Remy Gardner’s Zolder IDM Superbike experience
By Christof Henco – Images by Andreas Weinand and Felix Wiessmann
Last weekend Zolder, in Belgium, hosted one of the two rounds of the German Championship that will be held outside of Germany in season 2016. Zolder also represented the fourth time this year that the Superbikes and Superstock 1000cc machines have done battle in the IDM, as the International German Superbike Championship is traditionally known. Zolder also marked the halfway point of the season.
The previous races saw quite a few different winners in both classes, as the technical rules set out to make it a level playing field. The speed of the bikes and their riders represent quite a high level, as even our own Josh Brookes experienced last year (the year he clinched the BSB Championship), when he had a go riding as a guest riders at the dutch cathedral of speed – Assen. In the end he managed to finish 3rd and 4th in those races.
For this round the MGM Yamaha team and Remy Gardner came to an agreement for him to ride Lukas Trautmans’s Superstock 1000 bike, while Trautmann took a turn substituting for Max Neukirchner.
Remy tested a standard R1 at the Schleizer-Dreick Street-Road circuit in the previous week and was able to get a feel for the power of a super bike in standard trim, as well as learning this hybrid track, where during the week the main parts of the track are actual road ways used for everyday driving.
Coming to a more traditional road racing circuit in Belgium, Remy really had a big challenge to look forward to. This track may appear to be quite straight forward from the layout, however the way the kerbs, the walls (which are very close), and the way the elevation changes flow into the corners does make this one of the more difficult tracks to get right. Simply exploring the limit of the painted kerbs takes many laps to get used to!
For Remy the step up from the Moto2 bike to this Superstock bike with all the electronic rider aids, as well as the sheer power have been other major tasks to add to the learning of the circuit.
The Friday sessions saw him start on a basic set-up and start to adjust the bike. The team, which is made up of the crew who usually support Max, worked very methodically to get Remy as comfortable as possible.
Saturday’s first qualifying session bought a small electronic problem, which rendered the many rider aids useless! This left Remy to control the bike in a manner he is quite used to. However getting the power to the ground, without the front wheel constantly pawing the air, meant he had to modulate the rear brake at all times. His efforts landed him in position 11 of the Superstock field, only 2.875 sec of the lead.
Q2, and now running with the rider aids in place he was able to better his time from Q1 by 1.1-seconds, putting him 10th in the Superstock class, 20th overall, in a field of 41 riders.
Race 1 got of to a bad start when Remy was involved in an incident on the 1st lap which forced him down to the ground. He was able to get back up and keep going thinking he would use the 17 remaining laps to evaluate the changes the team had made with the bike. Unfortunately he would only end up crashing again only 2 laps later.
Race 2 did not go anywhere as well as race 1 had. Ending in a massive crash involving several riders, with everyone being able to walk away, being the highlight of the day.
“Starting into the Superbike IDM championship in this way was not the plan, but these things do happen, and we can all be lucky that no one was seriously injured. Now we will focus on what is ahead of us and make the best of what is to come, and there is quite a lot to come in the next weeks!” – said Remy feeling a bit more then just disappointed at the outcome of the last 3 days work.
“We really where making progress and i was getting more and more used to the bike. I feel sorry for the crew who now have three bikes to repair till the next round!” Referring to his new team mates who also went down in that race.”
Remy will be in Most testing the Moto2 bike in preparation for the Sachsenring GP and then racing it there. Stepping off the Moto2 bike back on to the MGM Yamaha Superstock 1000 for the Superbike IDM race at the heritage circuit Schleizer-Dreieck in the last weekend of July (29-30)
