This year equipe37 again are guests to the motorsport friends Sauerland, who organised the 1000 hills trophy on May the 2nd. Sounds like the Isle of Man or the old Nürburg circuit at least; indeed it took place at the Oschersleben Motopark.
Friday I was the first to arrive in a guest apartment belonging to the Oschersleben housing cooperative „New Living“, straightly followed by MaTThijs, who came directly from Holland. Meanwhile Axel and FloR1 unloaded our team truck including the new and for endurance modified R 1 in the paddock.
We rounded out the day at a „Yugoslavian“ restaurant, where it was obviously unheared, that Yugoslavia declined, but the landlord was so kind to serve us some Balkan delicacies (recommended: Cordon bleu filled with dutch cheese!!!) at 11 p. m., when all other facilities yet were closed.
On Saturday some minor work had to be done on the bike (e. g. new Laser silencer prototype), apart from that the machine was perfectly prepared by our technicians and mechanics, led by Tom and David. That morning even Greywolf arrived, coming from Hannover, who would lead equipe37 through the day with his „slow and steady wins the race“ mood!
During the practise sessions, both of them 30 minutes, the riders (FloR1 and MaTThijs) got some experience concerning chassis and rubbers. This could be used for the race itself, because the weather stood dry and sunny, although heavy showers had been announced.
The actual race began with a Le Mans start, with MaTThijs using his ellbows like it’s traditional in the Dutch championship, I suppose. Interestingly Team Yamaha Austria took the chance to do it’s own „trackday“ with two bikes (Steve Martin and Igor Jerman). YART lapped the whole starting field, repeated of course. Has something to do with their Le Mans victory, but in the end they blackflagged themselves voluntarily by ignoring the parc fermé on purpose, a gesture of friendship to all the real amateur teams on the grid.
Equipe37 made a fine and unspectacular race. The pit crew, Wolf, Axel and me, had a pleasant day. 3 pit stops had been planned. Wolf had the biggest stress, because he had to go to the village every time to get cheap stuff. MaTThijs ran out of fuel in the last lap of his first stint, in spite of a 23 liters endurance fuel tank. Hopefully the reason are just the adjustments on the engine, which runs very rich at the moment.
Finally our rider took the victory in the stocksport class and the fifth place overall! And two trophies! In the dawn we packed our van and then wanted to celebrate our victory at the Yugoslavian. But the room mate was already there. So we went to the Chinese, where we got Duck sweet and sour, rice and Pilsener in wheatbeer glasses.
Greywolf bid farewell then and went back home. The little rest of the team, back to the apartment, allowed itself a nightcap and packed the bags at 7:30 Sunday (!) morning.
MaTThijs takes the bike with him to give it a last rejuvenation by David, Axel and FloR1 drive towards Hessen and I enter the train direction Berlin. For me it had been the first visit at a race track in this quite long lasting season; and immediately I had this feeling: back home.
Smoke