It has been nine years since Kevin Strijbos won his last GP. In his blog he looks back on his weekend and how something he would never have thought would happen in the rough sand of Lommel, Belgium happened.
Lommel came up and I did not expect too much of that. Other years we always worked so hard for it and it always turned out bad. Now, this year I could not ride in the week before Lommel because of a big problem with painful blisters, so I had no expectations at all when we went there. Maybe that was a good thing for me; that I could do my thing and not think about results and I showed good speed immediately in free practice, maybe not the overall time but I felt great on my bike. But the whole weekend I just felt really good.
Saturday, I was third in the qualifying race and it was a surprise to me because riding went very easy. I did not have to put too much effort-in for that race. In the evening when I went back home to sleep, I thought maybe it was possible to get on the podium, but then everything had to go just right; nothing could go wrong. So I felt good and I had a good night’s sleep.
On Sunday, during warm up, the track was really nice, not so rough like last year and there was some speed here and there. It was more fun for me to ride. In the first moto I had a really good start, I got to second and was after Max Nagl. I started to match his speed, but that was wrong of me, so I had to slow down again, because I was not in my rhythm and I lost some places. In the end I found it again and came back up to third. I was so happy and also the team was so happy with that race. I was tired from that moto but I was still fine.
Then I was sitting in my camper thinking ‘maybe this could be a day that I can be back on the podium.’ I was third, which is good, and anything can happen at Lommel; crashes, changes or mistakes can happen easy. So I went to the line and was thinking ‘okay let’s try to have fun, be in my own flow, and own rhythm.’
My start was not good in the second race, I was 12th I think, but I pushed very hard to get back up-front. Then Clement Desalle crashed in front of me, so I moved up and was behind Nagl again, then Nagl crashed and I was then third. So, I thought ‘yes, this is going to be a podium, because 3-3 normally means podium.’ So I just kept on going-and-going and kept pushing.
