The Assen Assassin

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long, and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk. Hello and welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 833, the Assen Assassin.

We're recording this on Thursday the 23rd of April. I'm your host Danny Smith and joining me this evening is my co-host Carl Hunn. In this show, Carl and I will report on the latest race action from round 3 of World Superbikes at Assen. Carl, how are you doing this evening? Yeah I'm good, Dan thanks.

Yeah very good. Good, good. How was the track day? Yeah I was at Donington yesterday, so 22nd. Full day at Donington.

Yeah brilliant, brilliant day. The British weather played ball for once. We had bright sunshine all day, a bit cold in the morning, we just discussed it briefly before the pod. Track 10th of the first session was about 9, 10 degrees. But yeah, first time in the fast group, first time on slicks.

So yeah, very enlightening shall we say. I wasn't mauled too much by the fast group, so sort of in probably the first third of the group in terms of speed. But yeah, the grip generated by the slicks is just immense. Never used them before in all my years. It's just immense, I'm out of grip.

The problem is it's showing up short falls in other areas of the bike, like suspension and things like that. So the suspension technician said, have you ever had it serviced? I said no, I bought the bike last year as a write off and put it back to workable condition. So it hasn't been serviced in nine years. So yeah, could probably do with a bit of a fork oil change.

Just give it a once over. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, good day. More importantly, the leathers, did you wear those? No, so yeah, to those listening, I've actually bit the bullet and had some custom leathers designed and made to measure. I'm a bit of an odd shape like most people.

So off the peg is I'm getting hunkier in my old age, in my 45 years. Hunkier or chunkier, you decide. So I bit the bullet and ordered some custom made leathers, but they're going to be a few weeks away yet. They've got to be made. But they are going to be emblazoned with the MotoPod logo.

So if you see me knocking around on a track day with MotoPod on my back, on my front, just come up and say hi. If you're happy with it, mate, I'll bang the picture that you put up onto our socials showing the design. They are smart. Very smart. How about you, Dan?

Have you done anything with bikes or still recovering the shoulder? How's the shoulder recovery going? I actually went out on it earlier this week, just had a bit of a poodle about, got back in, only did sort of 20 miles, nothing major, but just to test it out, get the first run back in and my shoulder knew it. It really did know it as I came back. But still working on the strengthening, still working on the mobilisation.

So that's going to be a while. Actually coming up, I've got a couple of weeks rehabilitation and physio and stuff. That's towards the end of May. So I'll probably take the laptop with me and they'll hear me banging on about motorbikes in the background. But apart from that, we've got a bit of news to speak about before we get into the racing from Aston.

Do you want to cover off the BSB to start off with? Yeah, so we'll start with some BSB news. We'll just start with a bit of teams news before we go into the test. There's actually been one and a half tests kind of since the last podcast. So there was a test at Donington, a two day test, and there's been two days testing at Alton, which is finished today.

So we'll go through all the BSB news now. This BSB news is Andrew Irwin. It's been announced that he's joined MET Fona Cab Racing for this year. They're running last year's Ducati. So it's not the latest Panigale, but it is last year's.

I think they bought it off PBM from last year. Could be wrong. Maybe it was another team, but I know it's been bought off one of the BSB teams. And as we mentioned about the Donington test, although it was last year's Ducati, you finished just under 0.5 seconds adrift to the pace setting lap at the opening test. The other bit of news is Gintoli.

So Sylvan Gintoli, probably known best for commentating on MotoGP, but he's also a previous BSB champion and a MotoGP rider. So he is going to replace the injured Davey Todd at 8.10 racing for the Donington test. So he replaced him. Another bit of news regarding BSB is Yamaha will resurrect a legendary livery at Brands in July. So the reason I put this in is because they're going to do a social media poll to decide which livery will be used of their back catalogue of BSB liveries.

