Sam Love is another Kiwi road-racer who is making waves internationally this season.

On July 17-19, he raced at the third round of the Norwegian Road-racing Championships, keen to add to his outstanding results from the earlier rounds.

“I was currently sitting third place in championship and very close in points to first and second so I was aiming to win the championship,” he explained.

“The race was held at Karlskoga Motorsation in southern Sweden, which I have never ridden before. It is a terribly bumpy tight circuit which is apparently the home testing circuit for Ohlins (suspension company) for that reason.

“Overall there were 49, 600cc bikes competing and they had to split them into two classes.

“I qualified in third place and on the front row of premier class.

But that’s when things started to go wrong for the Kiwi hero.

“I got the holeshot into turn one and led for two laps before I made a mistake and ran off the track. I rejoined in about 10th place and pushed hard to try fight my way back forward, but in doing so I crashed and injured the inside of my left thigh as the bike hit it very hard (see photo, right). This ruled me out of race two and unfortunately has ended my hopes for championship win.”

Not ready to quit, Love then lined up again the following weekend, July 24-26, at the Nordic International Championships (Scandinavian Championship), ready to battle with the best riders from Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.

“We were to race two qualifying races and two 18-lap races over the weekend to decide the best rider in Scandinavia. Once again there were too many bikes for one 600cc class so split into two classes,” he explained.

“With my leg still injured, I struggled to grip the tank and keep control over the bike throughout the whole weekend, but I did the best I could.”

Love qualified in fifth for the first race.

“We were very lucky just dodging the rain. I had an uncharacteristically terrible start, from fifth place on the second row, I dropped back to eighth in the first corner. The 18-lap race gave me time to fight back past 7th and 6th to finish 6th.

“It was a wet track for Sunday morning’s qualifying. I was very happy to get up to 4th as I’m not so comfortable in the rain. That gave me 4th starting position on second row for the race and the track was drying very slowly.

“I was a last-minute decision on tyres, fingers crossed for a dry race. I got back to my normal lightning fast race starts and took the holeshot in race two.

“Unfortunately, missing a gear into turn one the revs were to low and I had no power on the exit, I lost two places, but continued to try pull the leaders back. I struggled with power in my left leg on the many direction changes and fell further back to take another 6th place in that race, giving me 6th overall for the Nordic (Scandinavian) International Championship.”

Photos courtesy Tone Baekkelie Jacobsen and Picman.co.uk

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