By Horst Saiger yesterday issued a statement on his Facebook page, regarding his disqualification from the Superbike Classic TT, when he piloted the Greenall Racing ZXR 750 Kawasaki.
Horst said:
“It’s not funny to be disqualified and there are a lot of rumours, so I feel I need to say how I see the whole thing. For me the Classic TT is a festival and show, the regulations say everything:
The organisers retain the ability to accept an entry for a machine that is not compliant with these regulations if in their view it will enhance the spectacle of the racing.
There’s no prize money and no championship. 750’s against 1300’s, handmade high tech bikes against old standard bikes out of a shed, big teams with professional riders against absolute amateurs.
To be honest I didn’t take the whole thing too serious. I was just happy to have a good bike with a good team behind it, so I can ride safely around the mountain course.
No, I didn’t know that my bike was out of regulations, but I didn’t ask and that’s only because I didn’t really want to know! After the parc ferme my team boss Angus Greenall came to me and told me: Sorry Horst, you’re out.
Your pistons are 0,5mm too big. It was only a money thing as the 72,5 mm pistons would have been special parts and £40,000 whilst the 73mm are standard at £3,000 each.
For sure it was not right and he could have used smaller pistons, but I think he didn’t take it too serious as well.
Photo by Jim Gibson
He and the whole team are just putting a lot of hard earned money and hundreds of hours in these bikes to give me the best possible bike to be part of this spectacle.
I’m not angry with him and I think I would have ridden the bike also when I knew it was out of regulations by 0.5mm, because nobody that I know in the paddock would think that half a millimetre makes any difference at the result! I feel very safe and comfortable on the bike when I know the Greenall’s are behind it and that is the main thing for me.
The whole paddock now learned that the Classic TT is not longer a show event, from now on it’s proper racing, even the difference in bikes and riders is enormous.
I will stay with the team if they keep on doing the Classic TT and I would be happy to have them behind me with my own racing at the roads as North West 200, TT and everywhere else.”
