Imola WORLD SBK

2012

 
 

Imola simply reeks with motorcycle history.  This is a ‘must attend’ event on all serious bikers’ calendars.


We were a very small group over the weekend - a bit of a shame as the event was awesome; and apart from a chilly Sunday morning, the weather was perfect and the racing thrilling! Those that DID come had a whale of a time - especially as VIP guests of our new partner team Effenbert Liberty Racing.


Friday was a brilliant spring day - great to be away from the cold of Northern Europe! We caught up with a lot of friends in the paddock, starting of course with the guys from Liberty (Sylvain Guintoli, Jakub Smrz, Maxime Berger; and our new acquaintance Canadian Brett McCormick). However we also got to say hi to riders we have known such as Eugene Laverty, Hiroshi Aoyama, John Hopkins and younger guys such as our friends from South African Ronan Quarmby and Matt Scholtz; and we were delighted to see our mate from Scotland, Kev Coghlan, battling for Superstock 1000.


Friday action concluded with the thrilling result of our own rider Jakub Smrz taking provisional Pole Position in SBK class!


Friday night we enjoyed a brilliant meal in the kind of restaurant you only find in Italy - every dish made from home-made or locally-grown ingredients; and of course some of the best wine on the planet!  The town was hopping with the InFront party - live band, and people spilling out of pubs all over. Great craic!


Saturday was another perfect day, culminating in the usually exciting Superpole. Jakub didn’t fulfill his earlier promise, but still pulled a decent 9th, whilst teammate Sylvain Guintoli put himself 2nd on the grid behind Tom Sykes. Afterwards, we hit the Paddock Show and the Ducati party in the SBK Village.  This is sponsored & organised by Effenbert so we got special treatment, however we left left in relatively early doors. We heard they went through more than a pallet of beers... :-)


Sunday race day dawned cold and constantly threatening skies. Fortunately it never got wet, but cold and win were contenders in the Superstock 1000 race. Fortunately, our man Kev Coghlan from Scotland is used to just these conditions, and he put in a superb effort to take 9th - on a bike he has never ridden on a track he has never seen!  Way to go Kev! SBK races 1 & 2 were virtual clones - but still exciting even if the results were the same.


Effenbert Liberty had hairy moments in each race: in the first, with Guintoli battling in the top group, he lost traction just getting a tyre off the track on the terrifying final chicane.  A serious skip finished in a high-side dumping him right in the roadway.  He was lucky to escape any injury, the bike did not fare well - a lot of work to get it back in shape for race 2!


In race 2, Canepa also lost it on the chicane, and the bike skittled out right across the path of Jakub Smrz. Only a brilliant swerve into the gravel, missing the bike by a centimetre, saved his butt - and he stayed on to take it home for some points!  Way to go Kuba!!


Sunday evening we were privileged to meet Italian photographer Claudio Ghini who showed us an archive of historic Imola photos - see below.


What a great weekend - I can’t wait to come back here!


As usual, you can read our day-by-day comments on our facebook pages (go back to 30/Mar/12) and check out all the videos on YouTube.

Imola, Italy 30/Mar/2012 - 1/Apr/2012

Event Videos

(see ALL video clips)

Imola in pictures


You can feel the history as you walk through Imola, in the buildings, the signs, the landmarks. Even the people at the event - we saw Dr Claudio Costa (son of Imola’s founder Checco Costa), MotoGP team manager Fausto Gresini, Ducati architect Filippo Preziosi, amongst others just coming for the sport)


We were reminded very wonderfully of this fact Saturday night when we met up with a local photographer, Claudio Ghini, who apart from many years of his own work, is the caretaker of an archive of original photos dating from the early 1950s. We, and especially customer Terry Hutton (who actually raced Imola in the 70s against some of these legends), were awestruck...


Claudio has kindly given a few photos to us - see these wonderful samples. The photos date from 1950 - 1980s; and feature virtually anyone who has ever been anyone in racing. Mike Hailwood, Barry Sheene, Kenny Roberts and many many others are featured.


Claudio’s book, Checco Costa a Imola, passione moto, although in Italian, shows off many of these pics accompanied by tables of participants in many of the legendary races such as the 200 Miglia. (See more on the book...)


We are talking to Claudio about making his archive available to some of our passionate customers.  If you would like to see more, please contact us.

Archive samples - click photo for more detail

1955 - Geoff Duke



1957 - Bob McIntyre



1974 Giacomo Agostini


 

Imola/SBK for Children


We don’t tend to say much about children at SBK (and indeed MotoGP) events. So we thought we’d give it a try...!  In the interests of ‘research’ we brought our own Alex, age 4.5, to Imola.


The Italians adore children! At an Italian event, a 4yr old is virtually an ‘access all areas’ pass! And of course Imola itself is rife with kid’s parks; castles and a toy shop we tried hard to avoid! :-)


But special praise
to the SBK organisers for putting in a ‘kids quad bike’ area perfectly suitable for 4+ yr olds.  Alex was in heaven! (click pic for YouTube)


They also provide a demo area for larger kids on mini bikes.


Liberty Racing also provides a ‘VIP Area’ which in practice means a ‘Creche’! We will be working with them to bring more VIP Children’s toys to the events! (Dragon courtesy of Alex...)