From a working trip to beautiful Germany I am back and eager to be of your service again. As mentioned in the previous sentence, it was a working-trip ... except ... there are always those exceptions, right?

Except for the 2nd weekend in July when we visited the Fischbach-MX, 30 Kilometers away from my hometown. Those of you who follow the mx scene for a bit longer will remember that one of the first international Teams that participated in our annual Inter-Series was the German Becker Kawasaki Team. The last time was in 2002 and one of the riders who left a strong impression was Joachim Krivograd. The following year he had a hefty and fatal crash that left him in a coma for several month. He had to learn to walk again, had a major loss of memory he was in such a state that his wife and child left him. It took him nearly two years rehabilitation to say he is back to normal again. I met Joachim at the beertent and he told me he’s got fond memories of his racing in Namibia. Obviously we also met Lutz Gerlach, the Team Manager of the Becker-Team who shows interest to give a helping hand to Mark Sternagel!!!

During the last weekend in Germany we travelled to the DAM-Championship in Nieder- würzbach, also around the corner, some 20 kilometres away from Zweibrücken (my hometown). There I met again Lutz Gerlach and his friendly wife who invited us to a German-Braai. But I also met some riders who also raced previously in Namibia. There was Frank Janzen-Teitz, Andre Adrian, Mart de Jong and South African youngster Garric Pretorious. Because of the exorbitant increase of flight-costs Frank and Andre did not really show interest in racing in Namibia. But Mart is very eager to come and after 4 years of bad luck and bad results he’s back again! If he does not make a major mistake, Flying-Dutchman Mart de Jong will become DAM-Champion 2008 in the MX 2 Class.

Here are the results of the Niederwürzbach Open-Class: 1. Andre Adrian; 2. Frank Jansen-Teitz; 4. Mart de Jong; 12. Garric Pretorius.

I also visited the Bodo Schmidt Racing Team in Schmelz (some 40 Kilometres away from Zweibrücken) and Bodo showed major interest in bringing a youngster from Estonia and perhaps one teenager from Russia. All my talks showed the same major problem, it is not only the increase in flight-costs, it is the extreme costs in bringing bikes to Namibia. So if one of you readers can help with a bike there are riders prepared to pay N$ 5,000 (Fivethousand N$) total for over the two weekends!!!