European Championship EMX65 Kaplice / CZ
On the last weekend of June, the EMX65 calendar took us to the beautiful circuit in Kaplice in the Czech Republic. Friday evening there was a heavy thunderstorm for several hours, so there was no chance of racing at all on Saturday.
The timetable was revised by the FIM and so we didn’t take to the track until after midday. The track was still a little deep in places, but it was easy to ride.
In a field of 38 riders, I didn’t really get going in the warm-up, so I had to settle for 23rd place.
I was able to improve a bit in the qualifying race that followed. But the lap times are very close together, so the slightest mistake can decide several places. However, we were satisfied with 20th place.
The start of the qualifying race was anything but good. The start gate fell and I stalled the bike, it took ages before I could get going. I fought my way up to the field in 38th place, but it took a whole 7 minutes to catch up.
I fought to the end and moved up to 26th place on the last corner.Starting position 26 was not the ideal starting position for Sunday’s race, but I simply made the most of the situation.
On Sunday morning, I had a good night’s sleep before the warm-up. I got off to a good start and ended up in 20th place. Then it was down to business around midday. The first race on the already very broken track awaited the 65cc riders. I was visibly nervous as the whole weekend hadn’t gone smoothly so far. After a mediocre start, I came out of the first lap in 24th place. But in contrast to Saturday, I was able to improve significantly and make up a few places with skilful overtaking manoeuvres. At the end of race one, I was 17th on paper. We were happy to have achieved our goal of scoring points.
I was highly motivated for the second race. But again a problem at the start, the gear wouldn’t engage properly and I started the race in 38th place again. However, I fought like a lion and was able to make up places on every lap. Despite problems with the gearbox, I fought my way up to 16th place. A very strong performance in this field of drivers. Afterwards, it turned out that cooling water had leaked into the gearbox and could have caused the problems.
I finished 17th out of 38 starters in the daily classification and scored points in both races. Goal achieved. We will continue to learn and stay on the ball. Thanks to everyone who cheered us on from home!
