Bou for Barca
By TMX Archives on 5th Feb 09
THE third round of the 2009 SPEA FIM World Indoor Trials Championship takes place this Sunday in Barcelona, virtual home of Indoor trials and the longest-running event of its kind. With the proposed rounds in La Cannet (France) and Milan (Italy) having been cancelled, Barcelona will see the 2009 series, now reduced to just five rounds, pass the half way stage with only Bolzano (Italy) and Madrid to come.
Reigning champ Toni Bou currently leads the title chase on his factory Montesa having won Sheffield's opening round before slipping to second place in Marseille behind surprise winner Albert Cabestany on the factory four-stroke Sherco.
Cabes suffered a bad crash in an Indoor in Toulouse last week when he incurred facial injuries but the Sherco factory say that he will be competing in Barcelona.
Bou leads the Championship by three points from Cabestany with Takahisa Fujinami (Montesa) and Adam Raga (Gas Gas) in joint third place in the series standings.
Raga was in particularly poor form in Marseille and will be looking to perform much better in front of the 14,000-plus crowd that Barcelona usually attracts.
The remaining contracted riders are Jeroni Fajardo (Beta) and Britain's Michael Brown. Being an Indoor rookie, Brown has also switched bikes in the off-season and the two-stroke Sherco rider will be looking to improve again following a good showing in Marseille when although he finished sixth and last in the final he was only three marks adrift of his target-man, Fajardo, in the final.
The St Jordi venue, high on top of Montjuich Park, is a superb arena but traditionally the Barcelona sections are short, sharp and brutal. The numerous vertical steps take no prisoners and you are either up them or you're not. Several British riders have found this to their cost in the past and being honest, if Browny makes any impression on them come Sunday night he will have done very well indeed.
We will of course have a full report and pictures from Barcelona in next week's T+MX.