By Preparations are on going at Imatra, as the iconic roads circuit in Finland gears up for a return to pure road racing action, as it hosts the penultimate round of the 2016 International Road Racing Championship.
Recently on the 21st of July, Imatra was inspected by respected members of the motorcycle racing community in Finland.
Amongst them was Kurt Ljungqvist, Chief Executive of the Motorcycling Federation of Finland, who said:
“They’ve prepared things very well at Motorclub Imatra. The schematics were excellent and we knew in advance what to pay attention on. The track looked good, and now it’s only a matter of small adjustments.
Somehow it seems all of Imatra is full of enthusiasm. It’s great to see how the whole city seems to pull together and everybody is motivated to do their best for the race.”
Photo by Pekka Pöyry
Juha Kallio who did some laps of the Imatra circuit on a HP4 BMW, added:
“We wanted to clarify certain things by riding. For instance where the curbs should be and what are the most likely crash runoff directions.
Functioning communication between the Federation and Club has made our work a lot easier and has saved us a lot of unnecessary work.
In addition, representatives of the Federation have visited us frequently enough, and even on a short notice. Also the attitude of the city representatives towards required changes has been very flexible.
The track seems really good; the changes we made changed it a bit to the technical side, and the chicanes are quite ride able.
At places it’s really fast and there are hard braking’s, but I believe that the more technical sections of track will make for some spectacular racing.”
Adding, that ultra high speeds are in prospect on the main straight at Imatra, he said:
“The main straight, by the river Vuoksi, will see the highest speeds. I’m certain the Superbikes will exceed 300 km/h.”
Anticipated entrants for the IRRC superbike and supersport races at Imatra include championship leaders Vincent Lonbois and Marek Cerveny.
Plus Sebastien Le Grelle, Didier Grams, Johan Fredriks, Jochem Van Den Hoek, Joey Den Besten, Kamil Holan and Finland’s current leading TT Races competitor Tuukka Korhonen.
Words by Stevie Rial
