Race Brief ... from Kayne Lamont at Loket."We left Belgium on Monday to pick up brother Jamie and mum from Frankfurt airport Germany. We stayed in a camping ground until Wednesday morning then headed down towards Loket and stayed at a Truck stop to wait for some friends from the UK to catch up. We headed for the track around lunch time Thursday, which is set up day and very low key for the riders. We spent that evening looking at the track and chatting with friends. Friday was sign in and technical check and it was pouring down with rain. Saturday was raining most of the day. As we were the first practice the track was smooth and quite wet, but was still nice. The track was rocky, had fine gravel in it and soaked up the water really well. Also it had pretty good traction everywhere. For Free Practice the track was wet after it had rained heavy the day and night before. Pre Qualifying Practice (your fastest lap time gives you your gate pick for the qualifying race), but today this was the position you qualified for your gate pick for races as Qualifying was cancelled. I didn’t have a great lap time and qualified 25th.
Race 1: I got the holeshot and pulled out to a 2 second lead after the 1st lap. At the end of the 3rd lap, I got passed by the championship leader but managed to keep a good distance from 3rd place and took second in that moto. I was proud of myself for riding the whole moto with good consistent lap times. Race 2: I got a reasonable start and was in 8th after the first lap and then dropped back to 9th in the next lap but then unfortunately going down after being pushed over a berm into a bog hole and got stuck. I couldn’t get my bike out after trying for 1 lap. It took three men to drag it out of the hole and by that time I was 2 laps down with a burnt out clutch and locked solid back wheel. Unfortunately another DNF. Each round I have improved, my race speed is getting better and I am really enjoying the riding. I am getting use to the track and track conditions faster now, so I can’t wait to race the junior worlds in two weeks time. I had a look at the Worlds entry list and most of them I have been racing over here in the EMX125 series, so I have a good gage of the faster ones and hope its going to be a great event. Finally I would like to thank: Suzuki GB Youth TEAM, Paul Butler, Mark from FOX Europe, Gary Finch (friend from England) and Josh and Jeremy our Kiwi connection for their assistance, it is very much appreciated. Photo courtesy of Kayne Lamont |
Sunday, we awoke to a bit of sunshine this morning but the track was still very wet. They had groomed most of the track to make it safer. We were first up again and I had good practice and was looking forward to my first race.