The Breitling Team had a strong finish in Perth. Science dictated that the MXS would perform less well on the higher G Perth track than in Porto so I was convinced that our early high positions during training would be eroded once the lighter machines settled into the track. This was not to be and a second place finish in Qualifying brought high hopes for race day. Winning the Super 8 was a great feeling and I was delighted to see Alex Maclean up in the top 4 with me .... both MXS's in the finals was a good sign for those of us who have diverged from the popular Edge 540 path.
In the semi's I timed Alex's run and knew that his 1m 20s ish should be reasonably easy to beat. Of course, his pylon hit gifted that race to me. This was yet another example of why the pilots favour no race with less than 3 pilots....with another racer in the frame, you would never be able to 'cruise' to victory. Anyway, the strategy of taking it easy turns out not to be so easy! I started slowly to give myself a relaxed race (anything under 1m30s) yet found it hard as the rhythm is destroyed and you end up with your brain space consumed by a different strategy. Weird!
I came away from the final against Paul feeling very disappointed not to have been able to get myself into the 'zone'...that place somewhere between being too relaxed and too wound up. So far I have not had the misfortune to be too wound up before a race but to feel too relaxed and unable to gee yourself up is a mind-game I shall have to work on. The track was quite slow on race day (thanks to the Freemantle Doctor) but to put in a time 1.7 secs slower than the Super 8 was somewhat pathetic.
