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Believe it or not the Endurance World Championship is televised and a camera crew was busy filming and Russell got volunteered to do an interview as "an English speaker who knows what he is talking about". As the only native English speaker to win the EWC 3 times I think he just about qualifies! I am not sure if Denise is trying to make him laugh on camera or just laughing herself at the German interviewer's inane questions. She told me that Suzi Perry has nothing to worry about from this quarter!
Meanwhile, I was shaving another few grams off the second bikes airbox where we had discovered one of the tanks was rubbing on it.
Damo gets his 'killer eyes' on before going out for his Super Pole lap. The top ten qualifying posistions count for nothing apart from getting into the Super Pole competition which is being run in this class for the first time this year. Then the fastest rider from each team is timed for one flying lap and it could be that the 10th qualifier ends up 1st or, more likely, the first ends up 10th if he messes up his lap!
Meanwhile, Craig found a way of proving that our bike's fuel map is not quite as efficient as it was last year without the aid of a computer! There are actually cunning reasons behind this but it is always good for a lighter moment in the pit!
A momentous moment as Phase One are called to their first ever Super Pole - we missed out at Le Mans. Damo had been psyching himself up for this moment for the last 6 months and constantly referred to it as 'his' Super Pole as if there was absolutely no possibility whatsoever that the other 2 riders might be chosen to do it! Speculation was rife in the team as to what the result might be if Pedro or Alex had posted a faster time in qualifying! Anything from the greatest mickey take of all time to a total rider melt down!
I am sure if Russell had his way he would prefer to start 11th and avoid risking a crash!
The flag goes down and off he goes. Dunlop supply special tyres built to do one warm up lap and then one really fast lap and then they are finished! We do not usually use them to qualify as there is too much chance of it being wasted if a backmarker gets in the way on the fast lap and this played against us as Damo was not really used to it. He ended up coming out of the 3rd to last turn much faster than he ever had before and then arriving at the 2nd to last much too fast and losing a couple of tenths. It was still fast enough to move us up to 5th though, and the fastest lap the team has ever done at Oschersleben.
Later that night one of the local teams put on a superb concert at the back of their pit. This girl is German but sings fantastically well in English.
I got on with preparing the light tape ID light for the spare bikes mud guard. This time I used 2 small inverters to further increase the brightness. We had tested it in night practice and it was really good and made Denise very happy. You could see it no problem at all at least 100m before the bike got level with the pit box. During the race it was proved to be pretty crash proof on 2 occasions!
A rare sight indeed! Yes, this really is a picture of a rider doing some work in the pit that is not directly connected to his own kit or riding! Alex repairs the TV aerial lead.
Sunday morning and Ulf gets in a bit more refuelling practice during the warm up session with Julian practicing holding the fire bottle (and a rag!).
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Page updated on 16 June 2009
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