Zolder 28th June

I'm doing Zolder in Belgium on the 28th June, heading down from Rotterdam with a trailer if anyone fancies it and/or wants a lift.

Hotel booked a couple of clicks from the circuit and the girlfriend is coming down from Haarlem too. She can hold the brolly/water/cold towel/get bored.

Plenty of riding this weekend then

It'll be good to see what the BT-002R tyres are like on a short circuit, and return to the location of my first ever trackday. Although I've heard they have on track noise measurement, I just hope the GSX-R standard system stays quiet.

nice remember neils old standard gsxr got him into trouble

Well the BT-002R's were great, no spinning up in second, no cold tearing and still got a nice profile on them. Impressed.

A good track day, no issues with the noise restriction for me on the standard can. Some interesting braking zones where the cars have pushed up the tarmac making it quite bumpy. A well organised TD, good use of yellows and waved yellows to keep sessions going (and white flags to warn of the first aid car on the track). Not a single one of my sessions was red flagged, in fact I think there was only 1 red flag all day. 4 x 20 mins sessions and 1 x 30 mins session, with a relaxed start (first group on track at 10am). Definitely getting in the flow in the second half of the day.

I didn't bump into road Pirate, but then I was having to do a little entertaining and keep the GF happy.

I've found a few pics, I may buy a couple and will then post them up.

[squirrel_hunter]

I was looking at doing Zolder as part of Operation: Test Ride Miles with KTM. But the distance and language barrier I think has put an end to that idea.

But out of interest, how did you get on communication wise, do you speak the local tongue? And if I were to get over to Zolder as they still have places and I'd love to do it what’s the best way to get there, any local airports?

Wrt the language I speak very little dutch/flemmish, during the briefing the things I worked out were:

1. You have a transponder.
2. You need this on.
3. There is noise testing on two parts of the track, the transponders allow us to work out who is too noisey.
4. Ride on the opposite side of the track to the noise testing microphones.

After the briefing was finished the guy was happy to explain in english where the noise testing was, what side of the track to go on to not cause issues, to stay on a constant ish throttle (the induction noise due throttling off then on can be higher apparently). The rest I assumed was just normal track day rules, I just made sure I followed someone out in the first session and followed someone in, although it was all pretty clearly flagged.

As for local transport connections to the circuit, I'm a bit unsure, it's a bit in the middle of nowhere, nearest airports are probably Brussels/Antwerp/Liege, I think its roughly in the middle of those three. Nearest large(ish) city is Hasselt.

Let me know if I can be of any more help.

A few pics:

[chris8886]

who's ya lady friend?

She's the American lady friend, she stayed in bed for the first sessions whilst I battled the hangover then came to join me, she actually quite enjoyed it, although I'm sure the wine, food, hotel and crap karaoke in a locals only bar the night before helped