This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup

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This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Andreas Weinand

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup

13th pictures

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Wiebmann

1/13
Picture gallery, pit lane: A writer in the Yamaha Cup.

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Wiebmann

2/13
In the final laps of the race, it is important not to let your concentration slip! The approach to the chicane has the potential to overtake and fall.

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Andreas Weinand

3/13
On the first left it gets really tight for 33 drivers.

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Wiebmann

4/13
Horst (right) is something of an institution in Yamaha racing circles and is part of my team at the Lausitzring. Regardless of whether it is screwing or holding an umbrella, it can do it.

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Andreas Weinand

5/13
If you no longer know where there is still time to be gained: something is still going on on the brakes!

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Andreas Weinand

6/13
After the first training session, we use the time to do laps.

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Tobi Munchinger

7/13
The 2D data recording that still had to be installed on site was issued during the kick-off training.

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Tobi Munchinger

8/13
Frank (left) and Uli serve the R6 a sip of distilled water, then a well-deserved beer for themselves.

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Tobi Munchinger

9/13
Around 30 hours of working time went into converting the cup machine.

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Ortema

10/13
At Ortema in Markgroningen, the lactate levels in the test person’s blood are checked, among other things. After a 27-minute run of the increase, PS editor Tobi suddenly ran out of steam.

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Tobi Munchinger

11/13
Just loaded from the ship in Rotterdam, now at Uli Schuller for the conversion. We’ll make a cup racer out of you, little one!

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Andreas Weinand

12/13
PS editor Tobias Munchinger plunges into the R6 Cup adventure and reports episodically on the bright and dark sides of his first racing season.

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Andreas Weinand

13/13
It continues at the Nurburgring!

Sports & scene

Motorsport

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup

This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup
Among wolves

Content of

PS editor Tobias Munchinger plunges into the R6 Cup adventure and reports episodically on the bright and dark sides of his first racing season. Is there a learning curve and what surprises does Racing have in store??

Tobias Munchinger

05/10/2016

Traditionally the begins Yamaha R6 Dunlop Cup with the one-week opening training session at the Lausitzring. Immediately afterwards the first race starts. For almost the entire week of training, we have three degrees in the morning at eight o’clock and sometimes sleet. Instead of firing hard on the gas from the chicane, I shuffle sullenly across the flooded paddock in the direction of the warm shower. Nobody dares to go out onto the track, they might come a few corners. And yet the piste usually dries up in the afternoons and the wild pack can move out.

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Among wolves

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Towards the end of the session, after an obviously unsuccessful braking maneuver, there is a rumble right behind my back. The fallen R6 slips after me and touches my rear wheel lightly, but I stay in the saddle. Lucky – the start almost went wrong. Perseverance is the order of the day until the qualifying runs and the race are finally on the weekend. The sun stands out on the horizon. General sigh of relief as calm before the storm.

R6 is a pure piece of sports equipment

What is bringing me here anyway? I would say a mixture of personal ambition and the prospect of a lot of horsepower stories full of banking, full throttle and gasoline. Last year in September I drove the guest start machine at the Cup final in Hockenheim and was turned through the meat grinder by the R6 pack. Towards the end of the race I really ran out of breath.

After a gross driving mistake shortly before the end, I rolled to the finish line second to last. I was completely exhausted and disaffected. But I definitely didn’t want to let this result sit on me, and the cup virus grabbed me. The R6 is a pure piece of sports equipment and an electrifying experience to start in the professional setting of the Yamaha Cup. In 2016 I just had to get involved. To improve myself and to find out the secret of why these bloodhounds are so incredibly fast on their 600s.

Let’s do it professionally

There are two things that need to be dealt with beforehand. Construction site number one: fitness and nutrition. Construction site number two: I need someone who builds my R6 according to the regulations and maybe even looks after me in a friendly manner in the cup. I plan to approach the matter as professionally as possible and therefore want to start the season in top shape. My buddy Freddy works as a fitness and nutrition consultant, for the preseason he puts me on a radical diet for the time being. For a month there is mainly animal and vegetable protein, well dosed and at most flanked by some vegetables. I increase my workload as much as possible. Gym, running and swimming, always alternating. After four weeks I have the best six-pack I’ve ever trained. Great for highlighting beach beauties on malls. But whether that would make me a better racing driver?

