By For the first time since Super Twins were incorporated into the TT Races schedule, there is two female racers competing Maria Costello MBE and Veronika Hankocyova.
A race winner at Dymokury, Wonder Woman Racing’s Hankocyova has stepped up to TT competition after three Manx Grand Prix tenures.
Before TT 2024, the 300 Curves of Gustav Havel meet at Horice, provided mixed emotions.
Speaking about Horice circulations, sliding off out of the Supersport race, she said:
“Very difficult conditions, half of the track was dry and under the trees was wet and after the Supermono session, one bike leaked oil, it was not seen on the tarmac, so you couldn’t see it, organisers had troubles with that.
So, it was very difficult to make the decision for dry or wet tyres, so in the Super Twin race, which I finished there was a problem, a red flag before completing for wet tyres, then it dried up, after another re-start not anymore for wet tyres, so half of the people went on wet tyres including me.
So, I finished 19th, I have to say I was happy enough because before I had fell off on the 600 in wet conditions, it was a big crash, so I was happy to finish the Super Twins.
I said ok, I need to finish the race, continue the development because it’s another job there, I don’t want to make any other mistakes, I finished the Super Twins race on wet tyres and got here and following a lot of troubles with the bike we’ve been working here about two or three days till 5:00 AM in the morning, to make the bike work.”
Commenting on Monday’s free-practice, qualifying outings, Hankocyova who lapped near the 105-mph lap mark, last evening, stated in thorough honest terms:
“Yeah, the first practice was a bit difficult for me because we had a lot of work to do on the bike (RS 660 Aprilia), I fell off on the bike at Horice last week. Then engine blew up, so we had to swap engines, then we realised that the engine is not powerful enough so then we put another engine in.
We have been on the Dyno here, we realised it’s 99 BHP, so we said OK, we don’t know if it’s enough. Then after the four laps, two untimed, two in qualification, it was horrible for me because I was very slow and I felt that the bike was jumping like balling, jumping around.
I said OK, there is some problem with the suspension, so finally yesterday I caught up with Mark Arnold from Motoshock, K-Tech company, he said the rear shock was completely broke.
He said it couldn’t work, so it was like a relief to my stress, I realised it was not my fault about been to slow so I’m now looking forward to another session, because I need to improve my lap time, because I would like to qualify.
My focus is to qualify for the race, ok there is maximum 60 people (able to compete), right now that the speed I need to be 105 or something like or that. I know I can do it, much better as shown last year from Manx Grand Prix, so we will see I hope the engine will be strong enough and have new fairings, bigger ones compared to last year.”
When asked about how the idea of Wonder Woman Racing arose, the amiable Czech rider stated:
“I realised, that I would like to support other woman in the sport, I have two team-mates now in the Czech Republic, Christina Jakech, Anna Malinova, Christina is on a 400 and Anna is on a 600.
Anna is more of a short circuit rider, very good one, she’s winning races around the Czech Republic, Brno, Most, Slovakia-Ring other meetings and Christina is road racing, and she is a newcomer to road racing, she would like to try in the future the Manx Grand Prix.
She is young so she can do it, so I would like to help her do it and another thing we are co-operating with the school which is teaching mechanics, moto mechanics and we are co-operating with them because they have girls there.
So, girls from this school are going with us to the races, so we would like to support all the women in the sport, not only the racers, the mechanics, managers, everyone who wants to be involved in the sport.”
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
