Bartlett has win Friday in World Driving Championship

“The trainer (Tor Olav Halle), said to be aggressive. He was and we got the lead, pulled the hood on the turn home, and he was as good as the trainer said he’d be. This was an important win for me,” Bartlett said in a winner’s circle interview.

It made up for a disastrous finish in the first of four races contest at the Biri Travbane, in which Bartlett was on the lead in a 2,100 meter race with a mare who broke stride 300 meters before the finish, and who quickly galloped backwards from the lead to 10th position.

Bartlett’s 10th race mount, a Norwegian Kaldblod (Coldblood), was as bad as his program form appeared to suggest. In the first of two such races for the popular local breed that will be raced in the 20 heat series, Hjertebest, started slowly and faded quickly to finish 10th, and give Barlelett a single point.

Denmark’s Birger Jorgensen remained third in the competition, and Canada’s Brad Forward dropped from second to fourth. First round leader Christophe Martens of Belgium mustered only 16 points on Friday and fell to sixth in the table, two points behind Norway’s Eirik Hoitomt.

The third round of the 2009 World Driving Championship will be raced on Saturday at Jarlsberg Racecourse, and the drivers will then have a day off on Sunday, a national holiday in Norway. Here is the table of points after the second of five rounds of the Championship, with the winners of both rounds shown in boldface type:

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