc, etc. It becomes a big mess after just 10 minutes and I at least can't race if I don't get some information, I need to know where my next victim is or if I'm about to become someone elses victim. 10 minute training, +-15 minutes qualification and then two times 90!!! minutes race, all in 7 hours.
So, the last days coming up to saturday I couldn't train at all as I said. This would normally not be a problem but since the last race in the Dutch championship I've taken a few weeks off training with the plan to get into good shape again for the wintercup. As this was not possible I prepaired the bike as well as I could and planned to go to Spa and ride as long as I could and then rest when I absolutely couldn't continue anymore. However I know myself well enough to know that it would take almost a hart failure to make me stop in the middle of a race. Weather forecast promised sunshine and -5-1 degree during the day and I knew no rain had fallen on Spa for the last days but I still decided on rain/rain as I heard that it had been really muddy last time around, this was to be a wise decision. The bike was overfilled with oil and checked over properly. Overfilled with oil because it consumes around a dl for every 20 minutes of race driving and for 90 minutes that means about half of the total oil volume in the engine if you keep it on it's normal level. Everything checked out fine so I packed the truck on friday confident about at least the bike. Question was me, how beat up would I get?
Isa, Suzi-Wan on the Belgian forum, was designated pitboarder and showed up friday evening already as the trip to Franco was gonna start at 5am saturday morning. We went to see a rockband playing at a local cafe, drank 1! beer and went home to try to sleep some before the Supermotard marathon of Spa.
Time: 04.00
Alarm: Didididid!!!!
Daniel: ?
Alarm: Didididid!!!
Daniel: ?!
Alarm: DIDIDIDIDIDIDID!!!
Daniel: Grrrrr! Yaaawn!!!
Up, fix sandwiches for the day. Pack clothes, water and stuff needed to attend a party in Deinze later the same evening. Was not that sure I was gonna make that one though but if the bike broke down or something I might have energy enough to spare to drink some beer. I vagely remember mine and Bandits adventures a saturday night in March after a wintercup race last year. That one ended in the gutter and quite heavily so, hehe.
Isa got up unvolontarily as well and got a few veggie (damn rabbit food) sandwiches to eat during the day as well.
Off we went only 30 minutes late. Trip went quite ok and true to my habit I started to slipstream the first convinient truck after we got on the highway from Brussels to Liege. This truck however proved to be something of an adventure to keep close to. The driver was sleeping, drunk or high. Following for 20 minutes however made me think that it was probably a mix of the three. This guy gave slalom a new meaning. After beeing quite close to the rails a few times he headed straight for them so I started to signal him with all that I got, lights and sound. He avoided the crash with maybe 10cm wich is not much when you drive a 40ton truck at 90km/h. After that I passed him. Didn't want to miss the race because my truck got buried in diapers or whatever because a crazy Hungarian couldn't keep his damn Scania on the road. After that the only worry was the snow on the fields in the Ardennes.
We turned into the paddock at Spa Francorchamps and there was quite a lot of people already. A lot of quads actually. Guess the word about the track went around in their communities as well and for them this was a good track I think so they showed up in numbers.
Inscription went really slowly, all 3!? of the people that handeled the inscription for the 100 riders looked like there were about 432 places they rather be than there and that didn't make them very fast. That taken care of I had 10 minutes to get the bike out, strip down in 0 degrees and get leathers etc on. I managed in 12 and went to get to know the track a bit.
