nerve-jangling time and were none too
keen to get into the sections . And surprisingly, suffering most was World
Champion Tar res . [o rdi looked stiff and
awkward on the bike, no t flowing at all,
and had nervous prods in the first three
sections. Of the eventual top 10, only his
Gas Gas teammate Joan Pons and Beta
privateer Amos Bilbao dropped points
in the easy opener.
The second sec tion wa s much more
awkward with a short, sharp climb over
slip pery rocks offering two lines - both
of which were a bit of a lottery. Most
elected to stop hal fw ay up for realign me nt, a n d many esca ped w ith ones,
twos or threes, but it was not really the
answer. It took Colom er to demonstrate
the bes t approach as he took a dynamic
clean w i t h a si ng le , s t raight, q uick
attemp t. Ah vala was more than equal to
thi s with a roc k-s tea dy ascent, as d id
Italian Diego Bosis and Carnozzi, who
was out to reestablish himse lf as a genuine cont ender.
Lampkin s lu mped to take an ea r ly
five, but ce rta in ly didn 't le t it ge t to
him and he calmly rod e off to the next
ha zard.
Sections three, four , five and six took
a few marks but the opening big step at
the seventh caught Ahvala as he overestimated his run and ov ershot , rid in g
into the section tapes and coll ecting a
maximum . Camozzi al so took a five
while Tarres w a s d abbin g aga in as
Colomer floated through as if he were
riding on air.' The prototype Montesa
has come along in leaps and bounds
th roughou t th e wi nter and now looks
far more stable than when Bilbao rode it
last season.
In fact, it was not until the 10th Section - a long, twisting jumble of rocks that Colomer even looked like losing a
mark, and his solitary dab wa s his only
loss of th e lap. This saw him go into
Sund ay as the clear leader. Ahvala, who
(Top left) A rare shot of
Jordi Tarres with his foot
down. The six-time
champ was tight on day
one, but shined on
Sunday.
(Above) Brit Doug
Lampkin finished a
steady fifth.
(Left) Spaniard Joan
Pons pil oted a Gas Gas
JT35 to sixth-place.
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