Wintercup 050115
I'll start off with a happy new year to everyone. I also hope none of you are personally touched by the terrible catastrophy in Asia that took so increadibly many lifes.
The first wintercup race of this year was a bit special to me for a few reasons. First after having run the wintercuprace 11'th of december I knew that the track was physically tough but that I had it in me to do good there even though the ratio tarmac/offroad was 30/70. I ended up 3'rd in the overall classement that time. Since then I have been starting to train more again though and are starting to get the hang of motocross quite well actually, the last year I've spent probably 100h supermotard motocrossing but the last weeks have done the biggest difference I think. I've gotten over some problems that I couldn't get rid of earlier. Brake and cornering technique mainly. It is not that easy to motocross on 17" slicks but now I've gotten it into my system I think. I really wanted to see if this was gonna make any measurable difference in a race. Another reason was that the new season is coming up and I want as much real race training as possible before the championships starts. After a string of bad luck and own mistaces during 2004 I really, really want 2005 to be good for me. I will let nothing get in the way for my chances to do well this year. Finally I was looking forward to this race because Isa was gonna try out her race wings for the first time if the track was in reasonable shape. If she was to start she would be the first Belgian girl ever to do so. There has been a few girls racing in Belgium but none of them belgian. A german girl did a few wintercup races last year and Lulu, a french girl, raced in the Belgian Prestiege championship 2001.
First, however, I needed to get rid of a few kilos of swedish xmas fat. Xmas in sweden means an orgie in eating fat food and as my familly is quite big there was a lot of places I needed to go. All of these places stuffed me like a turky and the staggering result of that was +4kg in one week. Not good, but the food was.
)
On arrival back in Belgium I went on a crash diet. No food except fruit during weekdays. Two weeks later all was back to normal again but I will take it a bit further anyway, weight is time, much time.
That done I was ready. Bike was checked over but that was a formality more than anything else, it runs perfect and has so for a long time now. Power is damn good as well. Not that that matters the slightest on the wintercup track that I drove in december but still. My Husaberg were a wild bull to fight on the slippery Mickey Mouse track that we rode on for the wintercup in december. But, I try to see every minute spent in the saddle as good training and use it as such.
Isa was ready as well but got the shakes as the day got closer and the weather forecasts showed that it was gonna be dry. I put on tires that was gonna be good enough for riding the hard offroad on her bike and cut them for a bit better traction. If she rode it was gonna be for tryout and to find out how it is in a race so she knows what she needs to train on, she was not gonna push too hard. Nervous she was though, but I was as well before my first one and I think almost everyone is.
Plan was to go early on saturday morning but I got tickets for the car/motorcycle exhibition in Brussels for friday evening so we decided to go already friday as the exhibition is perfectly on our way to Francorchamps. I was not that interested this year but I wanted to see the SuperDuke and talk to some people that was gonna be there displaying. So we went, I checked the KTM out and photoed it, spoke with some people and glanced at some other news. Then the nervousness of having a truck parked outside with racebikes in it and stickers all over the truck telling everyone just that got to me and we went. I knew it was gonna be cold during night and my truck has no heating without electricity and there is no electricity where we were going. 2st sub zero sleeping bags was gonna try to solve that problem. On location we walked the track and that was a pleasant surprise. Serge the wintercup General had listened to the drivers and made some very good changes to the track. More tarmac and a bit less offroad, result a balance of about 50/50 and a few extra really good "slide in, powerslide out" hairpins. A fast tarmac straigh was added as well. Good for me, and more correct sport wise as well.
Sleeping was cold, waking up and get dressed was really cold. We had ice on the walls and on the roof of the truck, on the inside that is. After that the downsides of this weekend was over though. Inscription was a bit funny as the ladies inscribing really reacted when seeing a girls name on Isas paper, they flinched again when they saw it was not for quad but for solo, hehe. Serge came and said hello as well and said that he had read the story from the last wintercup I rode, always nice to know there is an audience.
Bikes were good as I said and even the tire choice seemed to b ok. I went for a good and freshly cut slick rear and a raintire front. Track was solid frozen but dry, a few ice spots on the offroad, tarmac clean and perfectly dry.
Starting the bikes was not that easy, both starts perfectly easy under normal circumstances but having beeing froozen during 15 hours it was quite a workout. Started they did though and after having been run warm it was no problems for the rest of the day.
