Race report from Gareth Jones and RT Motorsport

[The Chow]

Just in from BAZ Jones.(Gareth's Uncle)

Rollercoaster of a ride for Queensland ‘flyer’ as chance of consecutive podium finish is sunk by low flying Hungarian torpedo.

Nurburgring Sunday 31st May

Gareth Jones made his first front row start in the German IDM Championship at only his second attempt. After deciding to ride in the IDM round at Nurburgring on Wednesday Jones and the RT Motorsport team arrived on Friday lunchtime missing the first 3 practice sessions but once again the likeable young Australian got the measure of the track in quick order.

Jones qualified in an excellent 4th position with a time of 1.27.364 just 0.3 secs behind pole sitter Werner Daemen and inside the lap record.

Jones took full advantage of his starting position taking the lead for the first time in an IDM race at corner one before being drawn back into the leading pack. Gareth , Kai Borr Andersen, Jorg Teuchert, Stefan Nebel, Arne Tode and Werner Daemen established a lead group and fought an outstanding skilful battle for the podium positions. Jones and Teuchert swapping places for 2nd and 3rd with less than a second separating the top 5 riders.

The race continued in this vain for 17 of the 20 laps. On the 18th lap with Jones less than 0.5 of a second adrift of the leading rider, he closed in anticipating his final attack and was unceremoniously dumped out of the race and into hospital .

According to the IDM official website www.idm.de report the incident involved Hungarian rider Gabor Rizmayer #75 who was in 8th place entering the corner.

“At the end the racing got the Australian Gareth Jones, who was torpedoed by Suzuki pilot Rizmayer out of the running. The Hungarian was too late when applying brakes gently in the third from last round and drove Jones off the Yamaha. Rizmayer could drive on and finished 14th earning 2 points. For Jones the undeserved fall ended in the hospital “
Gareth high sided as a result of the collision and was taken to hospital for x-rays on a damaged wrist which ended his participation in the days racing.
An understandably frustrated Gareth Jones #87 and team manager Rob Vennegoor decided to withdraw from tomorrows street race at OSS as a precaution against any further damage to the rider or the aging 2008 Yamaha in preparation for the next ONK round at Assen.
Comments from Gareth Jones
“We can take a lot of positives from this weekend, we wanted to return to the IDM paddock and build on our podium finish there. We have shown that last time was no fluke, that we can qualify on the front row with the best teams in Europe and that we can sustain that position under pressure in a race. The RT Motorsports team is getting better as the season develops and the challenges are greater.

I led my first IDM championship race today and 17 laps into it I was still within touching distance of my first win, unfortunately I was hit from behind and it was not to be this time but I hope there will be many other opportunities in this championship if we can get the financial support to allow us to race. I am so happy to be racing here it is fast and clean.

On the crash ……..
“It was a racing incident, nothing more —some riders use a bike in front rather than a track marker as a braking point , but I am a late braker and carry a lot more corner speed than most people, so it is a mistake to wait until I brake—Suzuki’s are notoriously hard to turn at the best of times this one appears to have gone straight on and hit me.

It is how we respond to adversity that defines how successful we are. We’ll be back .”

Comments from Rob Vennegoor, Team Manager

“Its incredibly frustrating because we have potentially missed out on 2 podiums and 30-40 pts today in the IDM and we will also lose out in the ONK OSS street circuit race which we had intended to compete in tomorrow—albeit starting from the back of the grid because we raced here today, instead of qualifying there, that would have been an interesting challenge that I believe both Gareth and the bike are up to.

I believe we have shown that we are a competitive front running team in this paddock. It would be nice to think we could find the support to be able to compete in the other rounds in this championship. I believe that Gareth is developing with each race and we are learning new things about the bike as he takes it to new places. He challenges us to make it faster and then rides it to its limit.

We have performed extremely well and lost out through no fault of our own, I am very proud of our team.”

You can watch him race on www.kiwiracer.co.nz sorry Dutch commentary only , but english interview after assen round

Cheers

[k14]

That is truely awesome (and gutting). Shows how good the level of riders are here in NZ. His team is doing a great job. Good luck on securing the funding to continue your european assault!!

[Shaun P]

Yeah good on em great stuff!







But he is still an AUSTRALIAN even though he rides for the bumble bee brigade

[Rcktfsh]

no debate he was being taken out,

[Brian d marge]

they wrote a song about that ...pass the dutchie from the left hand side ,,,,

Stephen,

[Brian d marge]

That is truely awesome (and gutting). Shows how good the level of riders are here in NZ. His team is doing a great job. Good luck on securing the funding to continue your european assault!!

Ive been saying that for years !! but there is no stepping stone into Europe because the numbnuts in charge still think our ( the NZ rules /ways ) are the way to go

just out of interest how many racers in nz could give clear concise feed back to an engineer about the bike.............

Nz has a casy stona

Stephen

[Cleve]

Interesting to see Teuchert is still racing...