VOL. 52 ISSUE 27 JULY 7, 2015 P83
Six Day format, and do tires,
do service, everything that
we would do in Six Days.
And we're doing it the day
after the Snowshoe GNCC,
which was a tough race, so
it's like being four days in at
Six Days. So this would be
like the fifth day tomorrow
for them to ride. They're all
feeling a little bit tired but I think in a way it's
good to get it done right away after Snow-
shoe, since now most of the riders will have
a summer break, so they have time to hone
their skills for Six Days."
Kallonen emphasizes the differences
between the types of racing our riders have
gotten used to and gets them to adapt to a
new style for Six Days.
"Six Days consists of 10-minute-long
sprints," says Kallonen. "They're just a
whole different racing format. Compared
to national enduro, national enduro is more
single track, tighter woods than what Six
Days is. Special tests are usually longer in
national enduro. Six Days is 10 minute long
special tests, at national enduro it could be
half an hour long. So that's the big differ-
ence, and single track where you start and
return to the same spot at Six Days. It's just
a 10-minute loop. You walk all those tests at
Six Days and you memorize them. That's a
big, big part of the preparation. For GNCC
or national enduro you don't really walk, you
just go blind and you tackle the obstacles
as you see them. But for Six Days we walk
the test and we memorize everything so
that when you go out you know every turn,
every rock, every root that there is. That's
something that we don't have at all here.
So that's what's new for this year is that I'm
making the guys walk the special test.
Riders walked the sections and then on
Tuesday Kallonen timed each rider through
every test and compared their times against
each other rider and against their second
trip through the tests so he could see if they
we're slower or faster so he could identify
every rider's weaknesses. That way, during
the summer break in off-road racing the
riders can work on the weaknesses and
getting prepared.
"It's good to get the group together so
that they can compare their times," says
U.S. team
manager
Antti Kallonen
center is
100-percent
dedicated
on building
a winning
team for this
year's ISDE in
Slovakia.
