With many riders commenting that the motocross and enduro special tests in Canada were similar to those found in Finland it was little surprise that Samuli Aro topped the Enduro 2 class on both days at the fifth round of the WEC. Having claimed the E2 class win on both days at the GP of Italy, Samuli continued his good form to claim two more day wins. On day one Yamaha riders Stefan Merriman and Johnny Aubert surrounded the Finn on the podium with the UFO Corse Yamaha team mates placing 30 seconds apart and in second and third places respectively. On day two Aro was again the rider to beat and was joined by countryman Mika Ahola and Johnny Aubert on the podium. For Merriman numerous crashes early in the day knocked the Australian's confidence in the challenging conditions and saw him place in an eventual fifth position. For Aubert day two was also a difficult one, but for a very different reason. Having broken a rib at the GP of Italy Aubert had been unable to train or ride a bike prior to the Canadian GP and as a result found the event extremely hard. In the '06 Enduro 2 world championship standings Stefan Merriman is currently second to Samuli Aro while Aubert lays fourth, just 10 points off third. Currant Enduro 3 world championship leader David Knight continued his domination of the E3 class in Canada topping the class on both days. Finishing three and a half minutes ahead of his team-mate Marko Tarkkala on day one the Manxman then placed close to five minutes ahead on day two and in doing so finished the weekend unbeaten in the E3 class. Claiming third on both days was French rider Seb Guillaume.
Johnny Aubert (UFO Corse Yamaha) Enduro 2 class - Day 1: Third, Day 2: Third "I feel extremely tired after the race because I wasn't able to train or ride since the last round of the world championship, because I broke some ribs. I have tried my hardest but I felt really tired at the end of each day. I made some small crashes on day one but apart from that everything went pretty well. I finished on the podium so I was happy with that. "I crashed once on each of the special tests on the first lap on day two and then twice on the extreme test on the final lap. Apart from being really tired during the race it has been a good event. It wasn't as difficult as the race in Italy, which was a good thing. The tests were difficult but the course was really enjoyable." Stefan Merriman (UFO Corse Yamaha) Enduro 2 class - Day 1: Second, Day 2: Fifth "Day one went ok but my performances on the enduro test let me down. It was very similar to Finnish conditions, which obviously favoured Aro and Ahola. I pushed as hard as I could without wanting to ride over the limit but it was so difficult on the enduro test because there were tree roots, rocks and ruts everywhere. "Day two went badly right from the start because I crashed three times in the first enduro test. I just couldn't find any sort of a rhythm and every time I hit a tree root I seemed to crash before I knew what had happened. I lost a lot of time there. That knocked my confidence and it was hard to get it back. It was so easy to damage your bike in the enduro test so I just took it steadily. "The event was really good - the organisers have done a great job. I would have liked the ground conditions