A journal from France, Nagatani underwent a Ledenon baptism

Hi. This is Nagatani. Here is my report from last Ledenon test March 20-21. I hop you like it.

We had 5 sets of 20min for each day.  On day1, I went out for the first 20min just to confirm the track and the machine.  Next 20min, I followed my team mate, Clement first but at lap 4, he slipped down from his front end at this evil downhill right-hand turn.  The bike damaged pretty badly and that was end of his test.

I continued my test, checked different settings, and in the afternoon I was improving my laps and got 30sec. But I was hit from behind at turn2 by a rider whom I just passed at turn1, crashed.  It was certainly very hurting but fortunately I had no injury so as the bike.

On day2, started with raining weather and tried to find wet setting.  The rain stopped in the afternoon and we could try some more dry settings then.  At the last 20min of the day2, the track was completely dry so I pushed hard to get my best lap time… and ended up crashing at the evil downhill right hander, where Clement crashed his bike on previous day.  There was a hump and I lost control… down from the front. Really bad result but both myself and the bike were okay.  It was really “Ledenon baptism”.

I found that those French tracks are slippery and humps and bumps are just not what I used to in Japan.  If you are not careful, you’ll be crashing in no time.  However, that was good training for me.

My debut race is going to be this weekend at Ledenon.  I brace myself up for it.  I will send a race report.  Thank you.

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It looks like he got a baptism however glad to know he is okay.  The French championship is starting this weekend at Ledenon.  Thank you all for your support.