World Outdoor Trials Championship Hawkstone Park, England
- Lampkin
Round 8 Day 1 Sunday (1 day event) 30/07/06
Dougie Lampkin finished his home round of the FIM World
Trial Championship fourth at the Hawkstone Park circuit in
Shropshire today. Lampkin fought back from a poor start, which
saw him drop as low as twelfth overall, before climbing back
up the order to finish just off the podium.
The results means he maintains third place in the overall
standings, with his Repsol Montesa team-mate Takahisa Fujinami
having taken his third win in a row and fourth of the season.
Albert Cabestany took the final podium position but Dougie
maintains third in the championship with a six-point margin
over Cabestany.
Dougie was understandably optimistic returning to Hawkstone
Park, having won the event a year ago, as the Trial World
Championship returned to the UK mainland for the first time
in four years. More than eight thousand excited trials fans
turned out to watch the action and cheer their local hero
on, as he tried for his historic 100th Grand Prix victory.
The heat-wave which was baking the English countryside held
in the run-up to the event, despite several thunderstorms
in the preceding days. However, overnight rain dampened down
the dust in the area, yet wasn’t sufficient to clean
the rocky sections in the hills surrounding the motocross
circuit. Many riders found it difficult to gain traction in
the sections shrouded by woodland and consequently struggled
on the more technical sections. Lampkin had a poor start and
found himself as low as twelfth at one point on the opening
lap. However, he put in a typically determined ride to climb
back up the positions to finish the event in fourth, despite
a heavy rainstorm mid-way through the first lap.
“A disappointing day for me, I have to say. I’ve
been struggling a bit on the last couple of rounds and hoped
that I could turn it around on my home event. I felt that,
if I could have a good start, which you seem to need here
at Hawkstone, I could get a good result. But I lacked confidence
in the package in practice and that carried over into the
event itself. I didn’t feel I was on top of the bike
this weekend – I was in front of it or behind it. Even
with the public support here – the fans were fantastic
and really got behind me. But I’m not really enjoying
finishing in these sorts of positions at the moment, so I
need to go away and look at the last few events and work out
how to improve.”
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