Pål Nilsen Virik let the entire 2014 season behind him already before going home to Norway after retired race ending in XCAT XC this weekend in Dubai. Now he look forward to new opportunities already in February next year.
The season started well with podium in January for the Dubai-based "Dubai Duty Free" team. But after the first World Cup round Pal and his Australian partner To, Barry-Cotter get told that the team was sold and all contracts and agreements were canceled because of this. Therefor was Pal without a team during the next World Cup rounds. The DDF team was sold to Spain and it was precisely these Spaniards who called Pal before the fourth World Cup round and offered space in the Spanish "Lady Spain" team the rest of the year. But without Australian Tom Barry-Cotter. Pal agreed and drove into a decent ninth place in the Italian World Cup race in Stresa with Spaniard Marco Fabrizi.
The team chose and replacing Pål's Spanish partner before last World Cup round due injury. To switch driver or throttleman offers some new challenges in the beginning. During Thursday's first training Pal early understood that there is much work to refine both the crew and boat. "The boat went very well. There was work to do drivingwise. The Italian driver we now tests for the first time has not run this kind of boat before. He is naturally a bit reserved and do not rely entirely on me yet. I sit with throttle and trim on the boat so he must trust me. It is an important part of the Offshore sport. I hope we can improve considerably in the boat. Then I'm sure we come out well in Saturday's main race "thought Pal optimistic before the event.
Fifth place in Speed Run
During Friday's Speed Cat Run the team was moving futher positive and drove into a fine fifth place in fifteen boats field. An ever so slight upturn after the slow start of the week. Qualifying was not as good as Paul and partner Piersimone Voltpe only got 11th starting position for the final race.
During the race they started very slowly and lay almost last in the field on the first rounds.
For tactical reasons they took two long laps early. There is an extra loop that all boats must take twice during the race. This gave positive payment and climb up to eighth place on lap eleven. But on lap twelve of sixteen it was game over. One engine stopped instantaneous. "I had all normal on the instruments. When the engine stopped I got no notice in front "says Pal Virik Nilsen
Posted by wwwebteam