The fourth and last race for the Estonian championship was held in Tihemetsa near Pärnu. A short trip this time and our hotel was located in Pärnu were we arrived Saturday early in the evening. We had time enough to go to the paddock and walk the track. Aronen/Mantila joined us during our exploring trip. The Tihemetsa track was sandy and laid out partly between trees.
Based on my origin I should do very well at a track like this but I prefer harder tracks actually. On a track like this the bike is very lively and in combination with a short stroked engine it's very demanding to keep up enough speed all the time. 18 entries and last position for us during the 2 training sessions. The difference with the teams in front of us wasn't very much but I knew that when the track wears out, we wouldn't be able to close the gap.
Second row start and I didn't really push because we didn't had any change to prove something here. It started to rain and my tear off system's cord broke on top of this. We struggled until halfway but then my vision was so bad that it became necessary to remove my goggle. we did the exchange trick again and with a clean goggle riding got immediately much better. The faster teams had started to double us already but at the last stage we were able to hold on and follow them for a while. It hadn't any influence at our result any-more but just a good training to develop some extra speed. 16th position due to 2 teams that didn't finish the race.
For the 2nd heat we had our concerns about a steep climb in deep sand directly after a sharp rutted corner. During the exploration lap no problems there but it was clear that we couldn't afford any little mistake at that part of the track.
During the first lap it went totally wrong for us as we feared. A team was stuck at the inside line and I switched to the outside line. Only the wrong line, suited for a solo-bike but not for a sidecar. We got stuck too and we pushed/rolled the bike back downwards. We decided both that there wasn't any change we could complete this heat without getting stuck again at the same climb and called it quit. We watched a few laps how the other teams did at this difficult part of the track. The big two-stroke Zabel engines have so much power and enable the use of fat rear tyres that it's just a matter how much the driver can handle. A very large four-stroke walks easily without screaming the engine to the top.
After the race we rode back to Tallinn with Aronen/Mantila who finished 2 times 5th good for 5th overall. In the final standings we held the 15th position. We had the night ferry back to Helsinki. 2 races to go.
Regards,
Stephan
Results Tihemetsa 28.08.2011
Trip Tihemetsa
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