RoSBK 2012 Round 3, Slovakiaring, May 20th
For the third round of the 2012 edition of Dunlop Romanian Superbike I chose to try a new experience, a little more expensive but much more relaxing and less time consuming. By this I mean I booked a flight to Budapest and from there I rented a car to go to Slovakiaring, near Dunajska Streda in Slovakia.
I went together with Dan Tudorache, but we were surprised to find at the pension where we stayed our colleagues Adi Teodorescu and Cristian Andrei, together with other participants at this competition: Edi Alexandrescu, Edi Solcan, Marian Zaharia, Artur Boit, Mihai Chiparus and a few others...
We arrived Wednesday evening and Thursday at noon we went to the track to meet Virgil Marin and get our bikes.
Against all meteo predictions, the weather during this weekend was perfect for racing, except some strong wind on Thursday.
Because for me it was the first time on this track, I took the opportunity and booked one 20 minutes entry on the circuit with Ducati Slovakia on Thursday afternoon. The first impression was that this is a long track, with very high mean speed, very complex and difficult to learn.
The most interesting part of the day was three laps on board of a Ferrari 360 Modena, as a racetaxi.
The first impression turned to be true. The track is almost 6 km long, with the longest straight of 900 meters and two more sections where the speed goes above 200 km/h. It has four blind jumps and a few decreasing radius corners.
On Friday morning, the first two sessions on the track were a little confusing, but then I began to be more familiar with the circuit and my best lap allowed me to go on with the B group for training.
My best lap time on Friday afternoon was 2:35.024 and i wasn't able to improve it on Saturday. So this was my qualifying time for the race, on the 21st position on the starting grid.
During the start of the race I lost some positions (as usually :)), but now I wasn't able to recover... partly because I was not familiar enough with that track and I was not very confident passing other riders, partly because I was having a problem in the second part of the circuit, where I was loosing a lot of time compared to the others.
The end of the race found me on the 25th position. I improved my lap time with a little over one second (2:33.982). I was the 15th romanian, the 9th in my class (1000 cc) and the 4th among those who scored for the championship (Dunlop GP Racer Rookies Cup). This brought me 13 points and I am currently on the 4th position in the general standings
Unfortunately, the lack of both time and money will prevent me from attending other rounds of the championship, so probably this will be my best performance this year.
The race results for the riders registered with RoSBK are presented below:
The complete race results are here.
The other races of the championship were also very interesting. In the Superbike race, Ionut Mistode, the en-titre champion, had to race on a borrowed bike, after his BMW had some technical problems and his Suzuki was damaged in a crash during the qualifications. In this conditions he finished second, behind Catalin Cazacu. Andrei Enescu lost the front during the race, making room for Dan Vargolici to finish third.
In the Supersport race, there was an interesting fight between Octavian Negrea and Petre Pop, all race long. In the final lap, in the last corner they both crashed, causing the race to be red flagged. Under these circumstances, the final results of the race were those of lap number nine, with Petre Pop 1st, Octavian Negrea 2nd and Vladislav Dimitrov 3rd.
I went together with Dan Tudorache, but we were surprised to find at the pension where we stayed our colleagues Adi Teodorescu and Cristian Andrei, together with other participants at this competition: Edi Alexandrescu, Edi Solcan, Marian Zaharia, Artur Boit, Mihai Chiparus and a few others...
We arrived Wednesday evening and Thursday at noon we went to the track to meet Virgil Marin and get our bikes.Against all meteo predictions, the weather during this weekend was perfect for racing, except some strong wind on Thursday.
Because for me it was the first time on this track, I took the opportunity and booked one 20 minutes entry on the circuit with Ducati Slovakia on Thursday afternoon. The first impression was that this is a long track, with very high mean speed, very complex and difficult to learn.
The most interesting part of the day was three laps on board of a Ferrari 360 Modena, as a racetaxi.
The first impression turned to be true. The track is almost 6 km long, with the longest straight of 900 meters and two more sections where the speed goes above 200 km/h. It has four blind jumps and a few decreasing radius corners.
On Friday morning, the first two sessions on the track were a little confusing, but then I began to be more familiar with the circuit and my best lap allowed me to go on with the B group for training.
My best lap time on Friday afternoon was 2:35.024 and i wasn't able to improve it on Saturday. So this was my qualifying time for the race, on the 21st position on the starting grid.
During the start of the race I lost some positions (as usually :)), but now I wasn't able to recover... partly because I was not familiar enough with that track and I was not very confident passing other riders, partly because I was having a problem in the second part of the circuit, where I was loosing a lot of time compared to the others.The end of the race found me on the 25th position. I improved my lap time with a little over one second (2:33.982). I was the 15th romanian, the 9th in my class (1000 cc) and the 4th among those who scored for the championship (Dunlop GP Racer Rookies Cup). This brought me 13 points and I am currently on the 4th position in the general standings
Unfortunately, the lack of both time and money will prevent me from attending other rounds of the championship, so probably this will be my best performance this year.
The race results for the riders registered with RoSBK are presented below:
GP Racer Rookies Cup race results
| Pos. | Name | Class | Best lap |
| 1. | Dani Trock | 1000 | 2:23.375 |
| 2. | George Negrea | 1000 | 2:24.873 |
| 3. | Eduard Socaci | 600 | 2:26.841 |
| 4. | Sabin Zabarcencu | 1000 | 2:28.133 |
| 5. | Dan Vladuceanu | 1000 | 2:28.365 |
| 6. | Bogdan Grecu | 1000 | 2:31.555 |
| 7. | Cristian Carlan | 600 | 2:31.074 |
| 8. | Alexandru Burac | 600 | 2:29.510 |
| 9. | Andrei Manea | 1000 | 2:30.004 |
| 10. | Artur Boit | 1000 | 2:28.957 |
| 11. | Cristinel Tufaru | 600 | 2:31.186 |
| 12. | Tsvetan Delegatov | 1000 | 2:33.096 |
| 13. | Catalin Cancel | 600 | 2:33.221 |
| 14. | Ovidiu Cancel | 600 | 2:33.420 |
| 15. | Dan Albu | 1000 | 2:33.982 |
| 16. | Razvan Filipeanu | 1000 | 2:34.701 |
| 17. | Andrei Novaceanu | 1000 | 2:36.532 |
| 18. | Uritescu Valentin | 600 | 2:43.749 |
| 19. | Mihai Chiparus | 600 | 3:27.754 |
| DNF | Dune Mihai | 1000 | 2:26.154 |
| DNF | Dan Gradinaru | 600 | 2:37.132 |
| DNS | Andrei Cristian | 600 | --- |
On-board video:
The other races of the championship were also very interesting. In the Superbike race, Ionut Mistode, the en-titre champion, had to race on a borrowed bike, after his BMW had some technical problems and his Suzuki was damaged in a crash during the qualifications. In this conditions he finished second, behind Catalin Cazacu. Andrei Enescu lost the front during the race, making room for Dan Vargolici to finish third.
In the Supersport race, there was an interesting fight between Octavian Negrea and Petre Pop, all race long. In the final lap, in the last corner they both crashed, causing the race to be red flagged. Under these circumstances, the final results of the race were those of lap number nine, with Petre Pop 1st, Octavian Negrea 2nd and Vladislav Dimitrov 3rd.
Posted by: Dan Eugen Albu, at 2012-05-22
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