High five for Bou
By TMX Archives on 9th Sep 11
TONI Bou eased to his fifth consecutive SPEA FIM World Trials Championship on the factory Repsol Montesa last weekend at the final round of the 2011 series, staged at Isola 2000 in France.
But in a rain-lashed event, Adam Raga won the opening day on his factory Gas Gas to take the title race down to the last day, having closed the gap on Bou to just 10 points.
Toni was still hot favourite to take the title and in the end did it in style, winning the final day of the Championship season from Raga, with the rest of the field a long way back.
Meawhile, Alfredo Gomez gave Repsol Montesa the World Junior title with victory on Saturday, before moving-up to the Championship class on Sunday, where he finished a promising seventh out of the 11 finishers.
And on the last day of the season Jonathan Richardson finally showed what he is capable of, taking the win on the day in the Junior class – easily his best result of the campaign – to finish seventh in the series.
Jack Sheppard, with the Youth title already won, was present to receive his FIM award and he witnessed French rider Cedric Tempier bag runner-up in the series, while a pair of fifth placings gave sole British class representative Bradley Cox ninth spot in the final table.
Adam Raga gave reigning World Trials Champ Toni Bou a real run for his fifth title and with a stunning victory on the opening day of the hastily arranged two day, end of season trial in France, giving himself an outside chance of a major upset on the final day.
Astute Raga had correctly forecast that incoming rain would adversely affect the sections and made an immediate decision to crack-on right from the start.
Just as it had two years previously at the same venue, this proved a wise decision and after leading Bou by just a single point after the opening lap of 15 sections, Raga really reaped the benefit second time round, as rain made the sections really slippery.
Raga's second lap score of five compared to Bou's 19 tells the story and suddenly the Gas Gas man was in with a chance, albeit a slim one.
Sherco's Albert Cabestany finished third – a long way adrift of the leading pair – with Jeroni Fajardo fourth, despite spending a long time fettling his factory Ossa.
Jack Challoner emerged as top Brit, taking a most cleans tie-break – six against five – over fellow Brit Michael Brown, after both dropped 87 marks, as James Dabill was able only to salvage tenth place.
In the Juniors, Gomez finally edged a win over French rival Alexandre Ferrer virtually at the end of the day as the Montesa rider made it through section 13 for a dab while Ferrer took three, and those two marks were exactly the difference between them.
Pol Tarres was right on the pace on the opening lap but a run of late marks dropped the Gas Gas rider to third, well ahead of fourth-placed Benoit Dagnicourt.
Jonathan Richardson was the only Brit and five marks in the opening section was something of a harbinger of what was to come as young Rich finished a distant tenth.
Sunday was all about Bou and Raga and the two battling Catalan aces duly rose to the occasion.
FOR FULL REPORT SEE T+MX SEPTEMBER 9
WORLD TRIALS CHAMPIONSHIP
Rd 8 – Isola 2000, FRANCE
DAY ONE
1 Adam Raga (E - Gas Gas) 6 + 5 = 11
2 Toni Bou (E - Montesa) 7 + 19 = 26
3 Albert Cabestany (E - Sherco) 11 + 39 = 50
4 Jeroni Fajardo (E - Ossa) 19 + 39 = 58
5 Takahisa Fujinami (J - Montesa) 24 + 35 = 59
6 Jack CHALLONER (GB - Beta) (6x0) 37 + 50 = 87
7 Michael BROWN (GB - Gas Gas) (5x0) 29 + 58 = 87
8 Loris Gubian (F - Gas Gas) 36 + 55 = 91
9 Matteo Grattarola (I - Gas Gas) 35 + 63 = 98
10 James DABILL (GB - Beta) 38 + 63 = 101
11 Francesco Iolitta (I - Beta) 64 + 73 = 137
DAY TWO
1 Toni Bou (E - Montesa) 1 + 7 = 8
2 Adam Raga (E - Gas Gas) 12 + 2 = 14
3 Albert Cabestany (E - Sherco) 22 + 12 = 34
4 Takahisa Fujinami (J - Montesa) 21 + 22 = 43
5 James DABILL (GB - Beta) 32 + 19 = 51
6 Michael BROWN (GB - Gas Gas) 32 + 35 = 67
7 Alfredo Gomez (E - Montesa) 34 + 40 = 74
8 Jack CHALLONER (GB - Beta) 42 + 44 = 86
9 Matteo Grattarola (I - Gas Gas) 46 + 43 = 89
10 Loris Gubian (F - Gas Gas) 49 + 47 = 96
11 Francesco Iolitta (I - Beta) 66 + 69 = 135
FINAL SERIES STANDINGS after 8 rounds: 1 Toni Bou 204 points (CHAMPION), 2 Adam Raga 191, 3 Takahisa Fujinami 155, 4 Cabestany 129, 5 Fajardo 115, 6 BROWN 90, 7 Gubian 88, 8 DABILL 86, 9 CHALLONER 70, 10 Grattarola 61, 11 Iolitta 32, 12 Kenichi Kuroyama 24, 13 Alexz WIGG 24, 14 Fumitaka Nozaki 19, 15 Tomoyuki Ogawa 17, 16 Dougie LAMPKIN 15, 17 Tsuyoshi Ogawa 12, 18 Akira Shibata 10, 19 Gomez 9, 20 Masahiko Sunada 7, 21 Masatoshi Okamura 6, 22 Daniele Maurino 5, 23 Fabio Lenzi 4, 24 Carsten Stranghoner 4, 25 Tsubasa Matsuura 4, 26 Michele Orizio 2, 27 Akio Saito 2.
