 |
International Six Day Enduro - Day two report November 4th, 2003 - By, Mark Fattore (M.A.) |
|
|
|
International Six Day Enduro - Day two report November 4th, 2003 - By, Mark Fattore (M.A.) |
|
|
The Brazilian-hosted 2004 International Six Days’ Enduro ventured into the mountains for day two on November 4 – but the result was more of the same for Australian gun
Stefan Merriman. In a repeat of his day one deeds, the triple world enduro champion again collected overall individual honours from Belgian motocrosser-turned enduro star Stefan Everts (Yamaha), which came after he won three of the five special tests on his rapid fire Honda CRE250. Merriman has now won six of the 10 special tests to date – the only multiple victor alongside arch-rival Juha Salminen (KTM), who has two to his name. When the 240km, six-hour stage around the north-east city of Fortaleza came to an end, Merriman had increased his overall lead to 16.67sec over Everts – adding a whopping 13.10sec to the previous day’s advance.However, in the corresponding World Trophy team event – the ISDE prize with the most prestige -- Everts is probably the one who is feeling the more sanguine after Belgium finished third behind defending champion Finland and 12-time winner Italy for the second day in succession. In what amounted to a minimal change from day one’s World Trophy top 10, Australia – Merriman, Yamaha trio Damian Smith, Ryan Bouquet and Kirk Hutton, and KTM pairing Stuart Bennett and Brad Williscroft -- finished the day in eighth position, just under eight seconds behind Germany in the 19-nation field. France, Spain and Portugal filled positions 4-6, with less than nine minutes separating first from 10th – the Czech Republic.One of the major disappointments so far has been Sweden, which has two reigning world champions in its armoury: Peter Bergvall and Anders Eriksson. It finished 14th on day two, labouring under the weight of two riders failing to greet the start clock – and the heavy penalty associated with a dual no-show. ISDE rules allow a team to drop its worst result for the day – ie only five of six results are counted towards a team score – but when a second DNF is added to the mix, a team is handed a two-hour sanction for every day a rider fails to start and/or finish.Therefore, even though Bergvall won the 250cc four-stroke class for the second day running, Sweden’s World Trophy aspirations already appear over for another year. As for the quintet of Australians alongside Merriman, most of them produced results in the same sphere as day one, with Bouquet and Bennett showing the most improvement – time wise at least. Bouquet, 24, from Dural in NSW, was over two minutes faster than day one – it helps when you don’t get lost – which saw him finish ninth in the 250cc four-stroke class, while Bennett was 45 seconds closer to the pointy end of the 400cc four-stroke field.Meanwhile, Smith was 18th in 125cc two-stroke, with Williscroft and Hutton were 16th and 38th respectively in 250cc two-stroke. Without a doubt, the best ride from an Australian on day two -- Merriman not included --came from 22-year-old Glenn Kearney (Yamaha), the reigning Australian 250cc four-stroke champion finishing a brilliant sixth overall in the same class, just over a minute in arrears of class winner, Bergvall.Kearney’s high-powered effort made sure that Australia again finished fifth in the Junior Trophy standings, although his two teammates – Anthony Roberts (Husqvarna) and Jake Stapleton (TM) again provided rock-solid support. The original fourth member of the team, Michael Oliver, broke his wrist on day one. France claimed day two Junior Trophy honours, swapping positions with France, which went from first to third. Italy has finished second on both days.Finally, the three remaining individual class winners on day two require no introduction – because, like Merriman and Bergvall, they too prevailed on day one. The trio is Finland’s Mike Ahola (500cc four-stroke), Portugal’s Rodrigues Helder (125cc two-stroke) and Everts (400cc four-stroke). Stefan Merriman - “Today was pretty regulation for me. I ride on tight tracks in Europe for 90 per cent of the time, with the other 10 spent on the tar – but in Brazil it has been the other way around! The road stuff is so boring – you can’t hold the throttle wide open, so you just have to put up with it. I got caught behind an American in the tight stuff, and just couldn’t get past him. Then he crashed – it was either get off and help him, or sit and wait. I chose the latter! I crashed in the final sand test, purely because I didn’t adjust me riding style to suit. In the sand you have to sit further back, otherwise the front-end digs in and causes all sorts of problems. That’s what happened, and I lost five or six seconds as a result.”Damian Smith - “It was heaps more challenging today – in both the special tests and general route. We went down a lot of creek beds and things like that. The second test was a bit dodgy. We asked to pre-ride it in the interests of safety, but they said no. They usually agree to that sort of stuff.” Anthony Roberts - “Some of the trails were amazing. One looked like it was originally a concrete path, but had been eroded away into a deep trench. When I was riding down it, it felt like a slalom run. There were lots of hard hills, which put a lot of pressure on my arms.”Glenn Kearney - “I’m riding well, but keep on crashing in the special tests! It’s so frustrating. I don’t really like the tight stuff that much, and there was plenty of that today – and tomorrow, because the route is the same. We’ll (the Junior Trophy team) push for a top three finish, there’s no worries about that.” Kirk Hutton - “We rode through a lot of banana plantations today, so I felt right at home (he’s a Queenslander). I caught up to an American in the hard-packed stuff, but then got caught in his dust. Tomorrow I’ll time my run a bit better so that doesn’t happen again. We had to go pretty hard today to get to the checkpoints on time. I arrived at most of them with only a few minutes to spare – just enough time for a drink and quick snack.”How does the ISDE scoring system work? For team classification, the rider who has the lowest time every day in each class will get 0 seconds. The difference in time between this rider and the next riders in the same class will form the daily time for the team classification.For example, here are the Australian Senior Trophy results from day one of the ISDE: This process is repeated for the following five days, and the country with the lowest time at the end is declared the winner. The same scoring methodology also applies to the Junior Trophy division. For the individual classification, the time obtained each day will be added for each rider in each class. The rider with the lowest total time will be placed first, and so on. |
|
Individual classes after day two 125cc two-stroke
250cc two-stroke
250cc four-stroke
400cc four-stroke
500cc four-stroke
|
|
|
MCNEWS.COM.AU |
|