Bou does well on Parede
By TMX Archives on 18th Sep 08
TONI Bou took a massive step towards securing his second successive World outdoor trials title with an important win at the Portuguese GP at Paredes. Bou's victory brought a halt to Adam Raga's recent winning run that has seen the Gas Gas rider keep the reigning champion on the back foot both at World and Spanish events. But the penultimate round of the 2008 series closed any hope that Raga may have had of stealing the title from Bou, with the 2006 champion only managing to take third spot on the day. Beta's Jeroni Fajardo was the shock package of the weekend, with the young Spanish rider grabbing the runner-up spot following a late protest to give him his first podium finish in two years.
Britain's Dougie Lampkin fared less well in a tightly-fought competition that saw second to sixth place separated by a mere five marks. Lampkin came off worst in the final tally up, and finished sixth, which leaves him in the same position in the overall standings with just one round remaining.
James Dabill produced one of his better performances of what has been a disappointing season for the TRW team member to take seventh, just ahead of Marc Freixa, who remains five points in front of Dabill in the series standings.
Dabill and Lampkin represented two out of the eleven riders in the top class, the much depleted entry also missing Michael Brown who was a frustrated spectator due to a back injury, which he hopes will have improved sufficiently to allow him to contest the final event in Spain this coming weekend.
Alexz Wigg confirmed his second position overall in the Junior class with a solid third place on the day, but could not stop Loris Gubian taking the title with yet another win. Jack Challoner acquitted himself well taking eighth spot in the Junior category on his first outing, having now moved up a class after securing the Youth championship with two rounds to spare. Ross Danby did not enjoy the best of days and finished just one place ahead of the 125 mounted Challoner.
The small and disjointed town of Paredes, situated 30 kilometres east of Porto, welcomed the World trials championship for the first time. In amongst the mismatched buildings and network of narrow roads the course offered a good variety of sections.
The mixture of dry and dusty climbs over large rocks and slippery river sections was a touch on the easy side, but still caught out each and every rider over the two laps that took place in blisteringly hot sunshine. Even early on it was clear that mistakes were going to determine the final order, as the top six riders passed through the first six hazards without a single mark dropped between them.
Section seven took two marks off both Raga and Fajardo, but these marks were only minor compared to the fives that Raga, Lampkin and Cabestany suffered at the next watery hazard. Whilst Bou remained feet-up until his maximum at section 13, both Fajardo and Fujinami kept themselves in contention by not incurring any major problems until they also came unstuck at the same section as the eventual winner. Raga found himself back in sixth position at the end of the first lap, having dropped 13 marks on his initial tour. Lampkin was one mark less and one place higher, as he slotted in behind Cabestany on 11, Fujinami on ten, Fajardo on nine and Bou clear of the pack having lost maximum in just one section.
Raga mounted one of his now customary second lap fightbacks dropping just six marks for his afternoon session, this included a nervous dab in section two and an unlucky five in the seventh hazard. Bou looked to have blown the chance of victory with back-to-back fives in sections seven and eight. The first failure saw the factory Montesa take water on board, which then resulted in his next stop one hazard later, much to Toni's disgust. Despite this set back Bou had still done enough to take his sixth win of the year, and his day looked even better as initially Fujinami was placed as runner-up ahead of Fajardo, which left Raga down in a damaging fourth spot.
However a late protest by Raga and Fajardo was to confirm that Fujinami's punch card had been wrongly stamped with a clean in one section, when he should have been awarded a two. As a result of this change, the Japanese rider dropped from second to fourth as he lost out on a three-way tie for the runner-up spot which was resolved on a ‘most cleans' tie-break.
Even without his team mate making it on to the amended podium, Bou still takes a 14 point lead into this weekend's closing Spanish Grand Prix that will take place on the outskirts of Barcelona and just 20-kilometres from Toni's home town.
The fat lady might not have sung yet, but let the party preparations commence...
WORLD TRIALS CHAMPIONSHIP
Rd 9 – Paredes, PORTUGAL
1 Toni Bou (E - Montesa) 5 + 10 = 15
2 Jeroni Fajardo (E - Beta) (25x0) 9 + 10 = 19
3 Adam Raga (E - Gas Gas) (24x0) 13 + 6 = 19
4 Takahisa Fujinami (J - Montesa) (22x0) 10 + 9 = 19
5 Albert Cabestany (E - Sherco) 11 + 9 = 20
6 Dougie LAMPKIN (GB - Beta) 12 + 12 = 24
7 James DABILL (GB - Montesa) 27 + 18 = 45
8 Marc Freixa (E - Gas Gas) 27 + 30 = 57
9 Daniel Oliveras (E - Sherco) 43 + 22 = 65
10 Henri Himmanen (SF - Beta) 44 + 43 = 87
11 Daniele Maurino (I - Gas Gas) 48 + 43 = 91
SERIES STANDINGS after 9 (of 10) rounds: 1 Bou 205 points, 2 Raga 191, 3 Fujinami 170, 4 Fajardo 127, 5 Cabestany 122, 6 LAMPKIN 120, 7 Freixa 95, 8 DABILL 90, 9 Michael BROWN 68, 10 Oliveras 59, 11 Maurino 25, 12 Tomoyuki Ogawa 15, 13 Fumitaka Nozaki 14, 14 Kenichi Kuroyama 14, 15 Jerome Bethune 14,... 19 Shaun MORRIS 6,...
