Hobby Racing

This was for me the second time on Pannoniaring, together with my teammate Mihai Matei. On the road to the track we joined Dan Demetrescu and Ionut Pasere, and later on the team from Targoviste: Adrian Enache and Adrian Sotingeanu. After a loooong trip (we had the chance to see a bike falling off the trailer right in front of us), we finally reached the track.

The weather was hot, but not extreme.

I had again problems with the gas filter, which clogged again because of the rust inside the tank. So, most of the time I was struggling to reach my last year's best laptime.

Because me and my teammate were not prepared for a speed race (even if we had qualifying times which would have put us on the grid), we decided to participate only in the endurance race. Ionut Pasere joined us as the third member of the "Lanterna Rosie" team. I was the one took the start for the team and I managed to stay on the track for 15 laps, with a best lap of 2:22.434, which was 2 seconds better than last year. After Mihai's and Ionut's shifts, I entered the race again... but not for long! Because my tyres were cold, I crashed in the second corner! Luckily it was a lowside crash in a low speed corner, so I was ok but the bike could not be ridden anymore.

While my colleagues were on the track, I started to look for the parts I needed to repair the bike. I was lucky to find the handlebars (the right one was broken) and with the help of Alin Mistode (Ionut's brother) I fixed the bike in about one hour. Even though my fairings were repaired with PowerTape and I had no windshield, I was able to return in the race for 17 more laps. Of course my laptimes increased dramatically following the crash, but it was good that I was able to race again.

In a 4 hours race, we stayed on the track for 73 laps and we finished on the 32^nd position out of 51 teams: endurance race results.
You can see more pictures here.