2011 Race Report

So, we are back, just as promised, for the 2011 4 hours of Spa Classic Endurance Race. After a busy winter of repairing, rebuilding and redesigning the bike, the Spanjer Classic Race Team were now ready for the challenge. Various parts and ideas had been tested and now came the true test. Some of you reading this will be familiar with last years drama, so we were hoping this year would go a bit smoother allowing us to relax a bit and enjoy the race, just like you! Wrong! This is endurance racing after all. Were here for a laugh, were here for a good time, but our number one goal is to get as far up the leader board as possible.

So this is how things went.

 

 

Day 1 Thursday midday: We set up camp Spanjer in pit box no 42, in the F1 paddock. Come early evening everything is in place, everyone is in very high spirits and now were sat under an umbrella in the pouring rain eating chips and mayonnaise out of a cone.

 

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Spa-Francorchamps.

 

We return to our pit box for a couple of beers and a bedtime story from our crew chief Peter. Earlyish to bed but sleeping on a mattress in a pit box is hardly the Hilton Hotel and our Italian neighbours revving various Laverdas until well after midnight didn’t help either.

 

Day 2 Friday morning 6.30ish: Breakfast, showered and ready for the rigours of the day. Just before 8 o clock we take our place in the line for scrutineering were sure that everything is ok, so were quite surprised to find out that our front brake lever doesn’t comply with the regulations  (it being from a later bike). Switching it for an earlier one sees our problems behind us, or so we thought. During the normal group sessions and although not having any qualifying sessions himself until later, Donny decides he’d take the little 350 Yamaha out. Not being noted as a crasher we didn’t pay to much attention to the red flags that came out during his session. After ten minutes or more what should return but one very busted up bike carrying a very dejected looking Donny, oh and he’d broke his thumb, great! The bone stuck up from out of his hand but thankfully the skin wasn’t broken, with the help Anita, his good lady and a couple of rolls of tape they managed to manipulate the splintered bone roughly back in to position. Come Friday evening qualifying, our man, wearing an oversized glove on his injured left hand, was ready.

  

Daylight qualifying first session: Ron (“our rocket Ronny”), around here on a modern superbike he’s blisteringly fast and tonight comfortably lapping 2:57`s. He  could lap much quicker but he knows there is a big job in front and we all wanna go the distance. Were hoping he can get mid-pack, between 10th and 20th place in qualifying, then come race day we can just chip away and see what happens. It’s looking just like things are going to plan as Ron finishes his first stint in 18^th. Back in the pits he says he keeps slipping of the left foot peg, looking down at his left boot and at the bike there is oil everywhere. We’ve got less than 5 minutes before next qualifying to find the leak and stop it. The left-hand crankcase cover is found to be the culprit, all bolts are checked, all are tight but it’s leaking oil at an alarming rate. We patch it up with duct tape for now and were ready for session 2.

  

Daylight qualifying second session: Don’s turn now, we can see he’s in a lot of pain but he looks over to us and just grins, the sort of grin you’d imagine a big bear would give when he had just found the biggest jar of honey ever.(Normally this would read, a big bear finding two big jars of honey but he’s got a bad hand remember). I’ll just say here at this point that our two riders have a weight difference of 50 kg. Don being the heavier of the two and any thoughts of suspension set-up go out of the window here. In Don’s own words “Just build the bike around Ron and I’ll ride the fucker. So long as it’s got good brakes, I don’t care”. It makes life a bit easier for the team when all we need to do is stick two extra lumps of sponge on the seat and both riders are happy. Donny’s session goes without incident apart from the oil leak not going away, running slightly slower in the 3:03`s but for us that was awesome. End of session 2 and the oil leak is now ridiculous, both riders left legs and left boots are completely soaked with oil, walking you can see oil squelching out of the sides of their boots, much more of this and we will have used the entire stock of brake cleaner in the western hemisphere. Whilst the TTX bikes are doing there qualifying we create a more permanent repair to the crank case cover using a assortment of “racing materials”.

 

 

  

Daylight qualifying sessions 3 and 4: With bits of old t-shirt, duct-tape, tie wraps and lock wire we send our two intrepid heroes back out for the final two daylight qualifying sessions. Both sessions go off with out drama, apart from the leaking cover. The oil leak appears to have slowed a little and looks like holding just long enough to get us through the last two qualifying sessions. These are done in total darkness and eyes need to be re-adjusted, it’s at this time that a rider must feel very confident, brake markers and apex’s appear very differently now. Blanchemont is an extremely fast left hand curve ,(This is taken flat out on our bike in top gear, lent right over and travelling at around 230 kph) the last thing you need is your left foot slipping of the foot peg.

