The racing season has started once again. I returned to Belgium last week. I forced myself to wake up early two weeks prior to the trip to beat the jet lag. The day after I arrived I was testing the Suzuki RMZ 450. We have made some changes to the chassis and it was handling great.

I had just one afternoon riding before I set out to Italy. I thought arriving a week in advance would be long enough to prepare everything but as I soon learned it was not. We were leaving on Thursday and I didn’t get the bike off the dyno until Wednesday. My new Alpina wheels arrived Tuesday and we were going to pick up the new exhaust from Devil in the south of France along the way.

We arrived at the circuit late Friday evening and fitted the Devil exhaust on the bike. I wanted to get some sleep because I had to ride first thing in the morning. At 2am the Aprilia team showed up making alot of noise. I am not sure of the riders name but he was banging on our door for an hour yelling something in Italian. He didn´t like how we were parked and decided to let everyone in the pits know too.

The next morning which was three hours later he was awake and yelling again.
I went out for practice still angry at the events from last night. I tried to learn the track and follow some of the faster riders. In qualifying I was 23rd. My times were 6 seconds better than practice but I was not feeling up to speed20yet.

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching the S1 and S2 to see the best lines.
Sunday morning was better. I went to bed early. Nobody banged on the door this time. I had to ride at 8:30am and this time I was a second better than the day before.



In race 1 I was on row 9. I was expecting a mess in turn 1 but everyone made it through ok. I began passing riders one by one. I worked my way up to Janene, the other female rider in the class. I made a pass on her and when I thought I was clear she came flying around me on the outside into a chicane, over the painted stripes and into the grass. I let her have the position back. She looked like she was going to fall but stayed upright. As I followed her out of the next long turn I set her up again and this time I made the pass for good. There is nothing worse than being beaten by a girl. I continued working my way up and finished 20th. I managed to take two more seconds off my lap time.

There was quite a break between motos, over five hours actually. By early afternoon the rain was pouring down. It only got worse as the day progressed. Race two began with riders sliding out everywhere and vision was low in the dirt. There was a barrage of yellow flags. A few of them turned out to be corner workers with yellow umbrellas. The dirt was greasy and even flooded in a few spots. I was struggling to get around the track without slipping. On lap three I had a wardrobe malfunction when my rolloffs jammed. I spent the next 9 laps with no vision but I still finished 19th in the end.

Round 1 of the FIM was also the debut of the Hypermoto class. It is run only on the pavement with a minimum 660cc bike. It is a new direction for supermoto. I plan on participating in this class for the remainder of the season aboard a Ducati 996.


We have already begun work on the new machine.

The next race I will be attending is Round 2 of the UEM championship at Mallory Park in England.