It was time for WEC race again. As with the previous races this year i work as a Team mechanic for the Husaberg factory Team. The 5th race of the season was held in Great Britain. The trip to Llandloes which is situated in Wales was about 2000km for us. My travel companions this time out was our Team cook Jesper Person, my son Nicklas who is travelling as a race Team trainee and Roland Öhrn. We left on Monday morning so that we had plenty of time for the journey. Due to the fact that Thomas Gustavsson was not travelling with us this time, but instead took his own vehicle. We could keep a more normal pace and did not have to “Race to the Race with non stop strategy”. Thomas is notorious about non-stop driving, as long as he has a bag of hard bread (skorpor in Swedish) and a jug of water he can cross the European continent non-stop.  Joakim Ljunggren. PHOTO: Nicklas Börjesson Our trip the first day went thru Denmark and a good portion into Germany where we made the first nightstop. Tuesdays trip moved thru Holland, Belgium and to Calais in France. From there we took the ferry over to Dover in England. The terminal for the ferry in Calais was impressive in size and had more then 400 gates so it was a bit difficult to locate the correct one. We got waived of to the side for customs inspections where they wanted to go thru our van and trailer. But as they opened up the doors to the van they quickly changed their minds after realizing that Roland had packed the whole van and trailer to the absolute limits. The customs staff would have had to work extra shifts just to check thru everything so we where quite happy that they changed their minds and let us continue. As we where entering England with the leftside traffic (opposite from what we have) it feels a bit awkward, but Roland who has been around since the time we had leftside traffic in our country took the wheel and would not let go of it as long as we staid in England. We rolled on straight thru the country to Wales on the west coast. Wales was amazingly beautiful with all the green hills and sheep’s everywhere. It felt like cruising around in a postcard landscape. Wales is also known for its frequent rainfalls and this week was no exception. Rain showers kept coming over us of and on throughout the whole week. A local man told us that the weather was really good since it was not raining constantly… Closing in on the white cliffs of Dover. A magnificent sight to see them rise thru the sea. The Paddock and the crosstest  was down in the village and from there started the transport stages up to the hills where the other two stages where. The whole race was located on the farmland of Gerant Jones. He is a talented enduro rider himself and owns land in this area. Imagine to be able to run a complete WEC round at the land of one sole private owner. We where out scouting the location with the rental car and followed a small bumpy gravelroad from the farm towards the mountain. After a while we drove thru a field with lots of cows and sheep’s and started to realise that this was most definitely the wrong road (or field…). But our small wrong turn sightseeing was worth the trip because of the beautiful and hilly scenery.   The service point was up on the farm, so each lap as our riders passed by we serviced them on a muddy field. It was only the last service including the tire change on Saturday that was to take place in the paddock. Because of this it was a tight time schedule to make it there in time. My mentor and wonderful college in the Team Roland Öhrn were concerned about how we would be able to make it out of the muddy field without getting stuck. He kept on looking and thinking about possible options thru out the whole day. But when the time came his instructions where quite simple… Just go for it! At that time Thomas suggested cautiously that maybe it would be a better alternative that I drive, because sometime Roland can get a bit caught in the moment. But judging from the looks from Roland we had already passed that point and it was no longer an option. He had the throttle fully open on the van and was passing obstacles on power slides as he was using the horn to alert spectators to take cover and jump off the road. We made it down in time and the tire service went well. Other service Teams did not have Roland as driver and had to be pulled out with a tractor, maybe they need to have some lessons from him Björne Carlsson. PHOTO: Nicklas Börjesson Tough test on the slopes. Saturdays race was very difficult and a lot of riders had to DNF including some of our fellow country men privateers. During the night to Sunday it was down rain coming down and in the morning even the sun appeared. The rain was not present until lunch time when the first shower came. This made the track a lot better the second day when everything was not floating. The results for us were not as good as we had hoped for, but the margins where very small and did not go our way this time around. In addition to this Valtteri Salonen had the misfortune of hitting a rock so hard that the chain broke. Despite the results of our riders Joakim Ljunggrens biggest rival for the 3rd place spot in the standings had an even worse result so they are now tied in points going into next round in France.   Monday morning started early and we began by washing the bikes and then taking down the camp including the tents. The van and the trailer were loaded at 12:00 and then we started our journey towards France. It is approximately 1300km to drive and when we get there we have a lot of work to prepare the bikes.  The motorcycles are running about 15 hours during a WEC weekend and is only getting a few minutes service each 1,5hours. It naturally wears on the equipment, just imagine riding ten training rounds in deep mud without washing the bike and only doing 5minutes of service between those practice sessions. Next report will be from France. Lars Börjesson mechanic, Team Husaberg. (Translated by David Larsson) Calle Sjöö. PHOTO: Nicklas Börjesson