Viele werden es vielleicht schon wissen, andere wird es nicht interessieren, aber ich kopier das trotzdem mal hier ins Forum.
Komisch das man diese Informationen immer nur in ausländischen Foren lesen kann ?
Ciao
Matthias
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Gossip:
Dear Racers!
From August 19th to the 21st 2005 Hockenheim celebrates the 20th anniversary of it’s annual NitrolympX Drag Racing Event.
Unlike most other motorsports in Germany which have been losing spectators over the past few years the NitrolympX have continuously maintained spectator attendance of around 50,000 people over the race weekend.
For 2005 we have a big celebration programme scheduled and we want to once again present the best of European Drag Bike Racing and having hosted the UEM Championship Round in Germany now for many years we wish to continue in 2005.
Everybody in the Hockenheim Organisation is aware of the traction problem which we have with our new track and that is why I want to explain the background to the situation.
After the reconstruction of the Hockenheimring in 2002, the Drag Strip received a wider and smoother surface but unfortunately the wrong type of asphalt had been laid in mistake by the construction company.
The asphalt contains a lot of small stones but very little tar (bitumen), which provides a bad basis for any traction treatment. We have asked a lot of European experts in 2004 how to overcome this problem (including Kjell Petersson) but none of them have given us the right solution as to how to treat this asphalt.
In the meantime I attended the Drag Racing Commission Members Meeting in Indianapolis and took the chance to discuss our problem with all NHRA track experts that were available.
Firstly I spoke with Randy Robbins as to how they prepare the track. NHRA does exactly the same as what we did in Hockenheim using a 50 percent mix of methanol and VHT, using VHT track spot powder and dragging slicks over the track. This year in Hockenheim we used about 3,000 litres of VHT mix and 30 Formula tyres plus 12 Top Fuel slicks.
Then I spoke with Wayne McMurtry, who has experienced similar kind of problems on older NHRA asphalt tracks. He gave me the formula of a "tack coat" which they have been using to paint the track before putting VHT on it. Seemingly this treatment gave good results and brought back the capability of the surface to build up traction.
We have reached agreement with the Hockenheimring to apply this tack coat before starting track preparation with VHT. Although we expect that this will cure all or at least most of the traction problems for our race in 2005, we still must wait until Friday's first qualifying session to find out if our treatment has solved the problems.
We want all riders to know about this and to trust that we are doing all that can be done to achieve the best traction for record breaking performances.
But if the worst comes to the worst and the track is still not perfect, there is nothing more we can do during the race weekend. Then we need all the riders to do their best to work out the right tune-up for the existing traction and give the audience on Hockenheim's 20th Drag Racing anniversary their best performance possible.
We trust that the bike riders do want to work together with the Hockenheim Organisation and therefore we are willing to host a round of the UEM Championship in 2005 if we get positive feedback from the riders.
We have also invited Louie Murray (NHRA Safety + Medical expert) to assist and supervise the Hockenheim track personnel at the 2005 race.
Best regards,
Rico Anthes
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