Tihemetsa 25.8 Estonian championship race 5

Hello again,

last Friday evening we took the ferry to Tallinn for round 5 of the Estonian championship in Tihetmetsa located not far from Pärnu. We had rooms in a small hotel in Pärnu and in the morning only a 40 km drive was left to arrive at the track. We noticed that it had been raining a lot in this area seeing the many puddles on the fields.

During the training session the track was already very soft and some wet parts made only a single line possible that did wear out quickly. 16 entries had arrived this time. The season is nearing it's end and injuries have taken their toll. We were the only team from Finland and also from Latvia and Lithuania arrived only one team per country. Last place in the timing but we didn't care so much because the track would become very demanding as we remembered from last year. I've never been good at timed practices and I need some time to get adjusted to the track.

From the second row we got on our way and after the first lap we had the 15th place. During the race some teams got problems and with a steady going we passed the finish line at the 12th position. We could need the points very well because we did miss the first 2 races and it took time to get the hack set up correctly.

After the first heat we got some heavy rain showers and the track became real bad. Even for the solo bikes it became a test of endurance. Especially a lower area of the track looked more like a little stream than a motocross track. When it was our turn it stopped raining but we had no idea if it would be possible to do a lap without getting stuck. Luckily the organization realized this too and shortened the track and excluded the worse part hereby. Even the faster teams were happy with this decision. For the spectators, there still were spectators in spite of the weather, it was also nice because it was now like a stadium and they could follow the whole lap.

I had changed the rear wheel back for our Russian tire and that was a good decision, the hack was easier to drive through the deep ruts. The race was very dynamic with everyone that close and during the first rounds happened all kind of actions. Everyone was stuck for at least once and so did we. But with a little help from spectators we got the hack going again until we got lapped. I tried to take a higher line in a corner but the hack reacted like in a slow motion movie and the hack behind us bumped in our rear wheel. It was that slippery that we turned 90 degrees around. With a little shoving and pulling we were on our way again and finished 9th this time. Again some teams had technical problems but we were lucky to ride out. Directly after the finish line most of the coolant squirted out of a joint and we had to walk back to the van.

With the evening ferry back to Helsinki and a lot of work to clean all the riding gear and the side car. Also the van's interior looks more like a swinery than a transporter for racing equipment. Even we didn't have the speed to mix with the Estonian teams we still did well on this demanding track with very deep ruts everywhere. Last year we didn't finish the second heat after getting stuck and then the track wasn't even as bad as it was this year.

Greetings,
Stephan

Results at Mylaps (kv=sidecars)
Trip to Tihemetsa 24-25.8.2012