When we walked the tests in Portugal nobody was enthused as we were in Spain. The extreme was very short, tight and nadgery. The motox was in a flat field with tractor ruts that had dried so was rough. The enduro test looked the best as it was a 5 minute moto-x track with big jumps and hills etc. Unfortunately the ground was like concrete with some dust sprinkled on top.
I walked each test twice. The others walked them three times while I prepared my bike for the weekend.
I slept well before the race and on the saturday morning I was keen to start well. At the first timed moto-x test I really went for it. I felt really good until I binned it going into a left hander. The front end washed out on a tractor rut and I hit the ground hard with my head and elbow. I limped round to the end of the test. I was seeing stars and my upper back was sore. I was severely detuned as I knew I had hurt my back in the same place as I hurt it last year.
At the end of the lap I got some paracetamol in me which helped a little. I kept trying but didn't have the strength in my left arm to keep pushing for every second. I was very close with Whibley for the whole day and in the end he pipped me for 11th place. Another bad result but not as bad as Sunday. On Sunday morning I received some treatment, bandaging and some painkillers from the Italian federations doctor. I was able think about riding instead of my back for the first time in the weekend. However my newfound confidence was shortlived as I fouled a plug on the extreme test on the last lap. I should have done a 1:40 or better but instead it took me 4 minutes to change the sparkplug and i finished the test on 5:40. I would have been 9th on test times had I not fouled the plug. Instead i was 25th and out of the points for the first and hopefully last time this year. Not a good weekend.