Bartlett trails after 1st round of Driving Championship

Belgium’s Christophe Martens picked up right where he left off; the reigning world driving champion won the 2007 tournament in New Zealand, and stands atop the leader board after round one of the 2009 Championship, raced on Thursday in Bergen, Norway.

A win and a second put him in a points tie with Canada’s Brad Forward, but a second place finish in one of the four races on Thursday gave Martens the first round trophy based upon the scoring system, which uses better placings to break ties.

The United States’ representative, Jason Bartlett, never got on a roll. He scored 18 points and is in ninth place--but only 17 points off the lead in what has begun as a very close competition. With a victory in a 10 horse field worth 17 points, Bartlett is much closer than his current rank would make it appear.

Bartlett finished sixth, seventh, fourth and sixth in his four trips behind the gate, but none of the horses he drove were betting favorites.

“I think I drove them right,” Bartlett said. “They just didn’t have the finishing kick that the trainers said they would have. One trainer even apologized, saying ‘I shouldn’t have dropped him into the race.’ But these horses are nice to drive, and you can literally handle them with one finger in each handhold.”

Bartlett’s first experience with driving without a whip went okay, but provided a bit of a dilemma: “One trainer told me to slap the horse with the lines, but I thought it was better to keep the bit tight in a horse’s mouth to maintain control and keep them from stepping offstride.

“I think I learned a bit about racing here, and know that there’s a long way to go.”

The other two heats were won by Denmark’s Birger Jorgensen, who earned 33 points and stands in third place, and New Zealand’s Peter Ferguson, who won the first heat, gathered 26 points, and is fourth in the standings.

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