WORLD JUNIOR TRIALS CHAMPIONSHIP
1 Loris Gubian (F - Sherco) 8 + 3 = 11
2 Alfredo Gomez (E - Montesa) 6 + 6 = 12
3 Alexz WIGG (GB - Montesa) 11 + 5 = 16
4 Guillaume Laniel (F - Gas Gas) 10 + 13 = 23
5 Matteo Grattarola (I - Sherco) 20 + 8 = 28
6 Julien Perret (F - Gas Gas) 15 + 19 = 34
7 Ross DANBY (GB - Gas Gas) 19 + 21 = 40
8 Jack CHALLONER (GB - Beta) 25 + 17 = 42
9 Fredrik Johansson (S - Beta) 22 + 27 = 49
10 Ivan Peydro (E - Gas Gas) 23 + 27 = 50
11 David Millan (E - Sherco) 29 + 30 = 59
12 Laia Sanz (E - Montesa) 29 + 36 = 65
13 Thibault Martel (F - Gas Gas) 29 + 41 = 70
14 Jan Peters (D - Beta) 48 + 53 = 101
15 Ewoud Lalkens (NL - Gas Gas) 69 + 68 = 137
SERIES STANDINGS after 9 (of 10) rounds: 1 Gubian 183 points, 2 WIGG 165, 3 Gomez 140, 4 Grattarola 131, 5 DANBY 117, 6 HASLAM 116, 7 Guillaume Laniel 106, 8 Johansson 47, 9 Sanz 44, 10 Millan 43, 11 Jochen Schaefer 42, 12 Emil Gyllenhammar 39, 13 Perret 19, 14 Alexis Cervantes 17, 15 Cody Webb 16,... 18 Lee SAMPSON 14 ,... 23 CHALLONER 8,... 29 George MORTON 6,...
FIM YOUTH TRIALS CHAMPS
1 Francesc Moret (E - Gas Gas) 4 + 2 = 6
2 Pau Botella (E - Gas Gas) 8 + 4 = 12
3 Adrian Pastoriza (E - Gas Gas) 8 + 7 = 15
4 Maxime Warenghien (B - Sherco) 10 + 7 = 17
5 Alexandre Ferrer (F - Sherco) 18 + 2 = 20
6 Benoit Dagnicourt (F - Beta) 16 + 6 = 22
7 Pere Borrellas (E - Gas Gas) 12 + 19 = 31
8 Luca Cotone (I - Sherco) 19 + 13 = 32
9 Jonathan RICHARDSON (GB - Sherco) 18 + 15 = 33
10 Simone Staltari (I - Gas Gas) 17 + 16 = 33
11 Jake Whitaker (NZ - HM) 16 + 20 = 36
12 Marc Horrach (E - Gas Gas) 25 + 11 = 36
13 Francesc Ciurana (E - Beta) 20 + 20 = 40
14 Marcos Mendez (E - Sherco) 30 + 18 = 48
15 Jonathan WALKER (GB - Sherco) 25 + 23 = 48
SERIES STANDINGS after 9 (of 10) rounds: 1 Jack CHALLONER 171 points (CHAMPION), 2 Moret 149, 3 Ferrer 146, 4 Pastoriza 128, 5 Botella 107, 6 Dagnicourt 107, 7 Patrick Smage 99, 8 Borrellas 79, 9 RICHARDSON 68, 10 Whitaker 63, 11 Warenghien 47, 12 Horrach 35, 13 Cotone 34, 14 Staltari 22, 15 Ciurana 18, 16 Kota Fujimaki 16, 17 Hikaru Takiguchi 14, 18 Tanguy Mottin 13, 19 Ryuji Matsumoto 11, 20 Yuicji Oota 11, 25 WALKER 6,... 27 Adam JONES 4,... 39 Jack THOMPSON 1,...
FINAL ROUND: Sep 21 – Castelloli, SPAIN.
Dougie Lampkin was on the pace but lost out on the closely-fought podium places, having to settle for sixth in the end.