It was nothing like motocross on the track but hard gravel offroad it was plenty. The only fast part was the first 300m on the gravel. Two highspeed corners there that sended you out into 50m slides accelerating down the following straights. The Husaberg made it less likely to be fast than the other way around as it produces too much power too quickly. Even the 450s struggeled to find grip but still had it in abundance compaired to me, I think a 250 2-stroke would be the best bike here. One exception and that was the last highspeed straight on the gravel. That was mine. I went around the fast corner taking you into that one 40km/h faster than was possible normally sliding both front and rear on the loose gravel knowing that there was 10m of hard after the corner were I would get grip back again. My left boot had some work to do here every lap as I held the complete weight of the bike on that one doing 90 in the 2-wheel slide here every lap. As soon as I got some grip, foot went back on the peg and throttle went from 20 to 70hp. Braaaoooooooo! Damn I got a lot of speed down this straight and I managed to keep the bike on the inside for some reason even though almost everyone got thrown out to the right after that corner. This gave me a great opportunity to brake late and make really nasty blockpasses going into the following left hairpin. Oh, and I forgot something. There were big areas of ice in 2 corners of the track wich also could be used for passing as most sain people went around them. Cut straight over them, wich was nasty in the middle of a corner, and you came out on the other side sideways but one position higher in the rankings. Well, that was the training. After getting my gloves off at the truck I decided that the winter gloves would be a better idea, hands hurted badly from beeing frozen.
Some gas filled, glasses cleaned and back out I went.
This time for qualification. 50 riders. I kept around 4-6 all the time but a few laps from the end went down to 9th with no grip what so ever in the rear. Reason, a bad rain tire that I recutted a bit before going to Francorchamps. My main competitors wheelied down the gravel straights and I could barely accelerate on the tarmac. I did brake late like hell though so I got a lot of time back. Still, 9th is not that good. And more worrying, the 15 minutes of qualification had made it quite obvious that I hadn't been training for a while, arms hurted. A lot of fast bouncy offroad with too much power tend to do that to your arms if you are not trained enough. Another thing was that I really had problems to get the bike around the tight hairpins. Last race I had been forced to raise the forks a bit to get rid of a bad understeer on a wet track and that now made it difficult to cut insides around the 3 extremely tight hairpins on this track. I pushed the forks up to the max lowering the front 25mm. Now I was as prepaired as I could be under the circumstances. Isa got informed of what I needed to know during the race and how I wanted it presented and that was that. We were ready, and I was confident that the bike now would take me around the track at least a second faster than during the quali as I now would be able to cut the hairpins as I wanted. Still, very worried about starting a 90 minute race when I wasn't in good enough shape for it though.
But, start I naturally had to do so I went to the track after having stuffed myself with apples, sandwiches and 2l of water. There the doubts started to vanish with the same speed as the adrenaline level rose in my blood. Starting procedure I had no idea of, didn't see a light so I assumed flag. We got sent out for a sighting lap then got placed on the grid. Then they sended us away again row by row during yellow flag around the track signing us to go slowly. Next time we came to start/finish green flag was shown and that was the start. Flying start, cool. Would've been nice to actually having known that in advance but it went ok.
forts...
After having to miss the first round of the Spa Bikers Challenge (Belgian wintercup Super Motard) I planned to go to the second round instead. Only doubt was about the track as I heard from the guys riding there the first time that the track was not that good. 70%mx was the word. In short not that good for me but that was the point a bit. Sounded like really good training.
Problem was that I got sick 9 days before the 11th and was really bad for a few days and quite bad the rest of the week. Not an easy week to try to prepaire for a double endurance that was to be ridden alone just like last winter, especially if there was as much mx as they said. My plan was to condition train 2h/day the last week coming up to the race to get in good shape. Why is this needed you might wonder:
Well, for you guys not living in Belgium or beeing familiar with the concept of wintercup racing in Belgium I'm gonna explain the layout a bit.
