World Outdoor Trials Championship Motegi, Japan
Round 4 Day 1 Saturday (2 day event) 03/06/06
* Dougie Lampkin recorded his worst result of the season
to date, when he finished fifth at today’s Japanese
Grand Prix held at the famous Motegi Twin Ring circuit. Lampkin
held second place at the end of the first lap, despite starting
the trial with a disputed five at section two, but saw he
challenge fade as he failed to match the improvement made
by his rivals during the closing tour.
* Using a similar course to last year, the trial got underway
with the traditional man made hazard on the main straight
of the circuit, from here the action moved to six sections
in a steep wooded area. The second half of the lap comprised
of more constructed sections, with the exception of hazards
eleven and twelve which were on a steep rocky outcrop that
over looked the oval banked tracked.
* After a nervous dab in the opening section, Dougie suffered
rough justice as he was wrongly awarded a five at section
two, when in fact he only lost a dab. Initially the observer
awarded him the single mark, but then bizarrely changed his
mind, stating that Lampkin had over run the time limit, despite
him being sat on his bike waiting for his card to be punched
when the final whistle was blown.
* This injustice was to prove costly on what was a bad day
all round.
* “The day started badly and just got worse. I thought
the observer was joking when he said that I had ran out of
time, but he obviously wasn’t. It wasn’t even
a close call, it was just a massive mistake by an observer
who seemed to get pleasure from what he done to me.”
* “The rest of the story was way too many fives, eight
in total, which included double fives at section two, four
and six. What is really hard to swallow is that despite the
bad luck and bad riding, I was only eight marks off winning,
which seems incredible.
* “Tomorrow needs to be much, much better, that’s
all I can say, as today has been very disappointing both for
me and the team.”
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