Racing: Australia back to fourth place in ISDE

Australia's World Trophy team has grabbed back fourth position from Sweden at the halfway mark of the 2009 International Six-Day (ISDE) in Portugal, with four of the six riders moving up the individual leaderboard.

ISDE newcomer Toby Price (Kawasaki) preserved his hold on 15th position as the riders embarked on a new course for day three, which included long and sandy trail sections and some tricky special tests.

Husqvarna rider Chris Hollis (23rd) and Yamaha duo Stefan Merriman (27th) and Jarrod Bewley (30th) are also continuing to perform well. Glenn Kearney (Husqvarna) and Yamaha's Kirk Hutton are 40th and 61st respectively.

For the third day in succession, Price was Australia's go-to man, completing the special tests over 12 seconds faster than the rapidly improving Hollis.

"My goal is to finish the event and to have fun," Price said. "I'm still doing that at the moment, and hopefully the results will come a bit later.

"If we can keep it up near the front, that would be good, but my main goal is to at least finish the ISDE and to be able to say that I've done one, so it would be great."

Price is forecasting an even tougher outing at the office on day four.

"The trails today - the first time round was pretty good because not many bikes had been around, but by the second lap they had been pretty well chopped out," he said.

"Other than that tomorrow we have got to ride the same trails twice again so it's going to be twice as bad as well, but we've just got to try and knuckle down on the tests and get some good times in there."

Australia's undermanned Junior Trophy team of Andrew Lloyd (TM), Nick Beattie (Yamaha) and Geoff Braico (KTM), which lost Josh Green (Kawasaki) on day one, made up another two spots on day two, and is now in eighth.

Spain is already in the box seat for Junior Trophy success, leading France by a massive 15 minutes, while France leads the World Trophy by a comfortable four-and-a-half minutes from Italy, with Finland ahead of the Aussies in fourth.

Australia's Women's Cup team, comprising Yamaha riders Jemma Wilson, Alison Parker and Jacqui Jones, is third overall.

In the individual standings, Frenchman Christophe Nambotin (Gas Gas) bolted on day three, and is now a 44-second leader from Antoine Meo (Husqvarna), with Samuli Aro (KTM) making it three different manufacturers leading the way.