FAT BMX Magazine - REDLINE'S GLOBAL TEAM SWEEP TOP-4 SPOTS AT FIRST UCi SUPERCROSS / DENMARK - BMX Racing

BMX Racing : REDLINE'S GLOBAL TEAM SWEEP TOP-4 SPOTS AT FIRST UCi SUPERCROSS / DENMARK

Posted by Bart on 2009/5/22 12:40:00 (1367 reads)

The first Supercross race of 2009 took place under much better weather than the previous year, and with the Redline Global Team out in full force - from Italy to America, Australia to The Netherlands, France to Japan, the leading brand of BMX race bikes went to Denmark hoping for a good showing in the finals. First up, came the Time Trials. And of the top 20, seven were aboard Redline Flight bikes - including No.2 ranked speedster Manuel DeVecchi and No.3 fastest Damien Godet.

"I did the best time of the first lap here in Copenhagen," Redline's Italian Stallion, Manuel DeVecchi, told us. "But the UCi changed the rules and didn't let the top 32 riders after the first lap do a second lap. They said that the top 32 were already qualified and their positions were fixed. So, me first and Damien second - we thought. After all the other riders did the second lap, they combined the results and France's Cayleron did better than me and stole my first place. It's fine, but does not seem fair because I didn't have my chance to improve my lap. And normally the second lap is always faster than the first one."

Dutch riders van der Biezen, van der Putten, Scherpen and DeWilde were ranked all 10, 12, 17 and 18 (in that order). And impressively, Redline's All-American Kid Denzel Stein took the 15th spot in Time Trials - making him the second fastest American and only one of three U.S. riders in the Top-20.

By the end of the weekend, Stein was hoping to change the name of this country to Den"zel"mark with a podium finish, but after winning his first moto, a major crash in round 2 ended his weekend abruptly. Once back in the States, Denzel verified that he was OK - and that his crash was probably the hardest bail he's ever taken in his BMX career. "He was pretty loopy the rest of the weekend," texted Redline's Alise Post, when giving us an update of the action.

Speaking of Redline's Alise Post, she took the 8th quickest time in the ladies Time Trials and was the second fastest American gal. Coming off of her double wins in Bakersfield, Alise went in to this race feelin' confident. She was haulin' in her three semi's but with a not-so-hot start, got balled up by a group of girls and lost all of her momentum for jumping by them on the remainder of the burly course.

During Mens qualifying, Godet continued his hot laps and won every moto. Moto 5, in particular, was packed with Redline global riders - including DeVecchi, Robert DeWilde and Denzel Stein; who each scored at least one moto win - and two of them getting carted off to the medical aid station. Despite a 3rd moto crash for Italy's No.1 guy, he still had low enough points to move on to quarters. "I crashed very bad during the third moto," said Devecchi. "The Russian rider Komarov, jumped completely out of balance and came over on to me on the second jump. We both crashed but I had the worst consequences. I hit my head on the asphalt and lost consciousness for few minutes. I woke up with my left hand broken. It's nothing serious but I have to recover for a month. I can't go to races in this period but I can train my legs in gym. It was really a shame," admitted DeVecchi sadly, "because I felt I was one of the fastest guys on the track and had trained very hard for this. ...but that's BMX."

Redline's Damien Godet almost didn't make it out of his 1/4, either. "I felt great during the competition," Godet told us afterwards. "But in my quarter, I had a bad gate. Since I was starting from lane 1, I made an inside move in the first corner, only to touch Bradford and unclip! I wasn't fast down the second straight and it was very close! I don't know how I did it - but I avoided a crash and took 4th to move on to the semis."

Meanwhile, an incredible total of six Dutch riders had moved on to the semi's - which would see 2 eliminated. Just like the past four rounds of the Euro Champ series, Redline's Global Team had the odds in their favor for the finale'. With 5 Redline's out of 8 in the main (four of them being Dutch dominators), chances were good for a podium sweep. And with half the gate aboard orange Redline Flight bikes, there was an even better chance for a full Dutch podium. In the end, it was the 666 of "Evil" IVO van der PUTTON scoring the huge victory, closely followed by MARTIJN SCHERPEN.com and Redline's Olympian Frenchmen DAMIEN GODET with the third. Fellow Dutchman RAYMON van der BIEZEN placed 4th - making it a top-4 Redline sweep, and SANDER BISSELING rounding things out in the 6-spot.

Damien summed up the main event from his perspective: "In the main, I had a good first straight and I was in fourth after the first turn. I had a lot of speed and over-shot the doubles a littlee bit on the 2nd straight. In the second turn, I came back on Nhlapo and blocked him up high. I was in 2nd for just a second, but Scherpen - who was 4th, had more speed and passed me before the third stretch. From there, I kept the 3 spot to the finish line !"

Dutch National Coach Bas DeBever was ecstatic with the finishes. "The dutch crew was on fire!," Bas said proudly. "Ivo was 'feelin' it' all weekend long, In the finals he was strong out of the gate together with teammate Martijn Scherpen and Sifiso Nhlapo. Ivo took the lead over the second jump and from there, never looked back. Martijn was following close and got 2nd after a nice swoop in turn two. Raymon van der Biezen and Sander Bisseling were battling hard end and ended up in 4th (Raymon) and 6th (Sander). The whole team was, just like last week, feeling good."

Elite Men results: 1 Ivo van der Putten (Dutch-Redline) 2 Martijn Scherpen (Dutch-Redline) 3 Damien Godet (France-Redline) 4 Raymon van der Biezen (Dutch-Redline) 5 Sifiso Nhlapo (So.Africa) 6 Sander Bisselling (Dutch-Redline) 7 Michal Prokop (Czech) 8 Roger Rinderknecht (Swiss)

"I was just feeling great the last few weeks," winner Ivo van der Putten told FatBMX.com. "We'd been in France for 45 days, we all came back stronger. Qualifying in12th was really not too bad. For how important the gate pick was, lane 1 was narrow. The best places were 2, 3 or 4. I think not too far on the outside, so you had to be in the top 2 in previous races for a good gate pick. The big jumps are not the problem. The speed is much higher because of the giant hill. That's what makes SX so different. It's another level of BMX racing, completely. You either like it or not. And I love it."

Definitely not a bad Supercross for Redline and the Dutch - as well as France's Godet - who had qualified 3rd-fastest in Time Trials. This was the first time a single brand of bike has taken the entire podium (let alone all Top-4 positions) at a UCi Supercross event. "I definitely love SX tracks," exclaimed third place finisher Godet. "Fast and big!"// Congrats to the entire Redline Global team for a job well done.

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