Gulbene, Latvian Championship 04.09

Hello again,

This was the eight and last race of the Latvian championship series. At Saturday we took the 10:30 ferry to Tallinn. Panu was travelling with us and let's hope his pictures succeeded. The team of Aronen/Mantila had left earlier that week to Denmark for the Slagelse GP. Because we weren't in a hurry we crossed the Estonian/Latvian border at Mõisaküla, a little bit of sightseeing trip. We had dinner in Park Hotel Bruzis, Smiltene. We've been there before and the restaurant serves good food.

It started to get dark when we continued for the last 100 kilometers to our hotel for the night. I had booked a hotel based on location and price, you know our budget is always pressed and the choice this time was hotel Grasu Pils located near Cesvaine.

Finding this hotel in the dark somewhere in the countryside was not easy. Luckily Panu had his navigator with him and even with it's help we were in doubt when following gravel roads deeper and deeper in the dark countryside. But then in the middle of nowhere there it was... suits us good. A manor from the 17th century. In Latvia and Estonia you can have a wonderfull holiday travelling around especially when you like history and architecture.
Driving trough the place Cesvaine we passed the local palace, yes a palace! Unfortunately we didn't had time to have a better look at the surroundings and these buildings. It was sidecar motocross for what we came for.
The next morning it was only a short trip to the Gulbene track but there were many dark and low rain clouds with now and then deep fog over the road. We've been before in Gulbene and the race was canceled halfway due to the bad conditions.

Arriving at the paddock we were happy to see that the track was okay. Well watered of course but no deep mud like 2 years ago. The sun broke trough and it was warming up slowly. The Gulbene track is mainly based on reddish clay, traditional for Latvia, and a few corners with deep sand. There's a steep climb in the mid section of the track. Only 12 teams had found their way to Gulbene. We achieved the 10th position in the training.

The starting area was still very soft and we ended up in the back of the pack. We passed quickly Vâpa/Macs but then we weren't able to pass Ivanov/Jalas. Lap after lap we tried to cut the corners and pass them from the inside line but they kept the door closed.  In the last part of the heat a Latvian team got stuck in front of us for a little moment and we used this situation to get aside but the Latvian passenger was running in front of us to his waiting driver and I had to shut of. After that we didn't get a change to pass whatever we tried. It was a good race only I would have liked to make the pass we intended, 10th position for us.

For the start of the second heat I did choose a different place behind the gate because the surface was a little bit harder there. This helped and our start was much better now. Halfway a Latvian team passed us and we had Ivanov/Jalas behind us. At lap 6 they passed us at the sandy part of the track. We just didn't had the power to get a good drive out of a corner with deep soft sand. The next corner they had the inside line and that was it. Again 10th position for us.

After the race we had a little party with cake and champaign to celebrate the new Veteran class champions, Vâpa/Macs. In the final standings for the Latvian championship we ended at the 15th position and for the veteran championship we became third. To bad we had to skip 2 races because of overlapping events in Finland. This plus 2 DNF's at the first 2 races in Latvia made our changes at a better end result very difficult. On our way back we stopped once more in Smiltene at Park Hotel Bruzis for dinner. Our hotel was in Valmiera from where we continued the next morning to Tallinn.

Regards,
Stephan

Trip Gulbene 3-5.9.2011
Results Gulbene (bv = sidecars)