Difficult Superstock weekend for KTM in Monza
The first appearance of the KTM Maehr Superstock Team on
the traditional Monza racing circuit came to a premature end
three laps into the race when Rene Mähr had shut down
his RC8 and return to the pits.
The newly formed team and their talented rider Rene Maehr
already experienced some difficulty with the KTM 1190 RC8
during training for the third race in the FIM Superstock 1000
World Cup on the spirited and legendary racing circuit at
Monza. The bike was launched in the spring of 2008 and KTM
and the team have declared their first season on the racing
circuit as one in which to learn and to gain experience.
Unlike the first two races in Valencia and Assen, it was unfortunately
not possible to come up with a suitable engine and chassis
setup to suit the famous Italian circuit, which features long
straights, hard braking zones and tight chicanes.
Despite a significant improvement at the end of the warm up
for the World Cup race over 11 laps, the first trip to Monza
ended in disappointment for the team and the recently launched
KTM machine when Rene was forced to pull off the circuit with
a defective clutch.
Rene Maehr: "Even if we did have a tough
job ahead of us at Monza, at the end of the day I am most
disappointed that we weren't able to solve the problem during
training. Being unable to finish the race is doubly disappointing
because I wasn't able to test out the improvements we made
during the warm-up at race speed. Nevertheless our experience
in Monza continues the learning process and this is the task
we set ourselves for the 2008 racing season."
The next race in the FIM Superstock 1000 World Cup is from
June 13-15 on the Grand Prix circuit at Germany's Nuerburgring.
|
