Hi again,
I needed some time to revive from this heavy double weekend. With high temperatures in Heinola and long heats in Jõgeva I could feel all the seconds we've spend on the tracks, almost 3 hours riding all together.
At Saturday the weekend started in Heinola, Finland, for the Finnish championship together with the Classic MX Cup. There were only 7 entries in the modern sidecar class. The classic sidecars had 15 entries. It's very nice to see and hear those pre '85 hacks on the track. Temperature was over 30 degrees. The track was shortened and we didn't ride the long washboard.
The training wasn't very spectacular, we were sixth and never able to beat Pöllänen/Lehtinen. With only 7 sidecars a really bad start isn't possible and we went trough the first corner at the sixth place. Already halfway the first lap Lindgren/Kiskonen lost their sidecar wheel and their race ended abruptly. On the second lap the team of Aronen/Mantila stranded with ignition problems. Only 5 teams left doing their laps without any good duels.
The second heat was almost a copy except that Lindgren/Kiskonen didn't lose any wheels but Aronen/Mantila stranded again with ignition problems at the beginning of the second lap. We followed Pöllänen/Lehtinen but they put every lap 10-15 meters extra between us and I couldn't close this gap. Unfortunately their engine stalled at lap 8 and they weren't able to get it running again. During the last laps it started to rain but too late to cool things down for me. With all the misfortune of the other teams we ended at the third place in the total standings.
Directly after the event with the ferry to Tallinn where we stayed for the night. We had an early morning start to drive to Jõgeva. The Jõgeva track is very technical with a part laid out as a stadium section but not too difficult for sidecars. 20 entries and much cooler weather then in Finland the day before. Some rain showers but not during our sessions. 17th position in practice and a second row start for us here.
We did choose for the inside line from the second row and were able to avoid an hold up in the first corner. At the end of lap 1 we held the 12th position but then I made a classical mistake and put too much weight on the rear brake what resulted in a stalled engine. Quickly restarted and trying to save something. The different, cooler, temperature did help me very much and we had a good speed. 2 teams had problems and fell out of the race. One team we re-passed quickly by our self and in the last phase of the heat we made a successful pass at an other team to finish at the 14th place. We were in spite of stalling the engine very satisfied with our riding.
Our start of the second heat wasn't as good but I didn't stall the engine either and that made up some. We started a battle with the Russian team Vasin/Vasiljev that would take the whole heat. At lap 4 we were able to make the pass but they followed us close and didn't give up. We had to push it all the time, no time to relax a little. With the start of the last lap 2 teams doubled us and I had to slow down just before a slow corner and that placed the other team direct in our rear wheel. The last lap was going to be very important. Coming out of this corner I noticed that our rear tyre was flat also on top of this! With a twisting sidecar there was no room for saving the wheel and we just pushed to stay in front of the Russian team. We were very lucky that the tyre stayed on the rim and we made it till the finish line to stay in front of them but I was totally exhausted after this heat. 11th position and we were more than satisfied with both heats.
The sidecar; the silencer broke trough the sidecar bottom, the sidecar swing bearings broke, the rear tyre flat and damaged, the engine leaks oil and has a very rough sound. But we made it till the finish, now some repairs to do.
Regards, Stephan
Results Heinola Finnish Championship (SV=sidecar)
Results Jõgeva Estonian Championship (KV=sidecars)
Trip 23-25.07
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