To clarify this, I have an appointment with Andreas Spranger from Ortema (www.ortema.de) for performance diagnostics in Markgroningen near Stuttgart. Even our Superbike World Championship hero Markus Reiterberger goes there for a fitness check and advice. Andreas uses a series of tests to check my mobility, sense of balance, maximum strength and blood lactate levels during exercise. Almost all of the results are really good for me – except for one. I like to jog for a long time, but only in my comfort zone up to a heart rate of 140. As soon as I get into the anaerobic area (pulse approx. 185), my muscles become over-acidic and the oven goes out. However, there should be reserves for the final laps of the race. Andreas Spranger advises me to do shorter runs and build in sprints in between. At the end of the day he gives me a sentence that has burned into me: “In the area in which you have to improve, sport is no longer fun.”


This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup


Wiebmann

In the final laps of the race, it is important not to let your concentration slip! The approach to the chicane has the potential to overtake and fall.

For the fitness grouch among us: Markus Reiterberger apparently only turned to this topic when he entered the Superbike World Championship, before that, according to his own statement, he wouldn’t really have needed all that stuff. Great! With Uli Schuller from Juchen near Monchengladbach, I have a Yamaha dealer with many years of experience at my side for the Cup mission.

Since 2010 he has looked after various drivers. Uli is a very sympathetic guy, and his technician Frank put the R6 on the wheels for me in about 30 hours with the Yamaha kit parts. Frank himself was active in racing for a long time. When I ask him what he’s doing today, he replies: “I’m an undertaker.” I trust him anyway.

Jitter without end

And then it was there, the first racing season. I have endless jitters, but don’t show it. Excitement, hectic pace and exaggerated euphoria have often been the downfall of many big projects, I think. After every training session, across both timed practice sessions and the qualifying runs, I was able to improve a bit here at the Lausitzring. Nevertheless, I am “only” in position 28 of 33 on the penultimate row on the grid.

I constantly struggled with the bike and never really made any progress in terms of the chassis, although the Ohlins service gave me the bike pretty solidly. When a faster driver was in front of me, however, I couldn’t bend so sharply, I could hardly correct it in an inclined position and I couldn’t cock the tap as early as he did. I really tried it, it just didn’t work.

On the first left it gets really tight for 33 drivers

Rescue comes from ex-Cup driver Marco Freyer. He tells me that at the beginning of his own cup season he had the same problems and couldn’t push. He advises me to have a softer setup, and I’m skeptical at first. You get thousands of good tips at the racetrack, but which ones are really good for what? I don’t really want to change the chassis so shortly before the race, but at some point I let myself be persuaded.

When the red start light goes out, 33 drivers throw themselves into the first left-hand bend. I lose track of my position and just see that I can get out of the eye of the needle in one piece. After that, the field spreads a bit and I only concentrate on braking and acceleration points. Be it imagination or reality, my motorcycle works really well and I can do several overtaking maneuvers. In the distance I see the next group, which I gradually approach. Bite!


This is how a horsepower editor is doing at the Yamaha R6 Cup


Andreas Weinand

If you no longer know where there is still time to be gained: something is still going on on the brakes!

Every time I cross the finish line, I just pray for a little more time. Shortly before the end, I set my fastest race lap with 1.49.7 minutes and actually pass a colleague. At the finish I am incredibly happy to have survived the ride. I have no idea where I might have ended up. Uli comes towards me and shouts: “You are twenty-second!” For me it feels like a victory and I am just happy.

But then on the way home a strange emptiness grabs me – a strange feeling, as if someone had stolen something from you. All the excitement and tension of the days before and after a few minutes of maximum concentration is all over. But soon things will continue at the Nurburgring, thank God!

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