The wintercup is raced as follows. You enter either as a one man team or a two man team. 80% of the riders enter as a two man team and the rest go alone. Most of the alone guys ride til they drop and then rest, have a drink and go back out. I like better to ride alone for a few reasons. If I fuck up noone else suffers from it but, more importantly, if it goes well I can go home and congratulate myself and take all credit, hehe. You gotta have an ego, right? Nah, for me the number one reason is that if you can go on top for 90 minutes two times in a day you can really go on 105% for the 20 minutes that a championship race take. On top of that it's better race training than you can get anywhere else for that amount of money. 50 riders of all levels on the track at the same time for such a long time makes for fights everywhere. Everybody finds someone of about the same level as themselves to fight. If you are a bit faster than the average Joe you get very good overtaking training as well as every lap faces you with the opportunity to pass a few guys. Rule is not to be too aggressive though so you always make an assessment of the guy in front of you before you pass, it can be a first time 14year old kid on a 125 or just someone that is quite nervous anyway from beeing in a race for the first time. If you see that the person is confident enough the Wintercup is the Mecka off blockpasses though as getting people off your back is just as important as it is to pass them. These races go over aprox 60 laps so often you pass guys that are fast but still are a lap or a few laps after you and be mixed up in a fight with one of those is just a big waste of time so to make good results here accurate pitboarding is an absolute must. You will never know just who is in front of you otherwise. You also need to know when to go in for gas. Every lap I want to know my position, who I am chasing and how far in front of me he is. That keeps you on your toes all the time and gives you some structure in an otherwise totally chaotic race. As an example, the last race of the two yesterday I started to lap riders after 3 laps (out of the 62 I rode). Some fast guys crash and need to go into the pits to change bike or rider etc, etc. It becomes a big mess after just 10 minutes and I at least can't race if I don't get some information, I need to know where my next victim is or if I'm about to become someone elses victim. 10 minute training, +-15 minutes qualification and then two times 90!!! minutes race, all in 7 hours.
So, the last days coming up to saturday I couldn't train at all as I said. This would normally not be a problem but since the last race in the Dutch championship I've taken a few weeks off training with the plan to get into good shape again for the wintercup. As this was not possible I prepaired the bike as well as I could and planned to go to Spa and ride as long as I could and then rest when I absolutely couldn't continue anymore. However I know myself well enough to know that it would take almost a hart failure to make me stop in the middle of a race. Weather forecast promised sunshine and -5-1 degree during the day and I knew no rain had fallen on Spa for the last days but I still decided on rain/rain as I heard that it had been really muddy last time around, this was to be a wise decision. The bike was overfilled with oil and checked over properly. Overfilled with oil because it consumes around a dl for every 20 minutes of race driving and for 90 minutes that means about half of the total oil volume in the engine if you keep it on it's normal level. Everything checked out fine so I packed the truck on friday confident about at least the bike. Question was me, how beat up would I get?
Isa, Suzi-Wan on the Belgian forum, was designated pitboarder and showed up friday evening already as the trip to Franco was gonna start at 5am saturday morning. We went to see a rockband playing at a local cafe, drank 1! beer and went home to try to sleep some before the Supermotard marathon of Spa.
Time: 04.00
Alarm: Didididid!!!!
Daniel: ?
Alarm: Didididid!!!
Daniel: ?!
Alarm: DIDIDIDIDIDIDID!!!
Daniel: Grrrrr! Yaaawn!!!
Up, fix sandwiches for the day. Pack clothes, water and stuff needed to attend a party in Deinze later the same evening. Was not that sure I was gonna make that one though but if the bike broke down or something I might have energy enough to spare to drink some beer. I vagely remember mine and Bandits adventures a saturday night in March after a wintercup race last year. That one ended in the gutter and quite heavily so, hehe.
Isa got up unvolontarily as well and got a few veggie (damn rabbit food) sandwiches to eat during the day as well.
Off we went only 30 minutes late. Trip went quite ok and true to my habit I started to slipstream the first convinient truck after we got on the highway from Brussels to Liege. This truck however proved to be something of an adventure to keep close to. The driver was sleeping, drunk or high. Following for 20 minutes however made me think that it was probably a mix of the three. This guy gave slalom a new meaning. After beeing quite close to the rails a few times he headed straight for them so I started to signal him with all that I got, lights and sound. He avoided the crash with maybe 10cm wich is not much when you drive a 40ton truck at 90km/h. After that I passed him. Didn't want to miss the race because my truck got buried in diapers or whatever because a crazy Hungarian couldn't keep his damn Scania on the road. After that the only worry was the snow on the fields in the Ardennes.