to have been a little harder but apart from that it has been great." Race classification Enduro 2 Round: 5 - Parry Sound, Canada Circuit: Parry Sound Race: day 1 Pos. Rider Manufacturer Nat. Total Time 1 S. Aro KTM FIN 45' 16.980 2 S. Merriman Yamaha AUS +54.190 3 J. Aubert Yamaha FRA +1' 23.920 4 M. Ahola Honda FIN +2' 24.540 5 F. Planet KTM FRA +2' 25.110 6 N. Paganon Husqvarna FRA +3' 24.000 7 C. Guerrero GasGas ESP +3' 38.530 8 X. Galindo KTM ESP +3' 55.780 9 F. Dini Yamaha ITA +4' 22.090 10 V. Salonen HusaBerg FIN +4' 27.820 11 K. Caselli KTM USA +4' 35.630 12 N. Kanney Yamaha USA +4' 50.690 13 E. McConnell TM GBR +5' 28.700 14 G. Kearney Suzuki AUS +7' 44.720 15 G. Giroux Suzuki CAN +8' 16.740 16 K. Glasgow KTM CAN +9' 12.190 17 K. Graffunder KTM CAN +10' 51.960 18 R. Reed KTM CAN +12' 40.800 19 D. Watt HusaBerg CAN +12' 41.730 20 B. Rempel KTM CAN +12' 49.060 Race 2: day 2 Pos. Rider Manufacturer Nat. Total Time 1 S. Aro KTM FIN 58' 27.680 2 M. Ahola Honda FIN +52.650 3 J. Aubert Yamaha FRA +1' 56.220 4 F. Planet KTM FRA +1' 59.320 5 S. Merriman Yamaha AUS +2' 37.710 6 N. Paganon Husqvarna FRA +3' 6.000 7 X. Galindo KTM ESP +3' 22.660 8 A. Botturi Aprilia ITA +3' 55.180 9 C. Guerrero GasGas ESP +3' 58.010 10 K. Caselli KTM USA +4' 25.450 11 N. Kanney Yamaha USA +4' 30.760 12 F. Dini Yamaha ITA +4' 53.670 13 V. Salonen HusaBerg FIN +6' 32.650 14 K. Glasgow KTM CAN +6' 51.570 15 E. McConnell TM GBR +7' 42.090 16 G. Giroux Suzuki CAN +10' 28.030 17 D. Watt HusaBerg CAN +13' 5.760 18 I. McKill KTM CAN +13' 19.200 19 T. Burman HusaBerg SWE +13' 50.690 20 K. Graffunder KTM CAN +14' 7.000 Championship standings Enduro 2 Pos. Rider Manufacturer Nat. Points 1 Samuli Aro KTM FIN 228 2 Stefan Merriman Yamaha AUS 205 3 Mika Ahola Honda FIN 200 4 Johnny Aubert Yamaha FRA 190 5 Fabien Planet KTM FRA 142 6 Cristobal Guerrero GasGas ESP 135 7 Xavier Galindo KTM ESP 131 8 Valtteri Salonen HusaBerg FIN 92 9 Fabrizio Dini Yamaha ITA 91 10 Alessandro Botturi Aprilia ITA 85 11 Nicolas Paganon Husqvarna FRA 75 12 Paul Edmondson Honda GBR 74 13 Andrea Beconi Beta ITA 62 14 Andrea Belotti KTM ITA 61 15 Euan McConnell TM GBR 58 16 Kurt Caselli KTM USA 40 17 Emmanuel Albepart Honda FRA 39 18 Petteri Silvan KTM FIN 28 19 Thierry Klutz Sherco BEL 21 20 Christophe Nambotin Husqvarna FRA 20 Manufacturers standings Enduro 2 Pos. Manufacturer Points 1 KTM 228 2 Yamaha 226 3 Honda 200 4 GasGas 139 5 HusaBerg 92 6 Aprilia 85 7 Husqvarna 83 8 Beta 67 9 TM 57 10 Suzuki 36 11 Sherco 31 12 Kawasaki 16 Enduro 1 : Fifth position on both days for Micheluz Round: 5 - Parry Sound, Canada Circuit: Parry Sound Date: 16 July 2006 Crowd: 4000 Temp: 26ºC Weather: Sunny Spaniard Ivan Cervantes and Italian Simone Albergoni shared a day win each in the Enduro 1 class at the GP of Canada, the fifth round of the '06 World Enduro Championship. It was Cervantes that topped the first day ahead of Albergoni after the two riders fought tooth and nail all day. With just 10 seconds separating the two, Pole Bartosz Oblucki claimed third, finishing close to one minute behind Albergoni. On day two positions were reversed at the top of the class with Albergoni getting the better of the current E1 championship leader. Winning four of the day's nine special tests Albergoni placed 40 seconds