I travelled to Spain with Simon Wakely. We took Paul Ed's Sprinter van and the Wakely's caravan and we travelled on the same Plymouth Santander crossing as Paul in the Race Truck. We arrived in Spain over one week before the event as we wanted to ensure that we were completely ready for the race. We stayed at a dis-used moto-x track about 20km north east of Guadalajara. There was acres of space so we set up a few little practise tracks. Merriman and Oblucki were there as well so we were able to judge our speed against these WEC regulars. As you would expect Merriman was consistently the quickest closely followed by Paul then Oblucki. Simon and I were lapping about the same speed a few seconds further back. I wasn't too bothered about the times as the tracks we were riding were unlike the event and were very tight and twisty.
There were three tests for the Spanish opener to the world series: one extreme, one enduro and one moto-x. As we were there early we were able to walk all 3 tests thoroughly. I liked all of them and couldn't wait for the event to begin.
I got up early on saturday morning and it was dry but there was something lurking in the clouds. The heavens opened about 1 hour before the start as there was a tremendous downpour. Not what you would expect at one of the driest cities in Spain.
The first test was unbelievably slippy and the mud was really claggy. It was also about 10 mins long so by the time you got to the end the big weighed a ton. I fealt good on the test as the bike was running well and I was making it go where I wanted - I think my long legs help in those conditions. When I came out of the test I could see my time on the big screen but didn't know how it compared to the other times and when I asked somebody they said it was middle of the pack. I was gutted as I thought I'd gone alright. At the next check I was checking all the settings on the bike to try get some more speed. I needn't have bothered as I'd won the test in class! I wish I had known at the time as this news would have sent my confidence sky high whereas really my head was in bits after the first test. I didn't know what to do to go quicker.
The rain was on and off all day which made conditions a little unpredictable. On the second lap on the tight check I arrived at a hill with bikes everywhere. I was riding at the back of the E2 class with the slower riders. A recent shower of rain had made the hill almost impassable for them. I pushed and shoved as best as I could to get round them but ended up losing 2 mins at the timecheck. On the next lap the hill had dried and was much easier.
At the pre-finish check I made the foolish mistake of checking in early. I was tired and looked at 14:35 instead of 15:36 on my times on the barpad. I went in at :35. As I should have been running late by 2 mins this meant I was 3 mins early so I had total penalty of 5 mins. When the results came out I was 16th which was better than I thought as many other riders had lost more time than me. I was disapointed that I'd lost time when others hadn't but encouraged that my test times would have placed me in 7th just in front of Anders Erikson. I also saw that I had won the first test and that i was competive on all the tests so this boosted my confidence for day 2.
On day 2 everything went well and I placed in 7th position. This is far better than I had expected at this early stage in the season and my best result to date. My confidence was high leading into round 2 in Portugal.