Stoppelcross Volkel. -5 and on the gas. By BdJ

Dec 01, 2010

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 4120 times

The 2010 Stoppelcross series didn't go as planned. It kicked off well in Handel but the weather can do whatever it wants during November and it rained for a week straight after the first race. That meant that the race in Boekel was going to be a serious mud fest. When it rained hard in the morning and the forecast didn't look any better for the rest of the day, I gave up. Because of all this rain, the third race was cancelled leaving Volkel as the last race of the 2010 SX season. Things didn't look too bright either for Volkel.

It had started to get cold towards the end of November. On Sunday morning it was minus 6 degrees celsius but Pieter Does and I decided to go for it anyway. Call us crazy and I will agree with you but sometimes things need to be done. We arrived in Volkel at 07:30am and it was still dark. After taking our time in the warm registration tent we walked a lap around the track. Daylight had started by that point. The track actually didn't look too bad. Lots of (steep) jumps that sent you to the moon but the surface was hard, because it was frozen. Question was, will it be all muddy once the temperature goes up.

Changing into the MX gear wasn't fun in the back of Rob Kars' Renault. Damn it was cold. We got a feel of the track during practice. It wasn't too bad. We were lucky to get two practice sessions in, one with the MX2 class, and one with the MX1 hobby riders.

From 100 signed in riders, only 34 showed up in Volkel leaving the MX1 class with a full gate, but no A or B final. This made the race different from the start as my personal goal was always to make it to the A-final, and/or beat Eric Mulders, but he was out from a crash in Handel.

When the gate dropped in moto one the 33 freaks aimed for that holeshot. It's always a challenge to see how you get out of that first turn and this time it was a challenge to get over that first jump in one piece as well.

Ivo van der Putten was fighting up front, Pieter Does was riding towards the front and Jurgen Meyer and Wilco Groenendaal we riding mid-pack. I ended up in 20th on the track that had frozen slick parts, muddy ruts and decent sections. It mostly felt like a hard-pack track which basically is unusual for all of the Dutch riders.

Moto two started off with a decent gate and a 15th place finish for me. Ivo was crashing all over the place (3 times in the first lap) and Piet

er stalled the bike at some point and had to play catch up to finish 14th. Jurgen Meyer did well this time and Wilco ended up in 19th in moto two. But most importantly we all survived with little damage, either to the bike or to the body. But fun was had, even in the cold. More of this next year, with a bigger BMX posse. It makes for good bench racing for the rest of the year.

BdJ