A good Pal for Bou
By TMX Archives on 4th Feb 10
THE Barcelona SPEA FIM Indoor Trial, run as an exciting double-header with the World Indoor Enduro in the impressive Palau San Jordi Stadium, built for the Olympics in 1992, turned into The Toni Bou Show! The Repsol Montesa rider was simply in a class of his own and while others logged five after five on the unforgiving sections Bou had the crowd going crazy as he clocked-up clean after fantastic clean. The only observation mark he lost was in the very last section when he launched a spectacular assault on the tree section which failed but by then it was in the bag.
The cracking news for Britain was that James Dabill finished on the podium! Dibs not only matched his Sheffield result, he again beat Gas Gas factory number one Adam Raga who crashed-out in the Last Chance Qualifier when the rear wheel spindle on his factory PRO snapped as he splatted a huge step and the chain derailed.
Toni Bou had the Barcelona crowd in the palm of his hand all Sunday evening as he romped to a scintillating victory in front of his adoring fans – all 10,900 of them – in the Palau San Jordi Stadium situated high on Montjuich Parc.
The Repsol Montesa rider was quite simply in a different class to his rivals and as early as afternoon qualifying it was obvious that the only battle would be for the remaining podium places – first was already booked!
With just eight riders – no wild cards – the qualifying was just to determine start order for the main event and was held behind ‘closed doors' on Sunday afternoon. Jeroni Fajardo was first into the sections and it was clearly difficult to get into ‘race' mode in an empty arena!
The two series newcomers, Brit Alexz Wigg and French youngster Loris Gubian, discovered how uncompromising are the Spanish sections as both collected a demoralising full-house of maximums in the five-section shoot-out. Alexz was pretty shell-shocked following his ordeal and said, "You just don't get a chance to ride, you are just straight into a big step and bang! that's it.”
WORLD INDOOR TRIALS CHAMPIONSHIP
Rd 3 – Palau Sant Jordi, Barcelona, SPAIN
FINAL (4 sects + Semi Scores): 1 Toni Bou (E - Montesa) 5 + 1 = 6 marks lost, 2 Albert Cabestany (E - Sherco) 1 + 15 = 16, 3 James DABILL (GB - Gas Gas) 11 + 13 = 24, 4 Takahisa Fujinami (J - Montesa) 10 + 15 = 25.
SEMI-FINAL (3 sects + Lane Race): 1 Toni Bou (E - Montesa) 1, 2 James DABILL (GB - Gas Gas) 13, 3 Albert Cabestany (E - Sherco) 15, 4 Takahisa Fujinami (J - Montesa) 15. ELIMINATED: 5 Jeroni Fajardo (E - Beta) 15, 6 Loris Gubian (F - Gas Gas) 19.
LAST CHANCE (2 sects & Lane Races): 5 James DABILL (GB - Gas Gas) 1, 6 Loris Gubian (F - Gas Gas) 2. ELIMINATED: 7 Adam Raga (E - Gas Gas) 5, 8 Alexz WIGG (GB - Beta) 11.
QUALIFICATION (5 sects): 1 Toni Bou (E - Montesa) clean, 2 Albert Cabestany (E - Sherco) 5, 3 Takahisa Fujinami (J - Montesa) 10, 4 Jeroni Fajardo (E - Beta) 15, 5 Adam Raga (E - Gas Gas) 17, 6 James DABILL (GB - Gas Gas) 20, 7 Alexz WIGG (GB - Beta) 25, 8 Loris Gubian (F - Gas Gas) 25.
SERIES STANDINGS after 3 rounds: 1 Bou 55 points, 2 Cabestany 50, 3 DABILL 30, 4 Raga 25, 5 Fajardo 21, 6 Fujinami 17, 7 Gubian 9, 8 WIGG 9, 9 LAMPKIN 5, 10 BROWN 3, 11 Ferrer 1.
NEXT ROUND: March 13 – Palacio de Deportes, Madrid, SPAIN.
FOR FULL STORY SEE T+MX NEWS, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2010
Toni Bou leaps towards the end cards of a Barcelona section for yet another clean in front of his adoring home fans.