But I think probably the most iconic one is the Cadbury Boost livery. I know Rich has mentioned it in the past in the podcast. There's going to be a social media poll, but if Cadbury's Boost livery doesn't win, I'll eat my hat at that because that has got to be the most iconic Yamaha livery in BSB. It's outstanding, isn't it? Outstanding.

Just on Gintoli, he's still obviously racing the Endurance as well. There's something that we don't cover, but potentially could do in other podcasts as they come on. And I'll cover a bit with Davey Todd later on when we cover the news from the roads, obviously with the Northwest 200 and the TT looming ever nearer. Regarding testing times from Donington. So we're just going to do a quick summary from the end of the two days rather than go through each day individually.

So Max Cooks finished at the top, followed by Danny Kent in second place. Third place was Rory Skinner. Fourth place was Ryan Vickers. So he's back, fresh back from Wheel Superbikes. Fifth was Bradley Ray.

Sixth was Kyle Ride. So it might seem a bit odd that the defending champion is at sixth, but just a reminder that he's actually on the stock road bike that he bought, the Panigale V4R. So that's not his full superbike. So to finish sixth with basically a road bike with the number plates taken off. Yeah, that's on going there.

As we mentioned before, Andrew Irwin, he was in seventh, Christian in eighth, Josh Brooks ninth in testing and tenth was Leon Haslam from the Donington test. So that's the top 10 in the BSB test. As I mentioned, that was a few weeks ago and we've got an Alton test. It's gone on the last two days. We haven't got the results yet from today, but the Alton Park test results from yesterday.

Kyle Ride finished first. He's got his full fat superbike now. So you can see there he's making that work. Second was Scott Redding. Third was Bradley Ray.

Fourth was Storm Stacy on another Ducati. Fifth Glenn Irwin, which is Kyle Ride's teammate. Sixth, Leon Haslam. Seventh, Max Cook. Eighth was Rory Skinner.

Ninth was Ryan Vickers. And tenth was Charlie Nesbit. So that covers the top 10 from the Alton Park test yesterday. Seems to be pretty standard, doesn't it? The top 10 are going to be there or thereabouts in the championship.

I think the top runners. Anything else from BSB? Nothing at the moment, mate. Should we jump straight into the news of the World Superbikes? Yep, we can do that.

So Bimota and Ducati, obviously we know they've been doing well in the past few rounds. They were hit with the performance penalties. Yeah, so Bimota and Ducati have been hit with performance penalties in World Superbikes. So they've had their fuel flow rate reduced. Bimota and Ducati's both now 45.5 kilograms per hour.

I think as a ratio, it's about 1%. So I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes to the performance of the bikes. I guess we'll have to see. And another aside to that is Honda and Yamaha have both used super concessions during 2025 to increase their fuel flow. I suppose so because they haven't been performing as well as the other factories.

They had their fuel flow increased by 0.5 kilograms per hour. So they're running at a maximum rate of 46.5 kilograms per hour at the moment. Again, I'm not sure how these fuel flow rates directly relate to the performance of the bikes because it seems to me like a very small amount, like 1%. It does, doesn't it? I mean, there's a couple of kilograms difference between the Ducati and the Honda and Yamaha now.

Yeah, I don't know about you, Dan, but it would make more sense to me to reduce the tank size. So they've got less fuel. As we saw in MotoGP historically, they would bring tank size down and down to restrict performance. Yeah, I don't know. We'll just have to see what happens with this penalty.

Certainly didn't seem to slow Balega down at the weekend or Leco owner for that matter. Not one bit, did it? We'll get on to that shortly. Yeah, so first bit that I picked up on with the Aston World Superbikes was Chantra and his crash. That was nasty.

Turn five, three practice three. Looked like the rear came round on him and I mean, it looked like it nearly tore him in half the way that his legs spread. And I think that's going to be him out for some time. Have we heard any more about his injuries? No, Dan, I haven't.

