We arrived in Spain on Tuesday morning and headed straight
to Rancho Canudas, north of Barcelona. An awesome venue, with
a 1500km TT dirt track and an oval exactly the same dimensions
as the one in the Palua Sant Jordi stadium.
We tested at this track Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and
found a great set up on the Honda CRF 450 flat trackers; we
had to use 17" wheels as opposed to the 19" wheels
that we normally use, but we both felt very comfortable from
the word go.
We did a couple more laps on the Friday morning to confirm
we was happy with the bikes, before heading to Barcelona city
to prepare for the allocated 4 minute practice session inside
the stadium on Friday night. As others struggled with the
rough 'flat track', we was able to get straight onto the pace,
and so we both felt very confident for the qualifying session
on the Saturday morning.
Qualifying couldn't have gone much better for us and we
both finished within the top 5. Tim qualified in 2nd overall
(12.25) behind AMA Flat Tack pro Brad Baker and just in front
of 2014 AMA Flat Track champ Jared Mees and 2x MotoGP Champ
Marc Marquez, Tom qualified in 5th right behind these guys
with his time of 12.46; both ahead of the 8 other world
champions from supermoto/road racing/endurocross/grasstrack.
These times gave us great confidence for the races ahead,
and with fastest qualifier Brad Baker crashing straight after
his fast time, putting him of the event, we was sure we was in
for a good run.
Unfortunately, 4 hours after the very successful
qualifying, we both struggled in our heat races. A combination
of bad starts and getting tangled with other riders in turn 1
didn't help, and the nature of the track meant passing was
very difficult - most races were won the first corner. A crash
in Tim's last chance qualifying race ended his shot at making
the open or super final, and after a rider collision with Tom,
he stalled his Honda, also putting him out of the finals.
Such highs after qualifying followed by such disappointment
in the races took some swallowing, and we were both pretty
speechless for the next few hours.
Nevertheless, there are still so many positives to take
from the whole week's experience, we both received some great
recognition for our qualifying times and we have met so many
more great contacts within the biking world.
We'd both like to thank Vroom Media, who recently jumped on
board to help us boost our rider profiles and step up our
proffesional image. Our new website - www.neavetwins.com is
now active with up to date results, pictures, future plans and
current sponsors, please take a look,
Silkolene Oils for their continued support with the best
quality lubricants on the market,
Agrii (agronomy services) for their financial support,
LR Designs for the bike decals,and to Slip Stream Motorcycles
and Richard May for the use of their 17" wheels.
Hope you have a great Christmas,
Tim & Tom