On The Pegs December 2019 - Volume 4 - Issue 12 | Page 135

On The Pegs
VOL. 4 ISSUE 12 - DECEMBER 2019
135
got to me and I struggled to perform consistently. There was expectation during
1995 for another win, but I wasn’t riding well enough and just didn’t deserve win
number two and I needed more time and to train a little differently. So my father
and I started to spend more time in Spain training in better weather and on dif-
ferent terrain to make up the difference on my rivals and to ride in these condi-
tions so I could reach their level.
Having won the World Trial at Houghton Tower twelve months earlier,
what went wrong at Hawkstone Park the following year when you ended
up finishing fourteenth and almost out of the points in front of your home
fans?
There were no excuses and I rode terrible and that pressure crept back in and
I couldn’t ride at all, it was probably one of my worst rides that I can remember.
It was a real eye opener to me at how fast the table can turn and that I needed
to be much better prepared. I hoped that would bring me more confidence. It’s
always worse when you don’t perform at your home race. It has always hurt me
a lot when this happens and I have been known to be miserable and sulk after-
wards at times! It’s the same now.
What a different story it was at Hawkstone Park twelve months later –
1996 – when you claimed your second ever World Championship round win
before then winning again the following weekend in Ireland?
After the previous year’s disappointment I certainly felt the pressure to show
that I could han-dle these situations and expectation, I had signed again for Beta
and had the best bikes availa-ble together with help from Donato Miglio who
was my teammate and also test rider, he knew how I liked my bike and how to
set it up for me at the various events and during 1996 this made a big difference
and the wins started to roll in and all the effort of training in Spain was paying off.
1996 was the year that you showed that you could mix it with the best in
the World week in week out – finishing as runner up to Marc Colomer in the
World Championship – despite riding the last round with a broken wrist –
this must have confirmed to yourself that you were ready to challenge for
the title the following season?
Things were going pretty well during this season and I think after the race in
USA I led the championship for one week before Canada and before Marc turned
up the heat and opened up a lead that I couldn’t catch. I think that I didn’t know