WORLD JUNIOR TRIALS CHAMPIONSHIP
Rd 8 – Isola 2000, FRANCE
DAY ONE
1 Alfredo Gomez (E - Montesa) 4 + 16 + - = 20
2 Alexandre Ferrer (F - Sherco) 6 + 16 + - = 22
3 Pol Tarres (E - Gas Gas) 5 + 23 + - = 28
4 Benoit Dagnicourt (F - Beta) 14 + 28 + - = 42
5 Carles Traviesa (E - Gas Gas) 20 + 29 + - = 49
6 Tanguy Mottin (F - Montesa) 18 + 31 + 2 = 51
7 Francesc Moret (E - Montesa) 17 + 37 + - = 54
8 Pere Borrellas (E - Gas Gas) 24 + 35 + - = 59
9 Maxime Warenghien (B - Ossa) 14 + 46 + - = 60
10 Jonathan RICHARDSON (GB - Sherco) 26 + 37 + - = 63
11 Matteo Poli (I - Ossa) 28 + 45 + - = 73
12 Gianluca Tournour (I - Gas Gas) 28 + 47 + - = 75
13 Laia Sanz (E - Montesa) 28 + 55 + - = 83
14 Luca Cotone (I - Gas Gas) 26 + 59 + - = 85
15 Guillaume Jean (F - Beta) 45 + 43 + - = 88
DAY TWO
1 Jonathan RICHARDSON (GB - Sherco) 12 + 8 = 20
2 Alexandre Ferrer (F - Sherco) 21 + 4 = 25
3 Francesc Moret (E - Montesa) 11 + 16 = 27
4 Pol Tarres (E - Gas Gas) 18 + 14 = 32
5 Benoit Dagnicourt (F - Beta) 28 + 9 = 37
6 Maxime Warenghien (B - Ossa) (12x0) 24 + 23 = 47
7 Pere Borrellas (E - Gas Gas) (9x0) 19 + 28 = 47
8 Carles Traviesa (E - Gas Gas) 19 + 33 = 52
9 Tanguy Mottin (F - Montesa) 32 + 28 = 60
10 Gianluca Tournour (I - Gas Gas) 37 + 38 = 75
11 Luca Cotone (I - Gas Gas) 39 + 39 = 78
12 Matteo Poli (I - Ossa) 40 + 39 = 79
13 Jean Philippe Lerda (F - Gas Gas) (4x0) 47 + 41 = 88
14 Guillaume Jean (F - Beta) (3x0) 41 + 47 = 88
15 Laia Sanz (E - Montesa) 45 + 47 = 92
FINAL SERIES STANDINGS after 8 rounds (best 9 from 11 day scores to count): 1 Alfredo Gomez 144 points (CHAMPION), 2 Pol Tarres 129 (1 win), 3 Francesc Moret 129 (0 wins), 4 Dagnicourt 109, 5 Ferrer 100, 6 Pere Borrellas 88, 7 RICHARDSON 83, 8 Tournour 79, 9 Traviesa 73, 10 Warenghien 61, 11 Mottin 51, 12 Yoshiaki Nomoto 37, 13 Jake Whittaker 34, 14 Poli 30, 15 Hikaru Takiguchi 28, 16 Ivan Peydro 27, 17 Shinya Fujiwara 26, 18 Cotone 25, 19 Yuki Sato 23, 20 Yuya Kira 21, 21 Sanz 14,... 23 Jack SPENCER 9,... 28 Ricky WIGGINS 3,... 30 Ben MORPHETT 2,...