1'st training was coming up and we both got dressed and went to the track. I had shown Isa the good lines to use during our walkthrough the night before but I ran a lap with her anyway just to let her get he feel of it a bit better. Then it was Daniel time and every man, or chick, for him/herself. As I picked up speed I found out that, yes, this track was gonna be good for me. It was faster in average and I had better control on the tricky offroad parts than I ever had before. Peter a friend from Holland was there as well and this guy I can't beat lap by lap, yet. Except him there was a few guys that was riding really well but noone I didn't think I could handle in the long run. I qualified 4th.
Coming up to the race the only possible problems I could see was that the sun was getting to the track melting the ice in the top soil making it a bit wet instead of freeze dry. The last part of the offroad was however in shadow so the reasonable presumption was that the tarmac would stay quite dry so I kept my slick rear. A slick cut well gives better grip on the offroad than a raintire anyway, the problem is if the tarmac gets dirty, wet or worse both though. Raintire you only choose on the base of the tarmac condition in other words.
Just before going to the track I got a phonecall from Sara, she was gonna come to watch the race and wanted to know exactly were the track was. That was good news. She's always good to have around a racetrack and she knows most of the people etc. Of cource our new situation is a little bit weird now but we are very good friends so it's nice to get to spend some time together and we both love races and what comes with it. Also this was maybe gonna solve one of my problems for the day. Pitboard information and the gas stop. I was playing with the idea of running the 90 minutes without the stop as some other did last year but I didn't know for sure if my gastank would carry me all the way to the finnish line. I brought gas to the mechanical zone, the pitboard as well. If I had to I'd just get in and fill some gas myself.
As the start came closer Isa got a bit nervous again but not that bad this time. I went over the start routines with her as we were gonna stand quite far away from each other. I can fully understand how intimidating it must have felt to go out on a track together with 40 other adrenaline pumped guys of wich a lot are quite fast.
We lined up for the start. Sara wasn't there yet, a pity as I know she likes the wroooaaaar of the starts but now it was all ahead. Warmup lap is drivven slowly to keep the group together for the flying start that is used in the wintercup. As we came back to the start/finnish I choose my line and kept an eye on Serge with the flag.
I'll start off with a happy new year to everyone. I also hope none of you are personally touched by the terrible catastrophy in Asia that took so increadibly many lifes.
The first wintercup race of this year was a bit special to me for a few reasons. First after having run the wintercuprace 11'th of december I knew that the track was physically tough but that I had it in me to do good there even though the ratio tarmac/offroad was 30/70. I ended up 3'rd in the overall classement that time. Since then I have been starting to train more again though and are starting to get the hang of motocross quite well actually, the last year I've spent probably 100h supermotard motocrossing but the last weeks have done the biggest difference I think. I've gotten over some problems that I couldn't get rid of earlier. Brake and cornering technique mainly. It is not that easy to motocross on 17" slicks but now I've gotten it into my system I think. I really wanted to see if this was gonna make any measurable difference in a race. Another reason was that the new season is coming up and I want as much real race training as possible before the championships starts. After a string of bad luck and own mistaces during 2004 I really, really want 2005 to be good for me. I will let nothing get in the way for my chances to do well this year. Finally I was looking forward to this race because Isa was gonna try out her race wings for the first time if the track was in reasonable shape. If she was to start she would be the first Belgian girl ever to do so. There has been a few girls racing in Belgium but none of them belgian. A german girl did a few wintercup races last year and Lulu, a french girl, raced in the Belgian Prestiege championship 2001.
First, however, I needed to get rid of a few kilos of swedish xmas fat. Xmas in sweden means an orgie in eating fat food and as my familly is quite big there was a lot of places I needed to go. All of these places stuffed me like a turky and the staggering result of that was +4kg in one week. Not good, but the food was.
)On arrival back in Belgium I went on a crash diet. No food except fruit during weekdays. Two weeks later all was back to normal again but I will take it a bit further anyway, weight is time, much time.
That done I was ready. Bike was checked over but that was a formality more than anything else, it runs perfect and has so for a long time now. Power is damn good as well. Not that that matters the slightest on the wintercup track that I drove in december but still. My Husaberg were a wild bull to fight on the slippery Mickey Mouse track that we rode on for the wintercup in december. But, I try to see every minute spent in the saddle as good training and use it as such.
