2005 Indoor World Trial Championship Round 7
19/2/2005 - Fila Forum, Milan Italy
Disastrous results but positive feedbacks in Milan
In order to be fully ready for the Outdoor season, Montesa team continues
to put their maximum effort for the bike development. Adjustments and
modifications are taken place rapidly. The team in fact came up with
a new modification the day before their departure for the trip to Italy.
That put Fujinami, along with other team riders, in a difficult position
for the coming competition, because it didn't give them enough time
to get used to the new setting of the bike. This lack of experiences
on the bike affected Fuji's performance in Italy with a great degree.
Fujinami was assigned the final starting position after 6 rounds away.
He noticed that the other riders were having troubles competing in
time. Raga and Lampkin received 4 penalty points for 2 minutes overtime
too. Fuji then set the game plan as he did at the opening round in
UK, to sacrifice some of the tough and time-consuming sections to preserve
time. He let go early at the section 1 when he found the section was
very tough with potential overtime. There was a danger to suffer a
flat tire too; thus Fuji fived there.
It wasn't Fuji's plan to be fived again at the following section,
but when he tried to hop the step in the 2nd gear as usual, the bike
reacted too vigorous than he expected. Later Fuji talked to his teammates,
and he found that he should've stick with 1st gear there. It sounds
awkward that the top rider like Fuji didn't know how to choose the
right gear for the section, but because of a limited time on the bike,
he wasn't sure about the its characteristics.
There was a little hop over at the section 3, and it wasn't supposed
to be a big challenge. Fuji hopped as usual but he did too far. He
ended up in a huge crash and sustained a broken front fender and a
throttle problem. He chose not to fix the bike at the time in order
to avoid a time penalty. However, the throttle problem became worse
and it got stuck open when he was in the section 4. He had no choice
to give up and fived: 4 consecutive fives in a row. By then he built
time margin, so he asked his mechanic to fix the throttle for the three
remaining sections. But he was way behind in point by then, and he
was unable to even hope for proceeding to the final lap.
Fuji wasn't too discouraged after the event though, because he found
that the bike was excellent. It convinced him that the bike was very
close to the level that he could fight for victory. The only problem
was that he wasn't ready to ride the bike the way it deserved. It was
neither a performance of the bike nor ability of the rider, but the
combination between the bike and rider which preventing Montesa riders
to be strong in the season so far.
Fuji expects to have fully developed bike for the Outdoor season within
one to two weeks. Until the bike is ready, there maybe a few more tough
Indoor challenge for Montesa camp. Next round will be in Lisbon Portugal
on Feb 26th.
Quote from Fujigas:
Indoor Trial World Championship 2005
Round 7 |
Final Lap |
1. |
Adam Raga |
Gas Gas |
9 |
2. |
Albert Cabestany |
Sherco |
9 |
3. |
Toni Bou |
Beta |
34 |
Qualificarion Lap |
1. |
Toni Bou |
Beta |
6 |
2. |
Adam Raga |
Gas Gas |
9 |
3. |
Albert Cabestany |
Sherco |
19 |
4. |
Jeroni Fajardo |
Gas Gas |
21 |
5. |
Dougie Lampkin |
Repsol Montesa-HRC |
23 |
6. |
Takahisa Fujinami |
Repsol Montesa-HRC |
27 |
7. |
Marc Freixa |
Repsol Montesa-HRC |
28 |
8. |
Tadeusz Blazusiak |
Gas Gas |
31 |
Point Standings |
1. |
Adam Raga |
70 |
2. |
Albert Cabestany |
51 |
3. |
Dougie Lampkin |
37 |
4. |
Jeroni Fajardo |
32 |
5. |
Takahisa Fujinami |
31 |
6. |
Marc Freixa |
23 |
7. |
Toni Bou |
11 |
8. |
Tadeusz Blazusiak |
6 |
9. |
Jerome Bethune |
5 |
10. |
Fumitaka Nozaki |
1 |
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