Terreblanche scores twice at Spanish GP

TERREBLANCHE SCORES TWICE AT SPANISH GP 17 May 2009 A refrain was bouncing around under Shannon Terreblanche's blond locks as he got out of the truck upon arrival at Bellpuig - "score in every race, score in every race..." The young South African has had a fairly rotten run of luck in his first few races in the MX1 GP class, and with the season moving into second gear, the time had come to effect a turnaround. Even though his GP career is still fairly fresh, Shannon has been to the spectacular track of Bellpuig, Spain on a few occasions, so his performance would not suffer for a lack of familiarity with the surroundings. Shanter will not go down in history as the rider who gets stuck into his weekend rhythm the quickest, but those that know him realize that he does improve as the weekend goes along. In a particularly troubled session, he only set the 27th fastest time in the timed practice, and when the qualifying race went pear-shaped, forcing him to retire in an early lap, it left him with a very unfavourable start position for Sunday's races. Doubtlessly piqued by the Saturday afternoon mishap, Shannon was dead set on pulling the throttle cable of his Sturm Kawasaki with some determination during the races. He barged his way straight into a points scoring position at the start of race 1, and as he steadily edged forward through the pack, the refrain kept repeating itself. Finishing the race in the points was all important, and all mistakes had to be banished to the outer edges of Siberia. For once, the cards fell his way, and without too much drama, the 19 year old rode to 16th position, his joint best result in an MX1 GP race. WIth the first points on the table, the aim now was to keep the momentum going and get a double whammy of points for the day. Shanter completed half the job with a good start that again pitched him in the points scoring zone. His new-found consistency won the day, and he kept it steady to finish in 18th position for another couple of points added to his tally. ALthough 17th overall in a racing event may not sound like much, one must remember that we are talking about a world championship event in the premier MX1 class. More importantly, it represents a significant step forward for the young South African in his quest to familiarize himself with the brutal 450ccd bike and move towards top 15 results in his debut year in his debut year. He has now hoisted himself up to 26th in the world standings, and if the consistency that he displayed during this event remains, he may yet climb another few rungs up this very steep ladder. Shannon will represent his German team at the second round of the ADAC Masters series next weekend, and after that it is off to England for the next GP in the world series. RESULTS: All GP results are available on the official website of the motocross world championships   (Pic- Alex Hodgkinson) Mail server hosting by www.mxhosting.be This report is available online   TEAM SPONSORS   PRIVATE SPONSORS

Posted via email from motocrosscanada's posterous