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Team Guandalini Racing>> NURBURGRING RACES

September 10 2009

Team Guandalini Racing newsletter

Warm Up
Sunshine and slightly warmer temperatures welcomed spectators to the Nurburgring on Sunday. Both the Team Guandalini riders suffered problems during the warm-up, to finish in eighteenth (Smrz) and twenty-second (Baiocco), more than two seconds off the pace of the fastest rider.


Race 1
Despite no problems at the first corner, three riders, Hopkins, Tamada and Parkes, were caught up in an incident at the second bend. Race direction red-flagged the race, an unfortunate outcome for the Team Guandalini’s Smrz and Baiocco who were in fourteenth and fifteenth position at the time of the crash. As the restarted race got underway Smrz had a problem with the clutch which meant he lost several positions. Baicco made a better start, gaining three positions at the offset, only to lose the front during the third lap, crashing and ending thus his race. Jakub Smrz again made a great recovery, passing several riders during the race to move up from twenty-first to eventually finish in thirteenth place, gaining another two important points for the team.

Race 2
The two Team Giandalini riders suffered firther difficulties at the start of  Race 2. Smrz lost seven positions in the first split, finding himself in 23rd place, while Baiacco passed him to progress to 21st. The group in which the riders found themselves remained tight, allowing Jakub to get past first his team-mate and then David Checa. In the fourth lap Nori Haga fell at the first curve, when Rea made contact. During the same lap rider no. 96 passed the two Italians Scassa and Ianuzzo to move into sixteenth place. Before he could reach Shane “Shakey” Byrne, he too on the Ducati 1198, Byrne fell and Jakub moved into his place. On the last lap Smrz was only 0.4 of a second behind Nieto while Baiocco was 0.3 of a second from Iannuzzo. Smrz got past Nieto to finish the race in eleventh place while Baiocco remained behind Iannuzzo, concluding in sixteenth.

Jakub Smrz
“Neither of the two races went well. We didn’t have a good Friday, or Saturday. Friday’s sessions took place in the wet and Saturday’s in the dry and we couldn’t find a set-up that I liked. Today was a lottery because we changed bike after the warm-up and again before race 2. I made a good start in race 1 and was in 14th when the race was stopped. Then in the restart I had clutch problems which left me at the back of the group; I had to battle to get to thirteenth. In race 2 someone pushed me at the first corner and I was nearly last. Thankfully my pace meant I could make up positions.”

Matteo Baiocco
“It was very hard work this weekend. I wasn’t totally happy with the bike’s set-up. I fell in race 1 as I was too aggressive in breaking and then in race 2 I didn’t have the confidence to break late. I wasn’t pushing as hard as I should have and I only realized that I could towards the end of the race and by then it was too late. I’m sorry because I didn’t do as well as I had hoped.”

Guandalini Ducati is sponsored by Hotbodies Racing and uses our windscreens on all of their bikes. Hotbodies Racing specializes in manufacturing high-performance parts for high-performance sportbikes, and is the North American distribution of KR Tuned performance parts. Hotbodies Racing is the market leader in Undertails, Huggers, Windscreens, Flush-Mount Signals, Megaphone Exhausts and full-race Bodywork. Hotbodies Racing supports the sport with sponsorship around the world and encourages dealer and distributor inquiries. For more information visit: www.HOTBODIESRACING.com.

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