Openingsrace Dutch 2011/2012 Buggyseason

Eventually I managed to leave behind the summer holidays and armed with loads of fond memories I returned to work, and I am truly blessed with the job. Nice track fields right next to the school and believe me; a good game of rugby or softbal in the autumn sun never hurt anybody.

The trees are calling.

Once I’m working with those teenagers again I sometimes loose track of the other things in life that truly matter. Picture of my son on my desk, his first painting on the wall, messages from friens and family in my cell then remind me of who I am. And.. The rustling of the trees round the track field. They warned me 2 weeks ago that by now I should really get started on getting my buggy gear ready.

The last race of last years season for me was painted with material failures, rough conditions with 25 to 35 knots of offshore winds and a bumpy beach at Ouddorp, I broke no less than 3 lines which caused me to finish just one of the races. Cause? Worn out lines, one of those linesets even originated from the time I built my first Bean! For this season I plan to do it all properly, a fresh set of lines on all my Vapors, which I all had to get ready before the first raceday on the 17th.

The pilot and his materials.

Another task at hand hand was the tuning of the Kites. Do I set them up light or do I set them up a bit heavier? In other words; do I choose stability or do I take a chance? Apart from the fact that each pilot has to have excellent flying and riding techniques, the tuning of your materials can really make the difference, one of the things I personally like about this level of buggyracing. Lucky for me there are some of the worlds best pilots in my team so there’s lots I can learn from them!

On Saturday we had two races in each class (kiddyclass, openclass and masterclass). Teamrider Harald did very well in his second race, better than his first so in the end he landed on the 11th position overall. Our Junior rider Justin did awesome in the kiddyclass, he could even keep up with pilots in the other classes! After races were done he ended up first of his class and could do with some more young pilots to compete with. Fast Arie also made a good effort in the masterclass this race weekend, amazing to see him leave the competition behind short after the start. He won both races with a comfortable lead. Jeroen surprised me initially with the size he chose to ride with, 6.5!? With a big smile on his face he explained that he had tuned the kite perfectly the week before, and: Dang, it showed! He finished both races in the second position right after Arie, nabbing himself the 2nd place overall.

If it doensn’t kill you…

All of my gear was perfectly taken care of before the weekend, so well rested and with the right mindset I started the openclass races. (or maybe it had been smart to go over the BCH rulebook before starting?) After 2 races it was all looking pretty good in my head: finished 2nd once and 3rd the other race so I was already thinking; podium? Later the head marshall came up to me and asked me what I was doing at one of the turnmarkers? I passed the maker on the wrong side, realized my mistake turned around and passed the marker again, in my mind I did it right but the marshalls were unrelenting and did count it as a fault and that caused me a penalty lap.

A quick calculation made me realize that if there weren’t any races anymore this would cost me my podiumplace… And as it happens, the weather didn’t cooperate on Sunday so no more races. My mind agreed before my heart did, I really wanted to take home my first ever BCH trophy this weekend, but unfortunately I missed the podium by one place, 4th overall.