BOU CONTINUES WINNING RUN IN FRANCE
 Young
Spaniard Toni Bou - Repsol - Montesa HRC today continued his
total dominance of the 2007 SPE FIM Trial World Championship
with his fourth victory on the trot taking the win over his
fellow countryman Adam Raga - Gas Gas by a convincing margin.
Dougie Lampkin - Repsol-Montesa HRC finished in third place.
Having proven he is very much the man to beat this season,
Bou wasn’t about to let his clean record drop, but initially
at least, it wasn’t all to go his way. With the top
three finishers all entering the tough third section clean,
a failure by Bou didn’t give him the best of starts,
particularly with Raga dropping three and Lampkin just two
on the extremely steep and long climb.
However this mistake wasn’t to prove fatal and the
performances we have come to expect from this rising star
of the trials World came quickly back to the forefront. As
his rivals clocked up threes and fives, Bou’s answer
was cleans and the odd dab, which ultimately gave him a nineteen
point lead over Raga going into the second lap.
With time tight on the second lap and many of the riders
placing higher scores than on their first lap because of the
additional time pressure, it was Lampkin and Raga who launched
a late challenge to Bou. Raga in typical fashion dramatically
improved his score on the second lap from thirty six to nineteen
marks.
However even though Bou increased his lap score of sixteen
from the first lap to twenty one marks on the second, with
such a commanding lead it was going to take a minor miracle
for anyone to catch him. As well as fighting with Raga for
second place, Lampkin was also involved in a battle with his
team-mate, Takahisa Fujinami - Repsol-Montesa HRC for the
remaining podium position.
With a one hundred percent win rate in the season thus far,
Bou now has a fourteen point lead in the championship standings
over Raga. Fujinami, who finished in fourth position today
sits in third place in the series, eight points adrift of
Raga with Lampkin just two points behind him.
In the Junior championship, Michael Brown - Beta made it
three wins from four starts with victory over Nicolas Gontard
- Gas Gas, the man who has been chasing Brown all season.
Third place went to Lee Sampson - Sherco who celebrated his
first podium position of the year.
Like the main championship class, one rider has dominated
the Youth class so far this year. Alfredo Gomez - Gas Gas
took his fourth win in four days of competition over Alexis
Cervantes - Sherco of France. Third place went to Ross Danby
- Gas Gas.
There is no rest for the riders with the championship moving
swiftly to the land of the rising sun for two days of competition
next weekend (2nd/3rd June) for the Japanese Grand Prix that
will take place at the famous Motegi Twin Ring circuit.
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