Hey Jeff and Brad,
Just a quick update on our last round of racing for 2016
Just a quick update on our last round of racing for 2016
Simone
headed into the final round with a narrow lead in the
championship points but not having ridden since the previous
round, a couple of months beforehand.
It was a tough weekend
as our dog suddenly passed away on the Thursday
afternoon.
We decided to forego
the Friday practice which meant Simone would not be on track
until qualifying on the Saturday morning.
After getting to the
track in the evening and setting up, we grabbed a couple of
late night kebabs and went to our Airbnb that we'd chosen over
staying in the van.
Hopes of getting a bit
of a sleep in Saturday morning (as we had our pits already set
up and bikes scrutineered Friday night) were dashed as the
house owners were up at 5AM pacing around on the floorboards
above our heads, running taps and making more noise than a
construction site. We decided to get out, headed to the track
early and tried to get focused for the weekend.
Heavy rain set in for
morning qualifying which meant a change to wet tyres, and bike
set-up. With everything that was going on, I told Simone to
just take it easy and come in if she wasn't feeling it... to
which she went out and qualified on the front row
:-)
The weather dried up
for the afternoon races and Simone put in an awesome ride to
get second in each race.
The late afternoon
began with Supermoto qualifying before moving onto racing.
Simone qualified well and raced the tired old SMR
spectacularly - being particularly strong on the Tarmac and
having a great battle with another rider who's strength was on
the dirt. After a red flag, racing resumed and Simone's times
were dropping before a crash broke a lever and put her out of
action.
That evening my
attempts at diplomacy with the AirBNB hosts about their early
morning line dancing was met with: "this is not a guest
house!", but at least the philistines waited until 5:30AM
before commencing their depravities the next
morning.
Sunday morning's
weather quickly turned with heavy rain that refused to let up.
Simone had a strained arm and shoulder from the Supermoto
crash, to the point of it being sore to touch, despite this
she attacked race 1 in the rain and stayed consistent to bring
home another second place, and secure the championship by
points gap. Race two proved to be even wetter as torrential
rain set in. After a near highside, and battling a completely
fogged up (dark tint) visor, Simone was able to secure a third
place and a successful finish to the weekend of
racing.
Thanks so much for
your support this year. We are still deciding on plans for
2017 and will keep you posted!
Cam