By In the extreme opposite to how the weather was playing on Manx shores last week, tropical temperatures descended on the one-day, last Saturday Slovak Holic Castle Classic race.
This was the fourteenth event edition which catered for yesteryear classes, Sidecars and modern bikes (demo laps) around the 0.746 miles short street circuit nearby Czech borders.
It is organised by city Holic with Slovak racing legend, active racing participant Peter Balaz with his son, race director Milos Balaz (also former successful rider with experience for instance with Supersport apparatus at Horice plus actually main organiser of Airport Races at Zilina-Dolny Hricov and Trencin).
Special guests within the Holic Castle paddock were Italian friends of Peter Balaz, Marco Melandri (2002 250cc World Champion, Moto GP 2005 runner-up, World Superbikes 2011 runner-up) and Dario Marchetti (among other winners of last GP 500cc two stroke races at Horice in 1991), both did exhibition laps with fast wheelies on new V4 Panigale Ducati’s.
They were supplemented by Alfio Crespi, Valter Savio, Enzo Specchi amongst others. This meant that a lot of prized Classic bikes took to the track including the 20 years old Ducati Desmosedici Moto GP machine, as raced by Troy Bayliss.
Antonin Kruzik straddled a 1967 Jawa 350 4V (the type, rode in the past by legends like Frantisek Stastny, Jack Findlay, Ginger Molloy, Silvio Grassetti, Zdenek Bima and Bill Ivy, who unfortunately in 1969 passed away after an incident with this motorcycle at the old Sachsenring circuit).
Luciano Garlassi and Arrigo Vinsani showcased their classic Ducati’s in Classic 750cc race. Slovakian road racer David Hanzalik also participated at this meeting alongside his brother Milan Hanzalik in multiple categories. It is interesting to note that the Hanzalik family are organisers of traditional pure road races in the directly neighbouring village, Kopcany.
Next weekend, the above mentioned Trencin Airport race takes place with the main star as we previously reported, David Datzer. There will additionally be on the starting line at Airport Trencin, permanent IRRC riders like Marek Cerveny, Petr Najman, Karel Brandtner, Emil Krchnavy and Rene Mlkvy.
Competing against aces like Tomas Borovka, Marek Stibor, Michal Prasek, Tomas Toth, Tomas Svitok, David Hanzalik, Jiri Petrla, Wolfang Schuster etc. Following the upcoming weekends’ festivities the whole Czech-Slovak road racing circus next moves to Dymokury.
Photo credit: Jan Vavra
Words by Jan Vavra
