After a chill-out day in Daytona, directly on the beach, which we accessed with our rental RV, us three (my wife Renate, our baby insider her belly and myself) moved on to the USA Speedway in Lakeland, FL, in order to warm up with the other riders by Friday. We’ve enjoyed some really cool riding sessions and I finally got to know some riders personally, which I previously have had only read about in the web.
Saturday morning welcomed me with a nasty bronchitis and a cough, I felt anything but fit. And all this exactly right ahead of the USA’s most important contest! I could still manage the qualification round, even though I have not been riding as concentrated and precise as I usually manage to. Unfortunately, this was deemed to continue like that …
Sunday’s finals: I am known for circling faster than most of the other guys, and exactly that turned out to become my stepping-stone: Obviously, there have been grains of rubber on the track, caused by the previous drift car show, making the grip level a lot poorer than in training. While entering into wheelie-circling, my rear wheel lost grip and I crashed, breaking my rear footpeg, too. So I’ve had to change on to my backup-bike, but the flow of my ride was obviously gone. I still could show some of my program, and at the end, I ended up with the same amount of points as Dan Jackson did. In the co-lead, and even though I’ve crashed!! As a result, Dan and I had to ride another 3 minutes “super-final” for the win.
In general, a not too difficult thing for me: Just show a safe, routine run. But AGAIN, I slipped off on the rubber-grain on the track without having been in a very exposed position. My rear-tire just wiped out for no obvious reason, once more. I couldn’t believe it: I’ve had more wipeouts on that single day, than in an average month … and all of them right in front of the judges! Those guys then awarded 1 point more to Dan Jackson, who – starting after me – showed a safe run. I’ve been pretty disappointed about this given away victory, but the luck has not been with me this time, besides my bronchitis handicap, which also gave me a hard time.
Right after the individual freestyle final, the team contest has been scheduled, and I’ve been motivated even more. “Let’s kick *ss”, I thought. Riding together with AC Farias, we entered as team ACCP. AC had a bad day in the individual freestyle finals, too, crashing due to a mechanical failure on his bike.
The beginning of our duo-performance went quite well and the crowd was going off, as we went against each other in an endo, until our helmets touched. As we then tried to go side-by-side with a huge 4th gear stoppie, I suddenly realized a nasty front wobbling, which got worse and worse as I tried to stay on my bike. Finally, it pulled me off like a rodeo-cowboy. This high speed wobbling occurred due to a missing steering dampener, which had been removed for the sake of other tricks, beforehand.
I fell off to the right, while my bike skidded to the left, right under the (temporarily airborne) rear wheel of AC, who still managed to ride all this out without crashing. Respect, Antonio, cool as you’ve ever been! Check out the video, un-be-lieve-able.
Looking at the whole thing now, I guess we’ve had a lot of good luck. we’ve had at least 80 km/h (50miles) of speed, and so far, I have never crashed at a velocity like this. This is an experience, I tell you, but a painful one! My knee and elbow protectors – thanks Alpinestars – have prevented anything worse. The paramedics have been with me immediately and even Kyle Woods and his double (I’ve seen him twice by then …) have been with me within seconds.
I felt better quite soon and went off with a bounced ribcage, a quite painful and long-lasting type of an injury. But in combination with all the coughing from my bronchitis, this is a combo from hell, believe me.
Well, it’s still been fun and I am pretty sure to come back next year, again. This next time definitely with my steering dampener on my BMW. Greetz CP