Text:TZ | Text: TZ Petr Najman | Photo: Vojtěch Vanek | Posted by: Yesterday | Shown: 1,945 times
This year’s motorcycle season on Czech tracks kicked off last weekend with the Brno spring prize, and as is unfortunately the custom, the good weather that prevailed in the weeks before the third weekend in April was replaced by unfavorable conditions. Temperatures just slightly above freezing, wind and rain, were rather conditions to wait for the season. However, many competitors did not let themselves be discouraged and went to Brno. Among them was Petr Najman, who had plans to participate in Supersport and Supertwin races this year. With Ducati for the first mentioned class, he had technical problems that caused him to not participate in the races. With the Supertwin, after Saturday’s crash, he made a comeback on Sunday with a podium finish.
Petr Najman (rider) – “I would rather call this racing weekend the Spring “frozen” prize of Brno. Unfortunately, the weather forecast had already predicted crazy conditions, which were confirmed in Brno. We arrived at the circuit on Thursday, when we went through the scrutineering. During the scrutineering, I noticed a technical fault on the Ducati, which we immediately started to solve. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to remove it during Friday and Saturday, so I didn’t drive anything on it. I would like to thank the SP Racing team of Lukáš Pešek and Josef Smolka, who helped me all the time and provided technical support, especially for electronics. Unfortunately, other technical problems appeared afterwards, which made it impossible for us to start the races.”
“Besides this disaster that happened with the Ducati, I still had a bike with me for the Supertwin class. I went into free practice with him on Friday and we tested the substantial changes we made. The bike worked great. On Saturday, we entered the first qualification. It was wet and very cold. I followed Marko Červený, who fell right in front of me. In order not to run him over, I had to go off the track. Nothing happened, I went back to the circuit and finally won the qualification. The second qualification was dry and the driving was really fast. I finished second behind Mark in it.’
“We had the first race on Saturday, but unfortunately the conditions were like on a swing all day. Sunshine alternated with rain, it was cold on top of that, and due to a lot of falls we had the race postponed an hour later to six in the afternoon, so there wasn’t much sunshine. We started the race under conditions of 7 °C air, 3 °C track. We started and I was close behind Mark Červený, but in the third corner Marek fell on the front wheel, so I took the lead. I knew the guys behind me wouldn’t push me as hard and I eased up. I wanted to take it easy to win, but unfortunately I also fell. In the first left in the stadium in a slight incline with minimal braking, my front end also closed and I ended up on the ground. In the qualifiers, we drove times of 2:14, and I can drive times of around 2:18 when I slow down, but I can’t even drive slower in dry conditions, and unfortunately even this slowdown was not enough for the current conditions. The front of the race then ran the fastest times around 2:23, so they were about 10 seconds slower than we were able to ride in front. That was the end of Saturday’s race for me, but there was nothing wrong with the bike and we had it ready for Sunday. Conditions were slightly better on Sunday with 7°C air and 5°C tarmac. I knew that racing in these conditions was more of a struggle for survival, so I chose the tactic to finish calmly and not break myself or the bike any more. I finished in second place in great competition and with a big lead. We rounded off Brno with at least one nice result.”
“It was certainly not the start of the season that I wanted, but unfortunately these adverse conditions caused complications. Ducati’s technical problems didn’t help, which also had a big impact on the weekend. And not only on the weekend, but also during the rest of the season. Finally, I would of course like to thank all partners for their support. The next races await us in Staré Město, where unfortunately I will probably only go with Aprilia in the Supertwin class. After that I have the first IRRC race in Holland with the German PSB team on their Yamaha R6 Supersport.”
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