WEC GP of Portugal '09
March 21st/22nd 2009
Fighting spirit hard as iron
Confident of strong results following encouraging performances on behalf of all team riders at the recent opening round of the Spanish Enduro Championship, the two-day WEC event ended with team riders Juha Salminen, David Knight, Simo Kirssi and Marko Tarkkala failing to perform at their best on the lose, dry and dusty Portuguese special tests.
With the ’09 WEC opener starting with a Friday night ‘Super test’ all riders were well placed near the top of their respective classes ahead of the first full day of competition, with David Knight starting Saturday second in the Enduro 3 class. Encouraging special tests times followed for both David and Juha on the extreme tests on day one as both riders enjoyed class wins, but disappointingly they failed to match the pace of their class rivals on either the enduro and motocross tests.
In the Enduro 2 class Juha Salminen did everything he could to secure a podium finish yet despite winning two extreme tests and improving his pace as the day progressed was unable to finish higher than fifth in class. Finishing eighth following a consistent day’s riding was Juha’s Enduro 2 class teammate Simo Kirssi.
On day two Juha twice crashed on the extreme test, which ended his chances of bettering his day one result. Losing a considerable amount of time on both occasions the Finn placed an eventual sixth in class with Kirssi two places behind in eighth following another consistent day.
Mirroring Salminen’s pace on the extreme test on day one David Knight secured four winning performances on the technical special test, but disappointingly also failed to reproduce those results on the enduro and motocross tests. Following several small falls and failing to perform at his best he placed sixth. Marko Tarkkala finished two places behind David in eighth.
Unfortunately, on day two Knight was forced to withdraw after running over his foot and badly twisting his knee. Improving his day one result by one place Marko Tarkkala finished in seventh position.
Simo Kirssi: “I learned a lot at every race in 2008 and now after the winter testing and training I feel a lot more confident than I did this time last year. Obviously the highlight of ’08 was my podium finish at the GP of Poland. This year the competition in the E2 class is again very strong but I hope to score more podium results. I have a much better understanding of everything to do with enduros now.
Saturday was a good race day in respect of the beginning series and finishing in eight place was assumably.
On Sunday the starting was not so good, but the riding got better during the day and I was able to push harder and harder. Without having these troubles I will go better than eighth place. Now I'm looking forward to Igualada.
