Isle of Man with Horst Saiger

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Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
Stills off &# 34; all about…&# 34;

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger

17th pictures

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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1/17
PS racer Horst Saiger is about to take part in the TT for the first time.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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2/17
Horst Saiger.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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3/17
Saiger’s Road Racing company doesn’t work without friends and patrons. You can rely on his team, like here on Bernd Holzmuller.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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4/17
Horst Saiger was born in 1971 in Zeltweg not far from the Osterreich-Ring. In addition to wildcard appearances in the Superbike World Championship (Valencia 2004, 9th place), he mainly drives the Endurance World Championship (podium several times), currently in the Swiss Bolliger team. Saiger is the reigning Swiss champion in the superbike class. In addition to Macau and the TT premiere, road races such as the North West 200 in Ireland are on Horst’s calendar for 2013 in preparation for his Isle of Man project. PS accompanies the cool Osi on his adventure. The highlight will be the race report from the Isle of Man and we will report about it live on our Facebook page and www.ps-online.de.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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5/17
Horst Saiger while filming – among other things very important for sponsors.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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6/17
Horst Saiger.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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7/17
Privateers lack any glamor and sterility of a factory workshop. In the end, however, a fat racer comes out of it.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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8/17
Horst Saiger and Martin Gopp.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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9/17
Green-irradiated tuner Martin Gopp (above and right with frog cap), who also worked for Kawa in MotoGP.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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10/17
Horst Saiger and his team in the preparations for the Isle of Man.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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11/17
Horst Saiger and his team in the preparations for the Isle of Man.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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12/17
Horst Saiger and his team in the preparations for the Isle of Man.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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13/17
Horst Saiger and his team in the preparations for the Isle of Man.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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Horst Saiger and his team in the preparations for the Isle of Man.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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Horst Saiger and his team in the preparations for the Isle of Man.

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
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Horst Saiger and his team in the preparations for the Isle of Man.

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Horst Saiger and his team in the preparations for the Isle of Man.

Sports & scene

Motorsport

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger

Isle of Man with Horst Saiger
And this is what the preparations for the PS Racer looked like

Content of

After a first visit to the Isle of Man and the decision to take part in the TT, PS racer Horst Saiger is facing a tight program – pure stress for the private driver.

Horst Saiger

08/16/2013

Driving as a privateer races at the level of the TT, Macau GP or North West 200 doesn’t make life any easier. In order to finally be at the start, you need a good dose of enthusiasm. On the way from the decision to drive the race to the first beer after crossing the finish line, there are a number of phone calls, rejections, hours of negotiation, disappointments, workshop hours, being on the road … The most important thing: You have to know what you want.

Point 1: We need a plan!


Isle of Man with Horst Saiger


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Horst Saiger.

In our case, it’s actually very easy: we’ll do it as cheaply as possible. That is why we drive all superbike races with a stock sport motorcycle. Anything else would be utopia. We just don’t have the money to build a tuned superbike. But the situation in 2013 suits us because real racing motorcycles are already rolling straight out of the factory halls, or as my tuner Martin Gopp always says: “We are already pretty much at the top of the mountain. Tuning quickly goes down on all sides. “

For the firmly planned races, NW 200, TT and Macau GP, I have my friend Rico “Penz” Penzkofer transport everything. That is much cheaper than doing everything yourself. I can also use his truck awning – perfect for the small Saiger team.

Point 2: Find and keep sponsors


Isle of Man with Horst Saiger


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Horst Saiger while filming – among other things very important for sponsors.

Nothing works without coal and materials, that’s 90 percent of racing. But there is nothing more unpleasant than constantly chasing after any possible financial or material donors. But that has to be the case if you don’t swim in the money yourself. I’m really lucky with my sponsors, most of them have become friends. You don’t feel like the very last supplicant anymore. My strategy: I just go there and talk for my life. If someone says no, it means for me that you asked the wrong question, and I’ll start over. It is essential to keep drumming on one’s own behalf: writing newspaper reports, making videos, etc. – I have to smear that on the sponsors’ bread again euphorically so that I can go there again next year – an endless game. I now have half of my annual budget together. At the start, however, I never really know how I’ll find the second half until the end of the season.

Point 3: The technology


Isle of Man with Horst Saiger


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Privateers lack any glamor or sterility of a factory workshop. In the end, however, a fat racer comes out of it.

You can imagine that I’m picky about that. Good parts are my life insurance in road racing. I’d rather stay home than screw some crap on my bike just because it’s cheaper or because I get sponsorship.

Thanks to the support of Kawasaki In Switzerland and Germany, I was able to continue with my Dreambike, so to speak. So I can use all the experiences and attitudes that we have developed over the past two years. The ninja from 2012 is a very quick base with which we test the new things. For me there is still a lot to be said for Kawa: They have the most loyal and crazy fans, the thing has character, is a real men’s motorcycle and – most importantly for me – the Kawa is victorious without much effort. Control times set, a good exhaust on it, kit wiring harness and kit ECU plugged in (does not cost much, works perfectly and is very easy to handle), then all unnecessary parts are removed and you have at least real 180 hp on the rear wheel at less than 170 kilos – that all without a single titanium or aluminum screw and with perfectly normal polyester cladding. 180 hp might not sound like a lot, but the twelve hp more that we found at 8000 rpm are worth a lot more to me than 200 hp top-end power, because they accelerate me out of the curve and you can do that on the stopwatch read off.

