2023-10-06 IDC Assen – 1st race of 2023
On Friday, June 9, we had a training day scheduled for our team’s first race in the IDC on June 10. It was beautiful weather at Assen with temperatures above 25 degrees! After Jan Houbraken (The Chaser#35) and Luc van Gerven (The Bomb#36) had already switched to a new R6 last year, Mark van Bunnik (Fastmarky#77) had also bought an R6 at the beginning of this year and had been riding it for several track days on Oschersleben and Assen. Greg Barnes (Gin-Tonic#67) was also able to ride the first sessions on his new R6 this Friday, albeit not yet in team colours. Friday ended with a lot of progress from the new Yamaha riders within the team and smiling faces after a successful training day.
All riders have been placed in the Supersport class this year because they rode 1 race at Assen last year under the class limit of the Proclass 600. Mark van Bunnik also rides with a day license. On Saturday, June 10, 2 qualifications and 1 race were scheduled for our team. Greg Barnes had decided not to participate, due to private circumstances and had also ridden far too little with his new bike.
Qualifications
During qualifying our drivers were at the back of the fast Supersport class. Luc van Gerven achieved P20, Mark van Bunnik P25 and Jan Houbraken P27.
Results qualifying Dutch Supersport
Race
Luc van Gerven and Mark van Bunnik had a reasonable start and were close together. A group formed behind a slightly slower rider. Luc was able to catch up quickly, but Mark was only able to pull away from the group a few laps later. Luc van Gerven achieved a fastest lap of 1:50.8 (one second faster than last year) in the race, while Mark set a fastest lap of 1:51.8 (already 0.1 seconds faster than last year on his Honda). Jan Houbraken was able to maintain his position at the start and was able to improve his lap times during the race, as in qualifying. While he was still in the 1:54 on Friday and accelerated to 1:53 in qualifying, he eventually set a fastest time in the race of 1:52.7, almost 2 seconds faster than last year!
