Report on Round Six of the Spanish 1000cc FX Championship run at the Circuit of Valencia on November 20, 2005 A press release from Folch Endurance Yamaha Reus, Tarragona, Spain Tire Choice is Key as De Gea Wins Spanish FX Title Jose David de Gea, like most of the top riders in the penultimate round of the Spanish 1000cc Formula Extreme Championship, was undecided about tire choice right down to the last minutes before the start. The rain had stopped hours before but the track was still damp and greasy. His team mate David Tomas went for a softer compound. De Gea’s hunch was that a dry line would form and he went for the harder compound. Both Dunlop riders, like points leader de Gea, Tomas, Josep Sarda (D’ Antin Yamaha)and World Superbike veteran Sergio Fuertes (Reynolds Suzuki), and Michelin supported riders like title contenders Ivan Silva and Javier del Amor (Laglisse Yamaha), plus leading qualifiers like Carmelo Morales (Pontgrup Suzuki) and Kenny Noyes (Folch Yamaha), had to choose between very different compositions of rain tire. It was clear from the opening laps who had gotten it right (like de Gea, Fuertes and Sarda) and who had gotten it wrong (like Silva, del Amor, Morales and Noyes). Silva, who still had an outside chance to take the title, led only on lap one after nearly crashing several times. He had gone for a soft rain tire and would soon fade to 20th before retiring. Morales, and Noyes also battled slides for a few laps before retiring, while Sarda, a talented rain rider on the right tires, opened a big lead from de Gea and Fuertes only to crash on lap 15 of 19. He remounted but then crashed again when running fourth. Fuertes, who had just won the BMW PowerCup support race at the Grand Prix the week before at the final Grand Prix of the year, hung on to win from Yamaha privateer (on hard compound rain tires) Victor Lozano and de Gea, who cruised home to clinch his second title in three years. He won in 2004 with Suzuki on Michelin and has now added this title with Honda on Dunlop. Folch’s Kenny Noyes described the experience: “We have not had a rain race all year and we didn’t know which tire to choose and the Michelin technicians had some new rain tires down from France that hadn’t been tried here. Dunlop has done more wet weather testing here than we have and they had the right tire. I was riding long two wheel slides at 130 miles an hour, which was fun but also pretty scary. The problem was I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was headed backwards. I saw Silva sliding worse than I was when I passed him and Tomas too. It was getting too dangerous and quite a few of us came in, Carmelo, Ivan and I on Michelins and Tomas on Dunlop”¦.it wasn’t the tires it was the tire choice.” Folch Yamaha’s Bernat Martinez, on a harder rear, finished ninth, but Javier del Amor, who was second and 19 points back of de Gea, struggled to finish 16th, out of the points on a soft compound. Noyes is now in an eight-rider battle for seventh place, with all eight riders, Fuertes, Sarda, Ferrnandez, Mazuecos, Gomez, Noyes, Casas and Ribalta, covered by nine points. The Spanish Supersport title was won by Arturo Tizon, who was fourth in a race won by David Salom (Suzuki) from Britain’s Steven Neate (Honda) and Javier Hidalgo (Honda). Victor Carrasco (Yamaha), the only man with a mathematical chance to catch Tizon, was sixth. With the FX and SS titles decided, the 125 battle will be decided in the final round between Italy’s Stefano Bianco and Spain’s Mateo Tunez. Bianco, who was 6th on a wet track at Valencia, leads Tunez, who was twelfth by only two points, 100-98, with Britain’s Bradley Smith, the winner in Valencia, now third with 79 points. The title will be decided in a straight fight between Bianco and Tunez if they run at the front, but Bradley, the long-shot, will be there to pick up the pieces. (All three ride Hondas.) The final round of the Spanish Championship will be held this coming weekend, November 26-27, at Jerez de la Frontera, and the forecast is for dry and sunny weather. The Spanish Championship (CEV) is the last major national series still running in November.