# 1 Harald Kitsch, E.B.R 1190 RR-B - Sound of Thunder Victory

It was one of these weekends where you work your a## off and in the end you made it and you are to tired to celebrate. (-:

It started with that we had tracktime only on Saturday and Sunday with a weathereport that said sun/rain/sun/rain/sun.... we still had no rainsetup for the EBR Superbike, so point one on the list was to ride a rainsetup out that weekend. Point 2. was to get the Sound of Thunder pole, 3. to win that race and 4. to set the fastest lap of the event allover as close as possible to the IDM times.

Schleizer Dreieck is a real “Man” course with blind “over the hill” corners under full throttle, you need practice and practice to find the right line and there are some very slow corners, out of them holding the front of the bike down without tractioncontrol is a real challenge and you need competitors out on the track you can match with. We signed adittional in for the IRRC races for more tracktime and hoped to find there some real fast guys.

Early in the morning we setted for the Sound of Thunder the pole and looking a bit more comfortable on the dark clouds. Later the rain was with us and very quick we had on Haralds B Bike (that with the 1125RR radiators) a good wetsetup found. Now after a half day with a Sound of Thunderbike on dry and another on wet standing the raceweekend in front of us looks cool and all under control.... Nothing in racing is so stabile than the change...

The Saturday IRRC race Harald finished 3rd after some problems with slow riders where he was acting softly as a guest and regarding that we work for the Sound of Thundervictory on Sunday. With 1.29 he took the fastest lap of the race and the complete weekend all over, but still not as fast as Harald like to go: “Out of the slow corners I sit on the tank to hold that bike down, but still can not open the throttle full, it can go faster” he reported.

All good, and now start the nasty part of the event. Harald is out on the 2nd timepractice of the SoT and after 3 laps the stewards showing black flag for the #1. Quick visit at racecontrol tells us there are this weekend official measurements by the enviromentalministry about noiseregulations and we got 5 dB too much.

What we need now is our Assenspecial lownoise exhaustsystem, but that lies 450 Km away from us at M-TeK Engineering. To be save to collect the points on the Sundayrace maybe somebody need to go there. Meanwhile we fixed an Akrapowitsch dB eater in the EBR racecan. Next practice out and after 2 laps black flag again, racecontrol reports still 2dB too much. Maybe the winddirection changed but now also Robin with the Buell XBR got black flagged because of to much noise.

It´s a desaster, you have some of the quickest bikes on the track but there are too loud, your riders need any meter of track experience but they can´t ride. First of all we need to find the location of that microphone, than we need to get an smaller dB eater into the 1190 RR, the XB with the Micronexhaust we can only close the throttle if we know where they measure and somebody need to start now to get the other exhaust for the 1190RR.

We got a tip and found that civilcar with a tripod on the roof at the end of the start/finish straight in the middle of a field, now we knowed that. We fixed that smaller dBEater we found in the paddock (thanks Frank from Sport Evolution) and with the knowledge of the location another turn was possible for Harald. But surely all that hassle is not what a rider let find the perfect rhythm for very fast laps. At 11.00 o´clock in the night the exhaust arrived, 900 km for an adittional option, in case if needed.

The Sundaymorning showed again that we need to deal with changing weatherconditions, we decided to hold the noiselevel low and go out for a quick shakedown of the “A” drybike (1190 RR-B), Harald came back after 5 Laps, a quick check of the temperatures -all good. The Start/Finish area in Schleiz is located a couple of hundred meters away from the paddock, Harald drove the bike up over the taxway and when he arrived the enginesound of the bike was harder than usually. Further investigations than showing some very small metallflakes in the oil. The engine had running the full season, not a surprise that this moment came, but bad timing on a weekend where you need both bikes to have one on dry and one on wet setup standing.