 

   

Dark qualifying sessions: Again here no major dramas, thanks to the two new 55 watt headlights fitted this winter, Ron is comfortably lapping 2:57`s. Don out now, his times are up and down a bit going from 3:03`s – 3:08`s, hardly surprising with his hand, which had now started seeping blood though the tape.

 

End of qualifying we are in 18^th position out of 68 and we are very happy.

 

It’s close to midnight now and now’s the time for a beer and a laugh or a team briefing as some would call it. We’ve got two problems to sort out before tomorrow’s race.

 

No 1. Stop an oil leak

 

No 2. Fix Dons hand

 

 

 

 

 

Solution: Don goes home (a round trip of 200 kms) and with the aid of Anita, his princess in shining armour, gets his hand cleaned up and re-taped. (We’ll think about hospitals later). Then he calls back at the shop, picks up every type of gasket paper and liquid sealer he can find and gets back here as soon as possible.

 

   

Saturday morning race day: We’ve got plenty of time, so after a good nights rest and a team breakfast we are ready. The left hand crankcase cover is removed, cleaned and refitted (dry), where it is noticed that the cover itself is twisted. We sit restlessly awaiting the return of the “one-armed bandit”, the hours drag but luckily we’ve got a couple of things to keep our minds occupied. Our youngest member Mario just 15,  took to the hallowed tarmac that is Spa-Francorchamps for the very first time, riding a 600 Ducati Pantah. Both he and elder sister Mandy enjoyed three days worth of wet and dry track time surrounded by some of the most famous motorcycles in history.

  

14:00 hours: The big man returns carrying all the necessaries and telling a thousand stories all at ones. We set to work, due to the wiring the cover cannot be detached from the bike so a new gasket has to be cut around the old one. Owing to the cover being twisted, we opt for the thickest gasket paper we’ve got (It, looking suspiciously like it had been a shoebox in a former life). So with a bit of liquid sealer and fingers crossed everything was re-assembled, we were ready to race. At this moment it was noticed that the rear sprocket was looking very worn.

 

Ok, here’s is the plan. Ronny is rider No 1, he’s at this moment our fastest rider, he will ride the first hour, he will make the famous “Le Mans start”. During the afternoon he’s limbering up, doing a few practice sprint starts in the paddock and wearing only training shoes on his feet he falls, twisting ligaments in his ankle, in minutes he can barely walk. Step forward Anita and her magic tape again.(A surgeons assistant makes a very useful team mate).Taping up his foot she tells him to get his boot on quick whilst he still can. When evening warm up arrives Ronny can’t walk at all, he’s now hopping around on his one good foot and “the rocket” is looking seriously defused.

 

18:00 hours: Warm ups come and go and our baby is oil tight, not a drop insight and now all eyes are on the dodgy rear sprocket.

 

Air is sucked in through teeth, shoulders are shrugged and fingers are crossed because these are the only things we’ve got. The sprocket is a one off, we don’t have a replacement and we are a fuckin amateurs. Strategy is discussed but we really only have one clear plan, just stay on the thing and try and finish. A strategy I think used by most teams but in endurance racing other factors come in to play like not “giving it the beans” everywhere and blowing it up, this is after all, a thirty one year old bike we are talking about here and our two riders treat it just like the guys who built it.

  

 

20:00 hours, running/hopping start: Our man,“rocket Ronny” is fired up, two paracetamols and two cups of coffee (the same stuff George Clooney drinks) and he’s ready. They’re away and Ronny’s brief is to “take it steady till you get dialled in”. He takes a couple of laps to find his rhythm (maybe he’s having a few flashbacks to last year, the massive highsider he had in lap 1 and the broken collarbone and three broken ribs he sustained) but by lap 5 he’s “dialled in” and lap 7 sees him post his personnel best with a 2:55:954. The couple of places he had lost, have now been clawed back. Ronny finishes his first hour and thanks to his consistent lap times, we are now up to 16^th.

   

21:00 hours: It’s Donny’s turn now and we knew he’d never be able to match the speed of Ron (a month earlier during a practice session in similar weather conditions both riders were comfortably lapping in the 2:56’s). We figured at best we could finish 20^th, even that maybe was hoping for a bit too much but a couple of the faster teams have already retired so anything can happen.

 

Our man was clearly hurting but doing a stunning job of disguising it. His lap times are a bit inconsistent, going from 3:03’s to 3:10’s but we’re not going backwards and come the end of his first hour, we we’re now up to 15^th.

   

22:00 hours: Donny comes in, its lap 40 and it’s a neat change over, no drama’s just a full tank of fuel, a new rider, a quick look at the rear sprocket, a quick prayer and away you go. Ron begins his second and final stint.

 

Just looking at Don you could see that everything was starting to take it’s toll, although he was hiding it very well. A Belgian track official who knew of Don’s injury came over to us after seeing him get off the bike and said “Your man is a tough guy”.