The most important thing between heaven and earth are the tires: Metzeler is running a road racing program this year and they support me – yay! I don’t think I have to shout “Odenwald, we have a problem” into my helmet (that’s where the racing tires are made). My 2012 ninja has an Ohlins chassis. Closed cartridge at the front and a TTX damper at the back – the most expensive thing you can buy, and that worked really well. The prerequisite for this, however, is that I drive into corners with real pressure on the brakes, because the parts were not developed for walking. But it could be something similar on my first TT outing on the Isle of Man, so I’m sure I’m not going to take a crowbar into corners right away. That’s why I ordered something to the contrary from Zupin: fork cartridge and shock absorber from K-tech. This is by far the cheaper option. At the latest at the NW 200 races, it will become clear which system is better for me.

Another important thing: the brakes. I think the original Kawa brakes are very good and I had to search a long time to find something better. Until last fall, I chose SBS Dual Carbon pads with Moto Master discs from Motochic. Then I got the new dual-sinter rubbers from SBS for testing – and what can I say: I love them! They really bite into it and last forever. With them I slowed Conor Cummins on his Tyco-Suzuki on the last lap at the Macau GP! MTC Lohmann gave me an FSM Evo automatic switch to try it out. Let’s see what it can do.

One more thing about the driver’s equipment: It’s often a matter of taste, but anyone who, like me, has crashed around 52 times in the last 17 years and never broke anything, was firstly lucky and secondly not bad equipment. I have had IXS all my life as a racing driver. When it comes to boots, I have no other choice than Daytona. I slipped off the peg once, got my boot under the motorcycle and then hit my calf from behind with the foot peg. That was in Daytona in 2008, of all places, where I started in the US championship. A slight swelling was everything. Such extreme situations only show what good stuff some people make. In this case Helmuth Frey from Daytona – he builds boots for driving and as protection and not as a carrier unit for countless plastic trim parts. Let’s put it this way: If I crash into any TT stone wall at 270 km / h and dissolve into my components, I bet I won’t break a single toe.

Put the new 802R from X-Lite upside down, what else is going to happen? If it tears my head off, my ears will still be there and I won’t look like Niki Lauda – I hope he isn’t reading it now!


Isle of Man with Horst Saiger


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Without friends and patrons, Saiger’s Road Racing company doesn’t work. You can rely on his team, like here on Bernd Holzmuller.

So far, so good, but as team principal and driver in one person, I still have a tight schedule until we can drive off. Here are the most important things in a nutshell: Get all spare, tuning and crash parts, organize all trips and transports, finish assembling the new motorcycle, make the old one ready to race again, look for a place to set and prepare everything, normal to work on the side go and somehow get free for everything, organize team clothing, write and make films, train and learn the route, test with your own bike and that of the Bolliger team, tuner Martin Gopp encourage and motivate twice a week, something filmable for the two camera teams from Groox Medienproduktionen and Radio Viktoria, who will accompany me to the TT and the Macau GP and are already making the first recordings here in Liechtenstein.

That takes a lot of energy and time, not to mention the credit card bills. I usually have 100 things on my mind at the same time and then the time comes when everything becomes too much for me – like the beginning of March. In the evening I sat on the couch and just stared at the switched off television. I wanted to cry and didn’t even know why.

But enough of the moaning, there is also a lot of positive things – there is tremendous support from fans, friends and family. Like the almost 16-year-old Selim from Germany, who got in touch to bring my homepage up to date. And I mustn’t forget my Tamara: Her name is now also Saiger, continues to drive me and is currently building a fan club (fanclub.saiger@me.com). I have to go now, move my bacon belly to the sports field. In the next PS you can read whether the Kawa was ready to race and how the TT press conference with all the stars went.

Horst Saiger


Isle of Man with Horst Saiger


Stills off “all about…”

Horst Saiger.

Profile: Horst Saiger was born in Zeltweg not far from the Osterreich-Ring in 1971. In addition to wildcard appearances in the Superbike World Championship (Valencia 2004, 9th place), he mainly drives the Endurance World Championship (podium several times), currently in the Swiss Bolliger team.

Saiger is the reigning Swiss champion in the superbike class. In addition to Macau and the TT premiere, road races such as the North West 200 in Ireland are on Horst’s calendar for 2013 in preparation for his Isle of Man project. PS accompanies the cool Osi on his adventure. The highlight will be the racing report from the Isle of Man.

Parts list


Isle of Man with Horst Saiger


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Horst Saiger and Martin Gopp.

What does a stock sport race bike cost for the TT?

Base price series Kawasaki ZX-10R: 15,695 euros

  • Racing fairing 399 euros
  • Road racing disc 65 euros
  • 24 liter aluminum tank 2500 euros
  • K-tech fork cartridge 1098 euros
  • K-tech shock absorber 35DDS 1395 euros
  • Kit wiring harness 888 euros
  • Kit ECU 1257 euros
  • Akrapovic exhaust 2228 euros
  • Lohmann switch module 569 euros
  • DID racing chain 139 euros
  • 520-tooth 17-tooth sprocket 34 euros
  • 520 38z sprocket 59 euros
  • GB engine cover 210 euros
  • LSL handlebars 178 euros
  • LSL lever 199 euros
  • 2-slide rest system 419 euros
  • Stompgrip rubbers 55 euros
  • Steel braided brake lines 172 euros
  • Brake discs Moto Master 629 euros
  • Brake pads SBS Dual-Sinter 340 euros
  • Lohmann dlc brake piston kit 192 euros

Quick-release fasteners, seat material, paint, small items, wheel spacers, seals, etc .: approx. 500 euros
Working time including chassis, engine and test bench work: approx. 70 hours

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