Bou Toni Bou has won the fourth round of the 2012 Spanish Championship, held on a select route proposed by the Moto Club Alto Henares in the town of Sigüenza, Alcarreña. In second position, with four more points to his credit, was Albert Cabestany, with Adam Raga completing the places of honour.
The Sigüenza Trial was especially tough and selective for all the riders, including the best in the world. The high scores, unusual in a National, perfectly reflect how select the zones were.
The first TR1 rider , in this case Bou, also suffering from gastric problems, scored a record of 30 points , while the winner of Lozoyuela, Raga, did so without penalty; in Ibiza, the second scoring event of the year, Bou scored 10 points.
It’s also interesting to compare it with results from the World Cup. For example, Raga won the first round with 8 points, while Bou won the second with 7 points.
This comparison, added to the fact that from the 5th classified the total records are around 90 points, gives us an idea of the hard day that the riders experienced in Sigüenza.
As usual, the TR1 drivers completed each zone twice in a single lap. Looking at the top five, we can see how most of the fiascos occurred on the first lap, with their records improving significantly in the second pass through the zones.
An interesting fact analysed by rider: of the 3 fiascos that Bou scored on the first lap, he managed to amend two of them in the second pass, with 0 and 1 points. Cabestany committed 4 fiascos on the first lap and only incurred the maximum penalty in one area; the rest, solved with 0 points. Raga, on the other hand, did not repeat any of the 4 fiascos of the first round. Maximum excitement in each area.
This clearly reflects that for these three riders it was a race from less to more, managing to reduce their first partials to almost half of points. All these premises meant that it was a very open race, with room to correct mistakes. After the first pass through the zones, Bou was the leader with 20 points, followed by Raga with 22, Cabestany with 25 and Fajardo with 26 points. The second group, led by Oliveras, accumulated 44 points at the same time.
The fantastic work done by Cabestany in the second round , signing the same partial as Bou -9 points-, was enough to overcome in the final classification a Raga frustrated by the fiasco committed in the last section.
This area seemed, a priori, impossible to tackle due to time and difficulty. Bou scores a two on the first lap, followed by a fantastic one. Raga, who came up to this point with options, leaves a five and a two, securing the third step of the podium.
Cabestany could have put Bou in trouble, but he arrived physically depleted and did not go over the zone on either occasion, something that allowed him, at least, to secure second place.
This result means that Bou -74 points- snatches the leadership of the National again from Raga -70 points-, opening a small margin of four points with only two races left to play. Cabestany is 14 points behind Raga and his fight is more to defend this third step of the podium against Fajardo – both are tied at 56 points.
Also noteworthy is the performance of Jorge Casales , who at only 16 years old in his first year as TR1 has been seventh, just one point behind Borrellas.
In TR2 there was a poor participation with only 6 drivers. The victory went to Ivan Peydró, followed by Cales Traviesa and Marcos Méndez.
In Junior , another driving lesson by one of the firmest promises, Jaime Busto, who won again with a total of 3 points and 20 ahead of the second-placed Ignacio Martín. In third place, closing the podium, Nachette Fernández.
In TR3 another victory for Francesc Recio, followed by Hector Gairin and
Arnau López, while in the +35 variant the victory went to Antoni Ramonet, followed by Rubén and Manuel García.
Finally, in the Cadets, Marc Riba’s victory was also repeated, followed by Adrian Villabrille and Mariano Martín.
The next race will take place on July 15 in Pobladura de las Regueras (León).
Toni Bou: “It’s been a tough weekend, both yesterday and today. In these physical conditions my most realistic goal was to get on the podium. I have achieved it and also with the best possible result, so the satisfaction could not be better. The championship is very competitive and exciting and from what we can see it will be until the last moment.”
Adam Raga: “I’m satisfied, although I would have liked to win and it was a race to do it, so I could be much happier. Still, I think we did a good job and it was a shame that they scored that five in the last section. The race wasn’t easy, quite tight in terms of time – in fact, one of my points was for time – but we fought and showed that we are competitive. It’s a shame we didn’t get a bit more reward, but I’m sure we’ll be able to improve even more in the next races.”
