Leogang WCrd3 report from Sam Dale
After a weekend off for my brother's wedding I was pretty excited to get back racing on my bike.
06.24.10 After a weekend off for my brother's wedding I was pretty excited to get back racing on my bike. It was cool to come to a new place with a new track. When I walked it it was dry and hard pack with a few new sections, all in all it looked good and had bits of everything.
First day of practice I was the first rider on track, I woke up really early and couldnt wait to ride. The track was riding fast but was pretty loose and rough. I was just getting into it when we had a huge rain storm, there was a river flowing across the car park and it was a river down the whole track too. I went up to practice with dry tyres on, it didnt seem too bad because it was just cutting through to the harder stuff underneath, later that day I went for another and the track was a mess, there were ruts so deep both pedals were hitting the floor and holes so big they just ate your wheels. This lead to me having a few big crashes but I got away with no serious injury and prepped myself for qualifying.
My plan for qualifying was to pin the easy pedaly sections but to take it steady on the technical and more risky sections, the plan worked well even though I did ride like a 10 year old in some sections! I finished 39th which was nothing special but it was good enough.
I walked the track after qualifying to see if there were any new lines, I found a few but come Sunday morning the whole of the Leogang/Austrian army had been up the track all night and filled in every rut and hole there was! I was pretty impressed with that as it was a 2.4km long track and I cant even describe how battered the track was. For Sundays practice the track was holding up alright but some sections were just below natural springs so there was a constant river going down them and they soon got messy!
I warmed up well for my race and was sat in the start feeling pretty nervous, it was what some would say a mans track, it had steep, fast, rough, pedalling, rooty, boggy, bridge/chicken wire, and jump sections. There was no place to rest either! I felt good in my race and certainly pushed hard in the flat sections, I had a few mistakes and had a close call on one of the last sections but managed to hold it. I ended up in 17th just behind Marc Beaumont and Dan Atherton. I am happy with this and Ive now moved up to 34th in the overall which is much better than the 75th I was in after round one!
I'm now in Morzine for a few weeks to try some different settings on my bike, I will also go over to Champery next week to have a look at the track there, I didnt get the chance to ride there in 2007 so Im keen to see what all the hype is about. I will be heading home after that to race in the Bike Radar Live event at Brands Hatch and then preparing for the National Champs that I missed out on last year because of bad health.
I'd like to say thanks to all my sponsors, it wouldnt be possible without you.
S.I.Sealy, Wdbathrooms.co.uk, Mondraker, FOX Racing Shox, Shimano, Burgtec, Royal, Sixsixone, Sunline, Maxxis, E*thirteen, SDG, Tibolts.co.uk, Sun Ringle, Sapim race spokes, Fiveten
Sam Dale
