2006 Indoor World Trial Championship Round 2
The Pavilion Palais Sports of Marseille - 13/1/2006
- Attendance: 6,000
No Celebration at the Podium on 26th Birthday
Round two of IWTC was held at Marseilles France on January 13th. It
was incidentally Fujinami's 26th birthday, but having somewhat similar
performance to the Sheffield round, he couldn't celebrate the day with
a podium finish.
Originally Bou wasn't listed as a wild card rider for the French round.
But after winning the opening round and being at the top of the standing,
he was invited by the organizer to make two consecutive appearance.
The starting order rotates at each round while the sequence of the
riders stays the same for the permanent riders this year. Raga, who
was the final rider in UK, took turn to be the first permanent rider
to start the qualification lap; Fuji was the second starter.
As always, the wild card riders started before the big boys after
the starting order was decided by a ballot. At Marseilles, it was Bou
who picked the number one starting order. He showed a strong ride again
pulling ahead of other wild card riders to finish the observed sections
with ten points - almost twenty points better than two.
Fuji watched Raga finished his run with seven points, and he knew
he had to finish between Raga and Bou to go to the final lap. He rode
very carefully at Marseilles trying to avoid the maximum penalty points.
That was why he actively footed at the section three.
It seemed Fuji was going on-course until the section five, where he
suffered first five. He recalled it was an easy mistake, but he tumbled
before reaching to the hardest part of the section. Fuji went on to
the section six, and the biggest moment of the day was waiting for
him. It was the section consisting of cable drums, and there were two
riding lines he could choose to come down to the ground at the end.
First one was to jump off directly from the top of the drum. Fuji saw
Bou did it to mark clean, but he thought it was too risky. Another
one was to hit the rear tire at one of the drums to reduce the impact
at landing. Raga tried the way but he wasn't successful. Fuji chose
the later one, but as he hit the tire at the drum, the front end dropped
sharply. He landed from the front end and crashed. The impact was so
hard that Fuji first thought he broke both wrists. Luckily, he was
OK, but he was shocked; as painful as the wrists hurted, to accept
tho!
se five points at the section, that supposed to be technically easy for him.
Fuji rode two more sections with painful wrists but managed to add one point
at the final section to finish his run.
Fajardo and Cabestany, the two started after Fuji showed better ride
than Raga, and they finished with four and six points respectively.
When all the permanent riders finished, Fuji was fifth place.
Meanwhile, Lampkin suffered a huge crash at the section five. He passed
the spot where Fuji made a mistake, but then he fell from more than
two meters off the ground to land on his back. It didn't end there
because his bike followed to fall on top of him. It took some minutes
until Lampkin got his breath back normally. He returned to ride, but
there was no way he could challenge the rest, entering the sections
to accept three more fives. Lampkin finished his ride with twenty-four
points.
The final battle for the day for Fuji was the double-lane against
Lampkin. Having ten points separation between Fuji and 6th place Lampkin,
Fuji didn't need to put any pressure to the stricken team-mate. Lampkin
on the other hand was on the verge of holding the sixth place. Adding
six point there, he could lose the position to Bethune. Fuji backed
off a little to follow Lampkin, losing the double-lane to finish the
qualification lap at fifth place with fifteen points.
The season opened up interestingly with the victory taken by the wild
card rider in UK. While Spanish riders continue to show some fine performances,
it looks like another struggling indoor season for both Montesa riders.
Quote from Fujigas:
Indoor Trial World Championship 2006
Marseille |
Final Lap |
1. |
Adam Raga |
Gas Gas |
17 |
2. |
Jeroni Fajardo |
Gas Gas |
20 |
3. |
Albert Cabestany |
Sherco |
21 |
Qualificarion Lap |
1. |
Jeroni Fajardo |
Gas Gas |
4 |
2. |
Albert Cabestany |
Sherco |
7 |
3. |
Adam Raga |
Gas Gas |
8 |
4. |
Toni Bou |
Beta |
10 |
5. |
Takahisa Fujinami |
Repsol Montesa HRC |
15 |
6. |
Dougie Lampkin |
Repsol Montesa HRC |
24 |
7. |
Jerome Bethune |
Beta |
29 |
8. |
Tadeusz Blazusiak |
Scorpa |
33 |
Point Standings |
1. |
Adam Raga |
18 |
2. |
Toni Bou |
15 |
3. |
Jeroni Fajardo |
14 |
4. |
Albert Cabestany |
11 |
5. |
Takahisa Fujinami |
8 |
6. |
Dougie Lampkin |
6 |
7. |
Jerome Bethune |
2 |
|
James Dabill |
2 |
9. |
Tadeusz Blazusiak |
1 |
|
Shaun Morris |
1 |
|