Isa was ready as well but got the shakes as the day got closer and the weather forecasts showed that it was gonna be dry. I put on tires that was gonna be good enough for riding the hard offroad on her bike and cut them for a bit better traction. If she rode it was gonna be for tryout and to find out how it is in a race so she knows what she needs to train on, she was not gonna push too hard. Nervous she was though, but I was as well before my first one and I think almost everyone is.
Plan was to go early on saturday morning but I got tickets for the car/motorcycle exhibition in Brussels for friday evening so we decided to go already friday as the exhibition is perfectly on our way to Francorchamps. I was not that interested this year but I wanted to see the SuperDuke and talk to some people that was gonna be there displaying. So we went, I checked the KTM out and photoed it, spoke with some people and glanced at some other news. Then the nervousness of having a truck parked outside with racebikes in it and stickers all over the truck telling everyone just that got to me and we went. I knew it was gonna be cold during night and my truck has no heating without electricity and there is no electricity where we were going. 2st sub zero sleeping bags was gonna try to solve that problem. On location we walked the track and that was a pleasant surprise. Serge the wintercup General had listened to the drivers and made some very good changes to the track. More tarmac and a bit less offroad, result a balance of about 50/50 and a few extra really good "slide in, powerslide out" hairpins. A fast tarmac straigh was added as well. Good for me, and more correct sport wise as well.
Sleeping was cold, waking up and get dressed was really cold. We had ice on the walls and on the roof of the truck, on the inside that is. After that the downsides of this weekend was over though. Inscription was a bit funny as the ladies inscribing really reacted when seeing a girls name on Isas paper, they flinched again when they saw it was not for quad but for solo, hehe. Serge came and said hello as well and said that he had read the story from the last wintercup I rode, always nice to know there is an audience.
Bikes were good as I said and even the tire choice seemed to b ok. I went for a good and freshly cut slick rear and a raintire front. Track was solid frozen but dry, a few ice spots on the offroad, tarmac clean and perfectly dry.
Starting the bikes was not that easy, both starts perfectly easy under normal circumstances but having beeing froozen during 15 hours it was quite a workout. Started they did though and after having been run warm it was no problems for the rest of the day.
1'st training was coming up and we both got dressed and went to the track. I had shown Isa the good lines to use during our walkthrough the night before but I ran a lap with her anyway just to let her get he feel of it a bit better. Then it was Daniel time and every man, or chick, for him/herself. As I picked up speed I found out that, yes, this track was gonna be good for me. It was faster in average and I had better control on the tricky offroad parts than I ever had before. Peter a friend from Holland was there as well and this guy I can't beat lap by lap, yet. Except him there was a few guys that was riding really well but noone I didn't think I could handle in the long run. I qualified 4th.
Coming up to the race the only possible problems I could see was that the sun was getting to the track melting the ice in the top soil making it a bit wet instead of freeze dry. The last part of the offroad was however in shadow so the reasonable presumption was that the tarmac would stay quite dry so I kept my slick rear. A slick cut well gives better grip on the offroad than a raintire anyway, the problem is if the tarmac gets dirty, wet or worse both though. Raintire you only choose on the base of the tarmac condition in other words.
Just before going to the track I got a phonecall from Sara, she was gonna come to watch the race and wanted to know exactly were the track was. That was good news. She's always good to have around a racetrack and she knows most of the people etc. Of cource our new situation is a little bit weird now but we are very good friends so it's nice to get to spend some time together and we both love races and what comes with it. Also this was maybe gonna solve one of my problems for the day. Pitboard information and the gas stop. I was playing with the idea of running the 90 minutes without the stop as some other did last year but I didn't know for sure if my gastank would carry me all the way to the finnish line. I brought gas to the mechanical zone, the pitboard as well. If I had to I'd just get in and fill some gas myself.
As the start came closer Isa got a bit nervous again but not that bad this time. I went over the start routines with her as we were gonna stand quite far away from each other. I can fully understand how intimidating it must have felt to go out on a track together with 40 other adrenaline pumped guys of wich a lot are quite fast.
We lined up for the start. Sara wasn't there yet, a pity as I know she likes the wroooaaaar of the starts but now it was all ahead. Warmup lap is drivven slowly to keep the group together for the flying start that is used in the wintercup. As we came back to the start/finnish I choose my line and kept an eye on Serge with the flag.
