We decided to hang out in the Bay of Plenty this weekend, had a sleep over at a mates house and headed out to Awakaponga to shake out any bad ju-ju this track still has for me. I’ve done two SummerCross’ here and a schools event and each time I have had spectacular crashes and walked away from the place determined to come back and get it right. It also doesn’t run the 65s and 85s as combined classes on the big track so it was a good test to see how I’ll go with double classing. I have been putting in a lot of work in my endurance so it doesn’t matter how long my days are or how many races I have I can be consistent from start to finish. My starts have definitely improved and I got a couple of holeshots in the 8-11 65cc class. I was having a good time in the 8-11 85cc class on my 65 too, battling for the good lines and pushing around corners when in race 2 I washed out and slammed into a tractor tyre barrier. Luckily I was able to get my body out of the way and my bike took the full impact – my plastics got bent up and my left radiator is twisted but nothing was hissing or leaking so I finished the race. I completed 5 of the 6 races I intended to do and going 1-1-1 in Pro65 (and around 12th in the 85 with only 2 completed races) so even though I have a damaged bike I still had a successful day. My starts were good, my suspension set up was good, I didn’t run out of energy or focus during the races and kept myself in a positive head space even though yet again this track decided to test me. I’ll be back again to tame this track one day…
Soren Staudinger 