We had the two last races of the weekend after 6.00 in the evening, firts Harald than Robin. Very dark clouds over the track and when Harald start to the Sound of Thunder Race 7 of the season slightly first raindrops came down. After the startlight showes green Harald lost some places but four corners later he took the lead again. Knowing that some riders had their bikes on intermediates he pulled on the slicks from the first second full to get maximum distance between him and the grid. Now all these years of experience paying out, meanwhile the other riders are perhaps because of the raindrops on their helmetvisiers are unsure about the trackcondition, Harald fly around the track next to his best laptimes of the weekend. Than it starts really to rain and with half of the racedistance, after Harald passed the finishline, racecontrol stopped the race. Victory again!

# 489 Robin Taborsky, Buell XB-R - Pro BEARS finnished 4.

Meanwhile the crew was under full alarm regarding Robins XBR. The secondary ratio we had only one time so it is not only to change wheels its also the rearpully. The Schleizer Dreieck is in weathercondition like many of this naturetracks on one end the sun is shining on the other is rain. So we are not sure to the last minutes if we do all right to go on rain, even after now are just some raindrops in the air. Harald, who was routed from the track after his race far away from us, we couldn´t ask. A fellow Ducatirider we ask told us: “I say nothing, there are still dry spots out there...” The raceofficials declare “Wetrace”, now is sure that they will not stop the race if it rains more.

We had no intermediates, so the save decission is to go on raintires and took the risk to ruin them. Time to talk with Robin about his experience with raintires, well he said: “ it´s zero”. wonderful to find that out 2 minutes before the race (yes we had a great dry season till that day....). What follows is a short briefing about raintires (trust me you can all what the leaders can do) and the enthusiastic moment just before you crash, because you think raintyres can do anything. Robin is an inteligent young rider he will handle that situation.

Anyhow it was not an easy weekend till that point for him. The Schleizer Dreieck is a track you need experience and big hairy ba### (you know what that means) to be quick. That old XBR pushrodengine is for sure not the “weapon” you dream about to fight these Ducatis in the 2010 Pro BEARS series. Robin was never on the Dreieck before, so he tried to learn the track as a preparation for the weekend from the onboard video of IDM rider Stefan Nebels KTM RC8 and Fridayevening we had some slow turns with the VW Golf around and discussed the lines and corners. Not much if you have 3 Qualyficationturns before the race. On Saturday at Lunchtime Robin got again pole before also he got in the afternoon blackflagged for being too loud (1 dB).

In all the hassle with too loud and modifications on the EBR Superbikeexhaust, nobody told Robin that maybe that Bridgestonetires could have a refresh after they have made the second race in Most and now another practiceday. Robin never ask for new tires by himself, thats his way of handling the teamresourches very respectfull, special these set was looking still really good. In the last timepractice on Saturdayevening he tried to fight back the lost poleposition and parked the bike horizontal in gravelbed, nothing bad happend, but the moral 1. of the weekend was, if you like to push extrahard -check your tires and their livetime first.

Moral 2. followed in the race: Know your competitors. 

The Pro BEARS race is held together with the Pro Thunder, Robin got a good start and was going as 7th allover into the first corner. Now it really starts to rain and and he felt with each lap more comfortable with the raintires going with a group some length behind the leaders. 2 laps to go he was on 3rd in the Pro BEARS with a Speedtriple behind him. It was vissible that Robin now tried to do an intelligent race and just pushed as much as needed, the frontrunners where to far to reach, the # 498 Triumph Speed Triple behind him he was not understanding as an harassment. It was a half lap left when the Speedtriple was going in front of him. With a podium in his first wetrace ever in mind Robin decided to fight not back, it was clear to see that it would cause him no trouble to get back his position. The whole weekend he was in front of that guy, but why take a risk for a combattant from the other class? Because he was signed in the Pro Bears as a gueststarter..... so Robin throwed away a safe podiumfinish and learned something new.

He war really upset (look at his face on the pics) about his mistake and the team had a good time by joking him with ideas like printing him a poster with the competitors silhouettes.

Haralds comment: “I also have huge problems to remember all that guys out there on the track, I always try to lead, than things like that don´t happen”

Nothing to reply on that.