 

He laughed when we told him Donny was a cross between a cowboy and an Indian.

 

Ron was now busy pulling us up the leader board, half an hour in, its dark and Ronny, doing 3:03’s has pulled us up into 11^th.Things seem to be going ok until he pulls in earlier than we’d expected. 

 

22:45 hours: Ronny pulls in saying he feels the chain is about to “jump off”. We take another look, re-adjust it, a bit of chain lube, a full tank of fuel, a new rider, a quick prayer and away you go. Don begins the last hour, his considerable weight difference could now be a deciding factor in the life span of our chain and sprocket. Ron told us that every time he came to l’Eau Rouge, the chain felt like it wanted to jump from its sprocket.

   

23:05 hours: Don seems to have found a rhythm he’s comfortable with, we’re not going backwards  anymore, when suddenly it starts raining. Ron had already told us that it was getting very slippy out there and from our position by the track you could clearly see on the track, rainbow patterns of oil glistening in the oncoming headlights. Donny was now running 3:12’s and now all we are wanting, is just to finish. Standing next to the pit wall the sound from our bike is deafening (an ear splitting 127 db) but I’m certain I can hear the sound of the chain trying to jump ship, every time Don gears down for la Source. This is a nervous time, we hear news of a team higher up the board who have just retired.

 

 

 

23:35 hours: The rain has stopped and there looks a dry line appearing out on track .We had gone from 18^th up to 12^th place, we were thinking at this point that 12^th place would be very nice but finishing was our main goal, Donny meanwhile seemed to have a bigger agenda.

 

 

 

23:45 hours: Every time the bike goes past the pit wall, the chain sounds like it’s about to shatter into a million pieces. There was even talk of pulling him in, just so the chain and sprocket could have a rest and then to send him back out for the last lap but that was quickly dismissed. Stopping Donny at this point would be like pulling a bear off your picnic, unthinkable! We gritted our teeth and stared at the monitor, Donny, with a broken thumb, in pitch darkness, on a wet, oil strewn track, had pulled us up into 11^th place and we were banging on the door for 10^th.

   

24:00 hours: The legendary Mr Don Jansen takes the chequered flag in 11^th position, both his legs and arms thrashing madly in the air as he passes us, screaming back at him over the pit wall. 

 

 

 

 

00:10 hours: Our man returns to us, this time sweating/running/ sweating/walking/sweating, as rules dictate that all bikes must return directly from track into the scrutineer’s garage. The champagne was opened, we’d done it, we’d finished and we’d finished in a respective 11^th place. Not bad for only our second year and not bad for a little village team, made up entirely of friends and families.

 

 

00:30 hours: Peter has gone off to collect our bike, we anxiously await his return, we just want our baby back! On his return he says rumours are circulating that the winning moto guzzi team had cheated and that maybe after all we’d get our 10^th place.

   

Mid Sunday morningish: We’re now sitting in the VIP lounge for the presentation. After the race officials decision, the first placed team have been found to have cheated and are disqualified. All other race positions jump one position higher, we are granted our 10^th place. The Kawasaki team who came over the line in 2^nd position, had chased the moto guzzi team all the way to the finish line and were only a mere 00:20’s behind at the end of the race. Congratulations to Christian Haquin/Gilles Hampe and the Kawasaki team who were quite rightly crowned race winners.

   

Without going on to much about cheating here, we would just like to say we fully support the comments and decisions made by the race officials.

 

“This is”, as one prominent race official declared, “a classic race series and will remain so. Many honest, hard working people have worked strictly with in the rules to create classic racing bikes, lets keep it that way”.

   

Early Sunday evening: Back now in the more sedate surroundings of the local A & E department our two boys anxiously await the results of their x-rays. Ronny’s ankle has a torn ligament and is severely bruised, it is re-taped and its owner is sent home on his one good foot. Don wasn’t so fortunate, the bone in his thumb had fragmented into five pieces, one piece had found its way into his hand. During the race he’d had his hand clenched so tight, the muscles had contracted making it almost impossible to re-set the thumb that night. Wednesday morning and the little man is  successfully re-set with titanium plate, wire and six screws.

 

We would like to say:

    

A big, big thank you to all the well wishers from Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands and Great Britain.

   

A massive thank you to Georges Martin for his creation and for his words of encouragement.

   

There really are too many people to list here but those who have helped, you know who you are. We are a village team, we don’t have a low budget, we have no budget! But one thing is certain, we will be back in 2012 and with a faster bike.

 

 

 

   

Best wishes to all race fans everywhere. We will see you all next year.

 Spanjer Classic Race Team

 

 

 

 

Articles in the Press:

 

Japanese Magazine: Click here

Moto 73: Click here

Motor Revue: Click here