But as you say, very nasty crash. Chantra can't seem to get a lucky break at the moment. Yeah, so in FP3, as you say, the rear came around. It only came around fractionally, but yeah, he was off on the bike, flipped. Fortunately, he was off the bike when it flipped.

But as you say, it wasn't a nice crash if there is such a thing. But yeah, yeah, there's no update on Chantra, but that ruled him out of the racing basically. Yeah, I haven't seen any updates on the injuries as of yet. So when that comes in, we can give you an update. And then on to Mr.

Booliga. If we look at the SuperPole qualifying first, just go through the order for the top 10. So Booliga finished first, Sam Lo's second, third was Lekwona, Petrucci in fourth, fifth was Vierje on the Yamaha, Lo's Alex Lo's, sorry, at sixth, Bautista's seventh, Lopetali eight, Barber's area ninth and Remy Gardner in tenth. Yeah, the only other comment I've got about SuperPole was that Booliga set that amazing time. And then he actually crashed in turn one right at the end of the session.

So he'd done his smoking lap and crashed. But it was a relatively minor crash. It was sort of a low side, just slid off into the gravel. So he was OK. Yeah, so there was no impact on his racing for that weekend, as we will comment on shortly.

Just a bit of a walk into Park Fermé without the bike. Pole by third of a second over Sam Lo's. That's pretty good going for a bike that's been restricted again with the fuel flow. So like you said, how much of an impact is it? We're yet to see.

Race one, Saturday, starting grid of Booliga, Sam Lo's, Lekwona, Petrucci, Vierje, Alex Lo's, Bautista, Loketali, Baldessari, Gardner. Lekwona's start, absolute rocket. He outdragged Sam Lo's and Booliga into turn one and was leading the first lap. And then behind the lead trio, Bautista had a good start from the third row, got himself up into fourth. Alex Lo's and Bautista swapped places a few times on the opening lap.

Although Alex Lo's, there was a bit of discussion on the footage about what would come off the bike. But I think it was part of the wing that Alex Lo's had lost after he made contact with the Barney Ducati. And then again, here's me going lap one, lap two. It's all these laps to go, isn't it? Yeah, so that start, as you say, Lekwona got a smoking start, took the lead into the first corner.

Also at the start, Petrucci, you could see on the footage that he jumped the start. He sort of did a rolling start. So he received a double long lap penalty. At the end of lap two, Booliga overtook Lekwona. So Lekwona had led into the first corner, led the first lap.

Booliga overtook him, sorry, at the end of lap two over, Lekwona overtook him. Booliga had a big moment in the next corner. At lap four, Petrucci, he took the first of his two long lap penalties. But on that long lap for Assen, there's a very big bump, it seems, at the start of the long lap. And he hit the bump and he had a massive moment on the bike.

The bike nearly went down and that threw the bike off course into the gravel. Petrucci did stay on, but it cost him a lot of time. And because he hadn't completed the long lap successfully, he still had to do the double long lap penalty. So it was kind of a triple whammy. He still had his two long lap penalty to do and it had been off into the gravel.

Again, he stayed on the bike, amazingly. Yeah, but they should have just let him off both long laps. I think that was the longest long lap penalty I've ever seen. It was insane. He came in way too hard, didn't he?

And these riders practice the long lap penalties all day long. And he's just hit that bump like he's gone through a pothole in England. And like you say, it was like a bucking bronco. How he stayed on through the gravel trap, got round onto the grass verge and then back out onto the track was amazing. But silly mistake, cost him a lot of time and put him some way back down the field.

Yeah, these guys do a long lap penalty faster than I do a normal corner. They're so quick going around it, especially well, World Superbikes and MotoGP. They're so fast around a long lap. Yeah, but it cost him, unfortunately. It really did.

And then it was, I don't know whether you had much, but between for the next sort of three or four laps, it stayed pretty standard. Yeah, pretty static. But at lap 14, she started to rain. And then as so we started to see a bit more cautiousness coming in from the riders and then into the next lap, lap 15, Belaga makes a mistake. And Lecce has caught him up because of the rain.

