Isle of Man TT stars in 24 hours action
Swapping closed-roads circuits for seemingly endless laps of the famous Magny-Cours track Steve Mercer made a strong contribution to the Penz13.com Franks Autowelt Racing Team’s excellent sixth place finish.
The Penz13.com outfit is well-established on the Endurance scene, managed by former TT competitor Rico Penzkofer.
For Mercer though the Bol d’Or was a steep learning curve. For one thing he’d never competed with a race-style gearbox, a feature on the Superstock BMW S1000RR, but was still able to adapt to the bike quicker than first choice rider Hayato Takada and was chosen to take his place in the race.
Starting from 17th on the grid Mercer, Jason Pridmore and Pedro Vallenceras worked their way through the field overnight and into the morning to finish in sixth place overall and second in the Superstock class just over a minute behind rivals Junior Team LMS Suzuki.
On his personal facebook page Steve gave a bit of an insight into just how demanding a 24 hour race can be: ‘Trying to get home but we're all so tired think were gonna have to park up for the night. Been up since 7am Saturday morning.’
Elsewhere Conor Cummins made his endurance racing debut with the Maco Racing Team and successfully finished the race, helping to pile up a solid 769 laps of the 4.411 km (2.74 miles) circuit at an average speed of 141.15 km/h. It was enough to bring the team home in 15th place.
Veteran endurance racer, and soon to be TT debutant, Horst Saiger put in a good performance for the Team Bollinger Switzerland #8 outfit. The Kawasaki ZX-10R came home in 17th.
For the Honda TT Legends team, there was an uncharacteristic technical failure which forced their withdrawal after nearly 19 hours and 599 laps.
Running in a solid fourth place the team, consisting of Michael Dunlop, John McGuinness and Simon Andrews were looking for a podium result.
Michael Dunlop was forced to make an unscheduled pit stop where a malfunctioning heat exchanger was diagnosed as the problem. John McGuinness returned to the fray in 13th place aiming to make up some more positions but it seems the bike had already suffered fatal damage and John was forced to retire after just one lap.
Michael Dunlop summed up the whole team’s feelings ‘It’s so disappointing for all the lads after all the hard work they’ve done. I really feel for them because it’s not just about us riders, it’s a massive team effort and they put so much into it. I just got my head down and got on with it, going with the flow really. It was going well up until that point, but we’ll go back and take a look at the bike and come back bigger and stronger next time.’
In one of the strange twists endurance racing will often throw up it looked as if three-time TT winner and full time Honda TT Legends rider Michael Rutter would have to watch his first Bol d’Or from the sidelines – until fate intervened.
A crash in pre-season testing left Rutter nursing a leg injury which eventually led to the decision Michael Dunlop, as team reserve rider, would take his place in the starting line-up for the Bol.
Michael Rutter was fully supportive of the team’s decision saying ‘the body’s hanging in after the crash but I fully understand the decision for me not to do the race. I wish the guys all the best of luck and hope they can bring home a good result.’
Having resigned himself to being a spectator it came as something of a shock to be drafted by Honda Europe to ride for the ‘National Motos’ Honda team after the Parisians were left a man short following a morning warm-up crash.
It proved to be a fortuitous match with Rutter able to help the team into third place during the early stages of the race – and then claw back to 8th by the finish after a crash by one of the team riders knocked them down to 13th.
Ironically, then, Rutter became the only one of the TT Legends team to complete the 2013 Bol d’Or, albeit on a bike he’d never ridden before the race.
As he put it ‘I’d have love to have rode with TT Legends…When Honda Europe asked me to help out at least for a few stints, I took the opportunity’ adding ‘I was well happy to finish a 24 hour race, especially my first one on a bike I’d never ridden before.’