NorthWest 200, what an expierence!

A week after the tough weekend on the home-track at Hengelo, our team landed in Belfast, to compete in the biggest sport event in North-Ireland; the NorthWest 200. This is a race witch is beeing helt over the streets, through the villages Portrush, Porststeward and Colleraine. On the 14 kilometer (8,9 miles) long track they manage to reach extreme high topspeeds. Everything is really new and different for us.

First day Ilja had a newcomer session, because it was his first time. During this session he got a nail straight trough his radiator! Because of changing the spare radiator and the rain who had started during the session, he missed almost the whole Q1.

photo by diego mola
On Thursday there was Q2, and almost inmidiatly there was this problem with water coming out of the overfloat. After a few rounds he came in, we managed to open the cap on the radiator, filled it with water and send him out again. The problem was that he hád to make 5 laps during those qualifications, otherwise he was not allowed to start the race.
The guys of the team tought there was air in the system, after filling it up so quick while it was still hot, so we decided to race that evening.
Infortunatly, in the warm up lap we already saw new water, but still tried do race. But in the second lap, Ilja had to park his bike somewhere on the track, because it was already turning too warm.

On Friday we searched for the solution.. It could be the cap on the radiator, whitch was only a 1.1bar cap, the pressure in the system can get too mutch, there fore the water comes out elsewhere.
But the second option was the head gasket. Just to be sure we had put the bike on a dyno that evening. Where very soon we found out, it was indeed the headgasket.

We did our best to get te spare bike ready, with we could only not in the conditions we wanted to (way too hard rear suspension caused problems during braking and steering roundabouts)
But we where so happy that he finaly finished! That was al that mattered that day.
Ilja said it was a great experience, that slipstream is amazing, on 160+ mph (280 kmph)
And the blind corners, the hights, the long straight, racing near the coast, between the big guys.. Wow, and
then the enviroment, the people around are also so kind. We hope we can be there next year!