Toni Bou won the first day of competition at the US round of the FIM World Trials Championship in Exeter, Rhode Island. Photography by Shan Moore
Exeter, Rhode Island (July 25-26, 2015) – After three straight losses to arch rival Adam Raga, Repsol Honda’s Toni Bou got back on track with a solid victory at the US round of the FIM World Trials Championship in Exeter, Rhode Island.
The weekend started off with a bit of controversy when all of the factory bikes except for Team Beta were detained at customs in New York and didn’t arrive at the trials site until nearly 5pm on Friday night, leaving the riders very little time to become accustomed to the local terrain.
On Saturday morning, Raga and Bou remained tied on the first loop through the first three sections, however, Raga slid his Gas Gas off the exit rock of section four and took an unfortunate five. Meanwhile, Bou went clean in the section. Bou returned the favor in section six, however, when his minder accidentally grabbed his bike when he thought Bou was falling and the Spaniard was given a five for the ride. Raga escaped with a two.
Bou added a safety dab on the difficult seventh section, while Raga failed the section altogether and received a five, so at that point the cake seemed ready to put in the oven.
After one lap, Bou led with nine points, while Raga sat second with 21 and Sherco’s Albert Cabestany third with 30.
Bou managed to clean section six on his second go-around and finished the lap with a 12, three points more than his first lap.
Meanwhile, Raga cleaned up his act a little and only dropped one more point that he had on his previous loop, even though the sections were becoming more difficult.
Beta’s Jeroni Fajardo moved ahead of Cabestany to take over third, while another Spanish Beta rider Jorge Casales, bumped up to fourth.
Bou put the icing on the cake on the third and final lap, posting an 11-point lap, compared to Raga’s 18, giving Bou a total of 37 and Raga a total of 69.
Casales improved considerably on lap three and moved into third for the day with a total of 78, while Cabestany settled for fourth with a total of 83.
Day two of the US round will start at 9:00am in the morning. Check back for more results.
Saturday
1. Toni Bou (Hon) 37
2. Adam Raga (GG)
3. Jorge Casales (Bet)
4. Albert Cabestany (Bet)
5. Jeroni Fajardo (Bet)
6. Takahisa Fujinami (Hon)
7. James Dabill (Ver)
8. Alexandre Ferrer (Shr)
9. Jaime Busto (Hon)
10. Franz Kadlec (Bet)