Heinola and Salo, Finnish championship 18-19.6

Hi all,

This was a good weekend of racing for us. In Heinola we classified 3rd overall with a 6-3 score in the 2 heats. During practice we took it easy because with only 8 entries there's space enough at the starting line.

After the start we were following the team of Pöllänen/Lehtinen for some laps but we couldn't find the power to change the order. Then my goggles fogged and I had to remove them. Without goggles I can't drive very well and Mikael took his goggles and put them on my head. This all we did without stopping ;-). But the team in front of us had made a big gap already and we just finished the heat at place 6.

With the start of heat 2 we ended up after the teams of Tuominiemi/Hietala and Pöllänen/Lehtinen (again). This time no problems with goggles and we started to put pressure at the teams in front of us. First we passed Pöllänen/Lehtinen by choosing for the inside line of a corner and the next lap at the same place we made our second pass. At this moment we had the 3rd place. We could make a safe gap between us and the team of Tuominiemi/Hietala and we needed that at the end of the heat. The last 2 laps I started to get tired and slowly they were coming closer all the time. But the gap was big enough to finish at the 3rd place.

The next Sunday we steered the van to Salo for a classic track in the motocross history. In 1991 this club organized the last and 5th sidecar GP in Finland. Steep ups and downs with a hard packed clay and down at the bottom of the valley deep sand. Again only 8 entries and we didn't care so much about the lap times during training, space enough.

The start of heat 1 wasn't our best, last spot in the first corner. The start is in Salo in deep sand and with only a 550 cc engine not much chance. We passed the team of Helgrenn/Paddink in the first lap and looked at the back of ... Pöllänen/Lehtinen. We looked at their backs for 6 laps and then succeeded to make a pass. After that they slowed down because of some problem and we finished at the 5th place.

The start of heat 2 was the same for us, last in the first corner. We started to push and as you can guess, looked at the back of Pöllänen/Lehtinen. But we could not really follow close enough to bring us in a position to try a to pass. First I thought the rear tire was spinning badly, it had rained and the clay was very slippery but after 5 laps it became clear wat the problem was, the clutch burned out and we got stuck at an uphill. That was the end and without points back to the paddock.

Riding was very good and we are satisfied with our performance, better than expected. At the end bad luck but this is a mechanical sport. I'm leaving to Amsterdam today and I will finalize this post at the end of the week when back home.

Regards, Stephan

Results Heinola (MXSV=sidecars)
Results Salo (MXSV=sidecars)
Route 17-19.6