After finishing off the first round of washing of the race bikes and gathering all the stuff from our campsite in Wales it was time for the next journey. It would take us to the next location which was in Uzerche in France. We started to drive the 1300km and by lunch time on Monday and by evening that same day we stopped at the hotel between Calais and Paris. We passed both London and Paris. These cities are truly BIG cities, after I checked the map I realized that the ring looped freeway around London is 200km. Thru Paris traffic was really slow due to three accidents that had occurred and slowed down the traffic. We arrived at Uzerche in France on Tuesday. It is a very old city which is built alongside a riverbank. On the top of the hill lays a castle and it was really beautiful. Tuesday evening we walked around in the city as tourists because the paddock was not open until Wednesday. The first thing Roland did was to walk over to the local butcher and buy a large sausage. Wherever we get there is nothing that beats his favourite Swedish sausage Falukorv, or as he prefers to call it “dalafile´”. France is a really beautiful country. There is only one thing that I don’t like and that is the unwillingness from some of the people to speak English even though then can. It sometimes makes it difficult to buy food or check into a hotel. The best strategy seems to be to speak Swedish with them for a while and then they usually starts to use English enough to get understood. Nicklas Börjesson, Roland Öhrn and Jesper "Jeppe" Person with Uzerche in the background. Joakim Ljunggren aiming high. PHOTO: Nicklas Börjesson On the Wednesday it was time to enter the paddock and to build up the service area. The race area was just outside of the city on a hill with the paddock in the middle and the three special stages around the paddock with walking distance of a few minutes. It was sunshine and really high temperatures, about 35 degrees all week. Outside of the paddock there was a big outdoor swimming pool that lots of people used in this heat. Unfortunately I personally did not have time to use it because we had a lot of work after last weekends race to take care of.  The bikes are gone thru completely and all wear items are exchanged. After that it’s time for new tests and settings during Thursday as usual. When it’s all done we have to make the final preparation of the bikes again. Tom Sagar. PHOTO: Nicklas Börjesson. After the Friday inspection it was quite relaxed compared to what it is usually like when I have to pack the service van and prepare the outside service location. This time I did not have to do this since the race loops where close enough to use the same service area. The French round turned out to be a real test of machines, riders and us mechanics in the service. The terrain surrounding the race location was quite hilly and the ground was very hard with grass. This exact type of surface is usually a bit difficult for our Scandinavian riders since we don’t have it at home. It showed from the start that our riders Björne, Joakim and Valtteri did not quite keep up with the fastest among the south-european riders who are extremely fast on this surface. We changed settings and switched forks and rear shocks several times to see if it could make them faster. Joakim made really good times on the extreme test but lost a little too much on the other tests. The all new Husaberg bikes that we are running this season are prototype machines. Just as important as the competing itself, is the testing of the bikes to make sure that the production bikes will be really good when they are produced this fall.   Valtteri really put his bike on the test this weekend. In one of the extremely long and step uphill’s on the transport stage he got stuck really badly. After burning rubber and dragging the bike for a long while in the 35degree temperatures the bike started to boil. All the cooling fluid boiled out and he had by that time still 30 minutes of transport and another test to complete before he would come back to us in the service. When he got to the service location the engine was really hot and you could feel it as you approached the bike. Despite this the bike was still running. We had to cool down the engine by pouring lot’s of water on it. After that we filled up the radiator once more and exchanged the air filter and sent him on his way again.   When Valtteri started again on the Sunday it was unfortunately leaking some water from a damaged seal ring due to the extreme overheating the previous day. So once more the engine had to run without water until the first service. At the first service the transmission cover and water pump was exchanged and the bike ran good for the rest of the day. Martin Sundin. PHOTO: Nicklas Börjesson. Björne and Joakim where really pumped up and eager to improve their results during the Sunday. Björne road really good and was in 4th place in the morning. The transport stages had become really worn in some spots by now. Björne rode into a deep line (root) and the shifter took a hard hit which damaged the shifting mechanism and it was over for this race. Joakim was charging brutally on the tests and while pushing the limits the increased risk of mistakes are obvious. On the cross test, exiting a long corner just before a steep jump he hits a rock with his front wheel. It sends him flying from the edge of the jump and crashing badly. Really shaken he finishes the test but does not feel well and have to pull out of the race. After the race it was once again time to gather everything from the service location and pack to go home. When we left Uzerche we had 2200km separating us and the homeland of the ”dalafile´”. With lots of longing home and the sun in our backs we drove non-stop in just over 24hours. Next time up will be the Italian round of the WEC Lars Börjesson mechanic in Team Husaberg (Translated by David Larsson) When it comes to testing the heat resistance on the new Husaberg we have to give it 5points out of 5