Albert Cabestany has taken the victory in the penultimate round of the Spanish Trial Championship, held in Peñarroya – Pueblo Nuevo (Córdoba), in a race where Jeroni Fajardo was second and Toni Bou completed the podium. The riders agreed that the sections were relatively easy, which meant that they had not to lose concentration or make mistakes of any kind. Cabestany, one of the most veteran and experienced riders, has managed to carry out an impeccable trial, without errors, which has allowed him to cut some important points in the general classification and arrive at Cal Rosal with great options to aspire to the title of Spanish Champion 2011.
Raga, who could only finish fourth, drops in the general classification and even has a hard time getting into the top three.
In his statements, Toni Bou was annoyed, once again, with the Openfree system that governs the Spanish Championship, as he considers it contrary to the spirit of Trial. Today Bou lost all his chances of victory after breaking a ribbon in the eighth zone of the first lap, scoring zero points in that zone; He completed the rest of the route without penalty, but he had no margin for reaction.
According to Cabestany: “I’m very happy with today’s Trial! And it couldn’t have been better for us to finish Toni third, which gives us the opportunity to fight for the title until the end. Today wasn’t a difficult trial. Without a doubt, they have not taken advantage of one of the few (if not the only) virtue of the openfree system and mark more complicated areas. All the rivals have ridden very well and it is clear that in Cal Rosal I will have to be very successful to overtake Bou, the reference rider in recent years”.
According to Bou: “We know the rules and we don’t like it, as it’s contrary to the spirit of trial. Today we saw its effects again in a race in which I only made a small mistake that due to the low difficulty of the sections was impossible for me to recover. We’re competing to win the championship and we’ll do our best not to let it slip away.”
According to Adam Raga “I’m not happy with the result, but I’m satisfied with our performance, the driving we did and the level we showed. Up until the moment of the penalty everything had gone very well and we were close to victory. I do not agree at all with the decision of the zone judge, firstly because he penalised me after someone in the audience told him that there was a broken tape, but without him seeing whether I had broken it or not, and secondly because the regulations specify that in case of doubt the injured party cannot be the driver. Honestly, I’m sure it didn’t break because of me and it did because it was in bad shape. It is not normal that a decision of this type has made me go from being able to win the race to being fourth, since with such an easy trial it was impossible to recover the score. In any case, it was better that it happened in the Spanish championship, because seeing how the first races had gone, the chances of winning the title were very complicated.”
The current edition of the Spanish Trial Championship will conclude on November 27 in Cal Rosal, in the Barcelona town of Olvan
Text: Trialworld
Provisional classification:
T.Bou 55 pts
A.Cabestany 52 pts
J.Fajardo 47 pts
A.Raga 41 pts
J. Casales 36 pts
P.Tarrés 31 pts.