We turned into the paddock at Spa Francorchamps and there was quite a lot of people already. A lot of quads actually. Guess the word about the track went around in their communities as well and for them this was a good track I think so they showed up in numbers.
Inscription went really slowly, all 3!? of the people that handeled the inscription for the 100 riders looked like there were about 432 places they rather be than there and that didn't make them very fast. That taken care of I had 10 minutes to get the bike out, strip down in 0 degrees and get leathers etc on. I managed in 12 and went to get to know the track a bit.
It was nothing like motocross on the track but hard gravel offroad it was plenty. The only fast part was the first 300m on the gravel. Two highspeed corners there that sended you out into 50m slides accelerating down the following straights. The Husaberg made it less likely to be fast than the other way around as it produces too much power too quickly. Even the 450s struggeled to find grip but still had it in abundance compaired to me, I think a 250 2-stroke would be the best bike here. One exception and that was the last highspeed straight on the gravel. That was mine. I went around the fast corner taking you into that one 40km/h faster than was possible normally sliding both front and rear on the loose gravel knowing that there was 10m of hard after the corner were I would get grip back again. My left boot had some work to do here every lap as I held the complete weight of the bike on that one doing 90 in the 2-wheel slide here every lap. As soon as I got some grip, foot went back on the peg and throttle went from 20 to 70hp. Braaaoooooooo! Damn I got a lot of speed down this straight and I managed to keep the bike on the inside for some reason even though almost everyone got thrown out to the right after that corner. This gave me a great opportunity to brake late and make really nasty blockpasses going into the following left hairpin. Oh, and I forgot something. There were big areas of ice in 2 corners of the track wich also could be used for passing as most sain people went around them. Cut straight over them, wich was nasty in the middle of a corner, and you came out on the other side sideways but one position higher in the rankings. Well, that was the training. After getting my gloves off at the truck I decided that the winter gloves would be a better idea, hands hurted badly from beeing frozen.
Some gas filled, glasses cleaned and back out I went.
This time for qualification. 50 riders. I kept around 4-6 all the time but a few laps from the end went down to 9th with no grip what so ever in the rear. Reason, a bad rain tire that I recutted a bit before going to Francorchamps. My main competitors wheelied down the gravel straights and I could barely accelerate on the tarmac. I did brake late like hell though so I got a lot of time back. Still, 9th is not that good. And more worrying, the 15 minutes of qualification had made it quite obvious that I hadn't been training for a while, arms hurted. A lot of fast bouncy offroad with too much power tend to do that to your arms if you are not trained enough. Another thing was that I really had problems to get the bike around the tight hairpins. Last race I had been forced to raise the forks a bit to get rid of a bad understeer on a wet track and that now made it difficult to cut insides around the 3 extremely tight hairpins on this track. I pushed the forks up to the max lowering the front 25mm. Now I was as prepaired as I could be under the circumstances. Isa got informed of what I needed to know during the race and how I wanted it presented and that was that. We were ready, and I was confident that the bike now would take me around the track at least a second faster than during the quali as I now would be able to cut the hairpins as I wanted. Still, very worried about starting a 90 minute race when I wasn't in good enough shape for it though.
But, start I naturally had to do so I went to the track after having stuffed myself with apples, sandwiches and 2l of water. There the doubts started to vanish with the same speed as the adrenaline level rose in my blood. Starting procedure I had no idea of, didn't see a light so I assumed flag. We got sent out for a sighting lap then got placed on the grid. Then they sended us away again row by row during yellow flag around the track signing us to go slowly. Next time we came to start/finish green flag was shown and that was the start. Flying start, cool. Would've been nice to actually having known that in advance but it went ok.
forts...
)
skön krönika/ race rapport.
