Last week the The PKA – The Parakart Association organized the European Kite Buggy Championship 2017 in Hoylake, UK. It was a week with sunny and dry weather, but with low-winds, but with 40 kitebuggy competitors competing for the 2017 European Title, it was going to be a rough and intense battle.
With new rider David Van Boven on the FLYSURFER Kiteboarding race team, this would be David his first ‘major’ kitebuggy competition, to measure where he stands in a competition field! After a few very good test sessions weeks before the event, trust was getting bigger to perform exceptional during the first major kitebuggy event on the calendar for David, the European Championship Kitebuggy 2017.
However, there was also some tension for David, it was the first competition with all new material, how will it be & feel in a real race environment… The Friday before the event, we visited David to exhange the latest tips and tricks, discussed the optimal race settings and together made a small how-to trim session for our ultimate racing machine, the SONIC RACE!
And then competition started in England, David performs super constant, wins four out of 10 races, gets three times 2nd, got a bit of bad luck on the last day, as someone drove into his kitelines, but by being super constant, he could remove these lesser results and become European Champion 2017 Kite Buggy, an amazing performance! Congratulations David, what a performance, we are proud to have you in the FLYSURFER family :-)
All pictures by: Simon Arlott
Results 2017 European Kite Buggy Championships
1. David van Boven – FLYSURFER
2. Adrian Lavelle
3. Vincent Leib