Two strokes...
By TMX Archives on 14th Aug 03
time's soon come round again and I've managed to start doing some races at long last. WELL COLUMN time's soon come round again and I've managed to start doing some races at long last. An Italian championship and a European round just for starters and then I'll return home for the Epynt and Fast Eddy at Hawkstone.But first I was off to Italy and back to the team's HQ in Sarzana near Pisa for round four of the Italian championship. For the event I was going to try the WR250F just to see how I like it. Now I knew that this bike had won the world champs in its class so I was looking forward to riding it.After waiting for the machine we were off to the local test track for some laps to see what she was like. The only problem was that for the last month I've been riding a Ride MX YZ250 with some mods from Steve Plainer Boy so I've had a bit of umpty dumpty under the old right wrist - how would the little thumper compare? Well, not too bad is the answer - other than you feel like you're going fast but when the stopwatch comes out I'm afraid you're not going as fast as you thought you were. So on to the event and after riding the pants off the thing I was rewarded with a fourth in class and 14th position overall. Not brilliant but not a disaster. The bike ran great but I got the feeling that I needed to be on a 250 two-stroke.Now as far as I'm concerned, all the negative ***t that's said about two-strokes is exactly that - ***t. As an overall machine I still feel they're the best because in enduros we have different terrain all the time and I reckon I'm between one and two seconds quicker every minute of riding on a 250cc stroker compared to a 250cc thumper. To back this theory up I did some testing with my mechanic comparing the bikes - and the result was crystal clear. Best time on a 250cc two-stroke - 2.04, best time on a 250cc four-stroke - 2.07.So what next? Well, after speaking with the team I will be racing a 250cc two-stroke until the end of the year - starting with a European round in northern Italy where I was let loose with a '02 YZ250. Great! I was ready and waiting. The event was some five hours from the team HQ and I only decided to do it at the last minute so everything was a bit of a rush - but at least it was going to be two days of riding and a start to my two-stroke campaign.I only had time to walk each test just the once but I didn't feel too rushed and my team were very chilled out about the event. But that didn't stop me from wanting to have a good ride and after some short but interesting tests I'd won the class and finished second overall - three seconds off the day's winning time. The second day went even better and I was delighted to win the class from my old arch rival Passeri - especially as last weekend he was fourth overall in the Italian championship. All in all a good weekend.This weekend I'm off to an extreme race in Brescia to hopefully win some money for a change instead of giving it all to Knighter.On a final note, I would just like to congratulate all the lads who rode the Euro round. It was nice to see that they're keen to get some experience at a good level. Also, thanks to the pit people who looked after me as the Italians would've been quite happy to watch me put fuel in my machine myself.Ciai Fasto Eddi