Welcome to Gothenburg Sweden. The location for the 2008 Slalom World Championships.

It is the last event for the 2008 European tour. How will the Australians match up to the best in the world? Before a race has been run, the Australian contingent has been decimated. Our three competitors has been reduced to one. Steve Daddow is out with a calf injury. Corey Leeson is out with a knee injury. That leaves only Jackson Shapiera to fly the Australian flag.

Racing starts Friday 1st August which is Friday afternoon Australian time.

First event is Giant Slalom. The racing starts on Friday 4.30pm Australian time. I will be posting Jackson’s times and progression as it happens on the blog (that is the plan). So check back to see how he is going. Format is two runs each best time counts.

Hybrid racing on Saturday and Tight Slalom on Sunday. I’ll post up about those races tomorrow.
Here is the GS course

We are shipping Seismic Black Ops all around the country. They will be making appearances in quivers near you. Keep a look out, test em out, get on board.

Here is Leigh Griffiths new set up. Makes me want to bomb hills in South Australia.
Rear wheels are Speed Vents 77mm Translucent Sky Blue 79a
Front wheels are Speed Vents 77mm Translucent Deep Purple 83a

Jackson Shapiera on his first European tour has broken through to grab second at the IGSA Rock and Roll World Cup event.

It is early in the morning , Sydney time, I am still getting details on who won the race, the updates have been coming through during the night on Jacksons progress.

In the second round, Jackson beat Martin Siegrist, to win the heat and move on to the third round.

In the third round Jackson was up against Martin Siegrist, Douglas Silva and Liam Fourie. Silva was too fast for Jackson but he beat the rest to move through to the final eight. From there, Jackson placed second in the final behind Mischo Erban. Patrick Rizzo came third and Erik Lundberg fourth.

Congratulations Jackson. Putting Hopkin Racing on the IGSA World Cup podium for the first time.

So the poor racing team in Europe have had it tough. Heavy rain has delayed racing and qualifying and everyone has been stuck indoors, on an Austrain mountain, with nothing to do. We all feel their misery.

Don’t worry kids, the sun is back out shining in the mountains and the skaters finally get to shake some speed out of those roads. The vibe is happy. Everyone is stoked. Who cares that there is no Playstation, it is not raining anymore … lets go race.

The competition at this race has gone up to another level. The high speeds and the long straights means being the fastest is not always where you want to be. Drafting is the game. Timing your run, tucked in behind the fastest, drafting until you make your run at the finish line. Concentrate on drafting too much and you lose respect for the course, she will rear up and bite your arse. Forget to ride the course while racing against your competition is a recipe for a crash.

Jackson has qualified 18th. The fastest Australian. He continues to improve and must be a contender for Rookie of the Year. If not we’ll make up the award and give it to him. Leeso had a big scare in crashing again in qualifying and was nearly knocked out before the final 64. A wet track was blamed on the crash and Leeso managed to get in a third qualifying run and qualified 31st. The other top Aussie is Daddo – qualifying 28th. Other Australian racers are: Austin Moncrieff = 46, Jeremy Rodgers = 48, Kevin O’Hara = 74.

Top four qualifiers are:
1 Mischo Erban CAN
2 Douglas Silva BRA
3 Fredrik Lindström SWE
4 Michael Zietsman RSA

The finals are tomorrow.

The Austrian Rock and Roll World Cup is billed as the fastest race on the international IGSA circuit has started.
The location is Thalgau (near Salzburg) and and speeds of up to 100km are expected from the stand up racers and up to 120km for the laydown disciplines.
The course is 3km long, with a few challenging technical aspects. There are three 180 degree corners and one 90 degree corner. The drop over the 3km from top to bottom is 200m.

So this course is fast. The spectators watching at the corners can feel the speed and adrenaline surge as the skaters negotiate corners at high speed and race against each other. Drafting and technique are critical in this race, where any mistake can cost you dearly in skin and in getting on the winners podium.
Here is the race footage from 2007. This will give you an idea of the speed and fear these racers will experience over the next three days.

Albabtrieb Skatehorde Video is now online

Here are a few photos of the Australians at Peyragudes.

Corey Leeson

Jackson Shapiera

Steve Daddow

Group shot of the racers

No official information on results. I have not heard from Jackson or Corey. Here are the unofficial results for the Almabtrieb World Cup:

1. Scott Smith (Canada)
2. Kevin Reimer (Canada)
3. Alexandre Ulrich (France)
4. Stefan Rueffli (Switzerland)
5. Mischo Erban (Canada)
6. Martin Seigrist (Switzerland)
7. Patrick Rizzo (USA)
8. Eric Lundberg (Sweden)

No word on the Australian results.

Day 2 at Almabtrieb was a washout. Not completely out, although it rained there was some qualifying runs on the classic and street luge. Full report here on the IGSA World Cup website

And what did the downhill guys do? Stuck on a mountain, in the rain, with a skateboard … what else is there to do? They free rode all day. Jackson says he got some great footage, we’ll all just have to wait to see it later in the week when the boys find some decent internet.
Jackson was using the Landyacht rain wheels with good success. And according to the Marcus on IGSA, the other wheel that worked well was the new Seismic 77mm Speed Vent Black Op Formula

Qualifying

Qualifying results should be up on IGSA today, but why wait, you just want to know how the Aussies did.
Fastest Oz was Steve Daddo. Which is no surprise, he knows this course and has the experience to get 12th fastest overall going into the finals.
Jacko is next qualifying 14th.
Jezza and Austin both scraped into the final 64.
Kev and Leeso are out! On the bright side, we’ll get good film of all the finals with two riders out!!
What happened to Corey? He crashed on both runs.

Here is the course summary from the boys.
The course is extremely technical, long straight into an intense left sweeper into a tight right hairpin. Negotiating the right line and speed is the key. You can come in fast and drift the hairpin and exit slow, or come in slow and risk a crash with the other riders but take a good line and exit with speed.

When we get more news, we’ll post it up.

Today is qualifying day at Almabtrieb World Cup.

There is no internet on the mountain, so Jackson and Corey have not emailed through any information. The news I am getting is very limited.

Jackson says the course is very challenging. The top section is fast and goes into an extremely hectic set of corners and switch backs that is very hard to negotiate if you are going too fast. Whoever makes that first corner would probably win the race.

So I suppose we know Jackson game plan.

Photo Marcus Rietema

So what is Almabrieb?

This is the 3rd IGSA World Cup race of the year, the second for the month of July and will mark the middle of the European Tour for the Hopkin Racing Team.

This course is fast. Set in town of Jungholz, the race is unique because it starts in Austria and finishes in Germany. It has some long straights that encourages drafting and overtaking but throws in lots of technical corners to sort out the riders. Martin Siegrist is the defending champion, and will be hard to beat.

Here is the video from 2007, it will give you can idea of the course and road.

Official race website

IGSA news of the first day