Belgian Classic TT 2011 - Gedinne

This was our second visit to Gedinne for the Belgian Classic TT. This fantastic 5Km road circuit winds it's way through the foot hills of the Ardennes in southern Belgium.

The circuit map looks good

But doesn't do it justice, here's what it looks like from on the bike

That was the first lap of practice. Things were going well for both riders, Andy qualified fifth overall and Stu seventh making us easily first and second in an admittedly small group 1 (single cylinder class) and in with the quicker group 2 guys (mainly 2 stroke twins and the odd Honda twin).
All was looking good until Andy's 500cc practice. On his final lap on the Seeley G50, a torque arm bolt broke and locked up the rear brake causing a crash approaching the second hairpin.
The result......

another broken collarbone

So that was the end of Andy's racing for the weekend.

This meeting provides a wide variety of bikes both road and race. below are a couple that caught our eye.

Motom - that's what I call a paddock bike

Kreidler road bikes

In race 1 (Saturday) Stu made a good start and was in with the leading group, but up the hill a few of the 2 stroke twins pulled away but Stu had a race long battle with a TD3 Yamaha ridden by Fup Bakker and a T20 Suzuki ridden by Bart Kennis.

 Stu led the battle until the last lap, unaware he was second overall as some of the 2 strokes had retired but at the same corner that Andy had fallen Fup Bakker made a good block pass leaving Stu to take third overall and an easy class win.

250's in the parc ferme

The rest of the afternoon was spent sampling Belgian beer and checking out other Ducatis in the paddock

We knew that Andy's bike was the quicker of the two so a plan was formulated, change over the race numbers and Stu would take Andy's bike for race two.  Sunday morning brought rain and a wet practice so the idea was to do a few steady laps to get used to the bike but half way around the first lap the bike ground to a halt. Back in the paddock we found water had got into the plug cap and shorted the spark.

This meant starting from the back of the grid but another good start saw Stu up to fourth by the first chicane

At the first hairpin, Stu took the lead only to be re passed at hairpin 2 by the eventual winner Tom Van Waerbeke on a Yamaha. The race then was for second between Stu and Sylvain Bauwens on a Benelli 2C. Eventually the superior speed of the Benelli was too much for the better handling Ducati and Stu settled for third, slowing on the final lap having felt a vibration from the Ducati but still first in class.

Or so we thought, in fact due to not completing a lap in Sundays practice Stu was excluded from the results.


Oh well, we'll just have to go back next year with even faster bikes.

Thanks to all the organisers and marshalls at Gedinne for a fine meeting. I urge anyone to make a visit to this circuit either to race or spectate, it's a great classic racing event