ahead of Cervantes with the Spaniard finishing almost the exact same distance ahead of third placed rider Bartosz Oblucki. Due to the logistical challenges and high costs of competing in Canada less than 10 E1 WEC regulars travelled to North America with just nine and eight riders respectively scoring points in the E1 class. With just one rider representing the UFO Corse Yamaha team in Canada Italian Maurizio Micheluz had a good weekend finishing in fifth position on both days. Finding the soft and in places rocky conditions difficult to master, Maurizio finished day one without problems but then crashed hard on day two. Despite being de-tuned by his crash Maurizio claimed valuable championship points and currently sits in fifth in the E1 world championship standings. Maurizio Micheluz (UFO Corse Yamaha) Enduro 1 class - Day 1: Fifth, Day 2: Fifth "I felt like I rode quite well on day one - not great but ok. I didn't make any mistakes and I finished fifth, which I was reasonable happy with. I think that if I had pushed any harder I would have crashed because I didn't feel so comfortable in the conditions. "On day two I crashed hard on the second enduro test and I didn't feel so good after that. I just wanted to finish the race as best as I could after that. It was a strange race because the ground in the special tests was very different to what I am used to. The organisation was very good though and the race was really interesting." Race classification Enduro 1 Round: 5 - Parry Sound, Canada Circuit: Parry Sound Race: day 1 Pos. Rider Manufacturer Nat. Total Time 1 I. Cervantes KTM ESP 46' 51.770 2 S. Albergoni Honda ITA +10.090 3 B. Oblucki Husqvarna POL +1' 7.480 4 A. Belometti KTM ITA +1' 21.980 5 M. Micheluz Yamaha ITA +2' 39.810 6 A. Roberts Yamaha AUS +3' 9.030 7 M. Hartmann KTM GER +3' 51.760 8 S. Cuthbertson KTM CAN +7' 48.260 9 J. Skinner KTM CAN +10' 58.180 Race 2: day 2 Pos. Rider Manufacturer Nat. Total Time 1 S. Albergoni Honda ITA 59' 14.260 2 I. Cervantes KTM ESP +39.070 3 B. Oblucki Husqvarna POL +1' 18.960 4 A. Belometti KTM ITA +1' 22.820 5 M. Micheluz Yamaha ITA +4' 55.480 6 A. Roberts Yamaha AUS +6' 0.140 7 S. Cuthbertson KTM CAN +9' 40.140 8 J. Skinner KTM CAN +12' 5.560 Championship standings Enduro 1 Pos. Rider Manufacturer Nat. Points 1 Ivan Cervantes KTM ESP 241 2 Simone Albergoni Honda ITA 212 3 Alessandro Belometti KTM ITA 174 4 Bartosz Oblucki Husqvarna POL 167 5 Mauricio Micheluz Yamaha ITA 161 6 Petri Pohjamo TM FIN 105 7 Helder Rodrigues Yamaha POR 97 8 Mike Hartmann KTM GER 84 9 Nicolas Deparrois Husqvarna FRA 75 10 Freddy Blanc KTM FRA 74 11 Peter Bergvall Suzuki SWE 52 12 Julien Gauthier Honda FRA 43 13 Frederik Georgsson KTM SWE 41 14 Roberto Bazzurri Husqvarna ITA 32 15 Anthony Roberts Yamaha AUS 30 16 Shane Cuthbertson KTM CAN 27 17 Joan Jou Yamaha ESP 27 18 Robert Carlsson Yamaha SWE 26 19 James Skinner KTM CAN 25 20 Manuel Pievani KTM ITA 24 29 Fernando Ferreira Yamaha POR 13 30 Alexandre Mendes Yamaha FRA 12 33 Arnau Vilanova Yamaha ESP 10 35 Andre Fernandez Yamaha POR 6 37 Santos Helio Yamaha ESP 4 Manufacturers standings Enduro 1 Pos. Manufacturer Points 1 KTM 241 2 Honda 212 3 Husqvarna 177 4 Yamaha 166 5 TM 105 6 Suzuki 77 7 Kawasaki 24
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