Raahe, Finland 7.7

Hello for the third post in a row

As promised, I'll continue till the blog is up to date again. Friday afternoon we loaded the van and after lunch we started for the long trip to the North. Actually you're only half way up to the absolute North of Finland because there's still a long way to go to the most Northen border. This area is called Ostrobothnia or in Finnish Pohjanmaa. And there's South, Central and North Ostrobothnia.

We've never been that far up before and this would be an interesting trip, a little tourism let's say. We met the team of Lehtinen/Hietala half way in Jyväskylä and together we started driving for the second half of the trip. It was interesting to see the changes in the landscape and be able to locate places you hear normally only in the news.

We made it in time, about 600 kilometres, for the technical check and sound test. This means we didn't have to wake up very early the next morning ;-). Unfortunately only 6 side car teams could make it to this race. Mainly injuries kept some teams at home (probably watching MX1 and MX2 via the internet at their turn). There was a race in Latvia the same weekend and that restricts participation of teams with strong interests in that competition. Our hotel was in the centre of Raahe not far from the track.

The Raahe track was mainly deep soft sand and normally this would be disaster for side cars. But not here, the jumps were build with a perfect angle and landing area. Also by using different materials the surfaces of the jumps were made resistant against wear of the motocross tires. Especially the outer ring of the track was really fast with good jumps and lots of air for the hacks, even in the second heat.

There's plenty of space with only 6 hacks behind the gate but it doesn't lessen the thirst for performing well. We were third in the first corner and gave everything to hang on behind the Kunnas brothers and Lindgren/Sahanne. This time the side car was better than the crew. First Lehtinen/Hietala passed us and a little later Kokko/Tiilikainen did the same. The battery was empty again and we just hanged on to finish for the points. The weather was very hot, about 30 degrees Celsius and the track very demanding. I tried to save energy by crossing the solo classes lines but with this little number of side cars there's no optimal line and I wasted time by trying too much this way.

For the second heat we decided to forget all technical lines and just ride where the hack went. This time also Lehtinen/Hietala pressed through in the first corner and our place was fourth. We opened all our registers to hang on and try to do some havoc. But then I got in a wrong rut and stalled the engine, as last we continued and just enjoyed the big jumps at the outer ring of the track until the finish.

We stayed for the night at a hotel in Ylivieska and continued the next morning our trip back to Helsinki. It was a long trip and our results not exactly what we wanted but at the end we're satisfied because the hack functions very well. We'll continue with training sessions to work up more endurance so we can exploit the new possibilities.

Results: MXSV SM = side cars
Trip: http://goo.gl/maps/ML9U

Greetings,
Stephan