The End Where I Begin...

The End Where I Begin...

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Italian Championships

Well we are nearing the end of the Italian championships at the moment and it has once again been a really good learning experience. I have not exactly had the results or the luck that I was looking for as 3 of 4 of the series races have been mud races. Let’s just say we Cali boys aren’t great in the beginning with sand, either are we great in the mud. This is the least of my worries because I am sure by the middle to end of the year I will see major progress in both of those areas. After the Brazilian GP I will be moving north to Belgium for the remaining 12 rounds of the series where I will learn to love the sand.

So back to the Italian championships, even though the results have been consumed of DNF’s and DNS’s… I have been learning a lot.  The first race, FEB 27th, I had a bit of a crash in the first moto and was just a little bruised up, nothing more. The team and I had decided that having the GP’s around the corner and being our main focus, to sit out the rest of the day and move onto the 2nd race two weeks after. Once again it had rained for a few days before and left the track a mess. I went into the day hoping to progress my skills in the mud and I succeeded.  The first moto I had 33rd gate pick and got out to a top 30 start. Keep in mind at the Italian championships we race 450’s and 250’s together and the mud was not in our favor. I worked my way up to about 12th and finished there. I was 2nd in MX2 behind Paulin. The 2nd race I got about the same start and went to work passing and fighting my way up to 8th and was leading the mx1 class. My lap times were pretty close to where I needed them to be and I was enjoying myself. With two laps to go I had found myself ejecting off the bike slamming into the beginning of the next jump. The bike was torn apart and was pretty much the end of that race. With the third race coming up just 3 days later the team and I  also decided to sit out that race as well.

At the moment I am pretty sore although I am extremely lucky to walk away injury free. So I have made a mistake or two although I was able to see my speed against some of the top GP guys as well as my ability to run through the pack. We were all happy to see that. 

When we fall off the horse, we get back on. I have rode early this week and should be back in the swing of things in the next few days. The final race is coming up this weekend, March 27th and looks as if we might have decent weather with only a 40% chance of rain. 

Sorry for the delay on the blog writing, I will be picking up my weekly blogs.

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