He's been a bit more confident and he comes through down the straight. He managed, actually, Lecce, you actually managed to get a lot of drive out of that final chicane. Again, I think it's a bit more confidence or bravery maybe in those slightly mixed conditions to get the drive out of the final chicane. So that was lap 15. Then into lap 16, Belaga seems to have got his confidence back.

Maybe it wasn't as wet as he thought it was and he seems to get back into a rhythm and overtakes Lecce back into first place. Lap 18, Belaga comes back past Lecce, but Sam Loews, he's sort of coming forward in the background. He's stalking them in third place. Yeah, I mean, two laps later, three laps later, Belaga hangs on to his first place and takes the win. Yeah, I think when that rain started coming in, Booliga, he looked very nervous.

And obviously, like I said, Lecce took the advantage and got in front of him. But I think Sam's comfortable in the wet as well. And he started picking up the pace and as the track dried and dried and he was losing a bit of grip on the tyres, he started heading backwards. The move from Booliga to get back into first, that's pretty, pretty forceful from your teammate if you're Lecce owner. Pushed him a bit wide on turn four and then that was it, wasn't it?

He got to 1.618 seconds clear of Lecce owner. Sam Loews finished in third, another 2.923 seconds back. But that's obviously his first World Superbike podium, breaking the fifth position duck. Bautista in fourth, further three seconds back. Alex Loews in fifth, Locatelli sixth, Olivera seventh after quite a good battle with Tarrin McKenzie.

Tarrin McKenzie looked pretty good this weekend, I thought. Yeah, really good. Yeah, as you say, the scrap in between Booliga and Lecce owner. Yeah, the commentators mentioned that they might be, they were teammates, but now they're just team members. They're probably not mates anymore.

There's a bit of dicing around there. So I don't think they're at the stage yet of Rossi and Lorenzo, Alec 2008 in MotoGP, where there's going to be a wall erected between them. Yeah, there was definitely some, there was a will to win between both of them. Let's just say that. Yeah, I think Booliga said after this one, it wasn't as comfortable as he made it look.

He's saying that others have got a chance against him, but obviously we'll cover more in the races going ahead. So yeah, fastest lap of that race was a 1.33.341 and it was Booliga's 27th Superbike race win. And that puts him level with Doug Pollan of the all time list. Just a little fact there for you. Okay.

And Lecce owner, he said after the race, thought today was my chance. He had the lead, he had a wet track, conditions he thrives in by his own admission, but he couldn't hold Booliga off when the track dried. If Booliga drops, Lecce owner's got to be the next man in there, hasn't he? If anything drastic happens, can't see anything else happening apart from maybe a big wall going between the two garages. Absolutely.

Super pole race. This is the 10 lap sprint, a few spots of rain during the race. But again, textbook from Booliga, wasn't it? Got the whole shot. He did get passed by Lecce owner.

That was on at turn three and then just reeled him back in. Yeah, Lecce owner got past Sam Loews at turn three as well. Alex Loews came forward early, Bautista starting from fourth row and he had another good launch. Yeah, Alex Loews on the first lap. Unfortunately, not sure what happened, but he loses three positions in the first corner and Lecce owner takes second place from Sam Loews into turn three.

Bautista gets past Vieje on lap two and takes sixth position. Booliga sets a fastest lap of 132.357. So that's nearly a second faster than the fastest lap in the race the day before. And he's got a lead over Lecce owner by over a second already. So that's obviously a new lap record.

And then the gap stretches to one and a half seconds. And Petrucci made an amend for his jumpstart penalty yesterday by passing Vieje for sixth. Yeah, so during the last lap for the Super Pole, Locatelli received the penalty. So he had to drop one position due to irresponsible riding. So he rode on at the chicane at the end of the lap and the team race direction, they felt that he didn't lose the one second that's mandatory.

And then he actually ended up losing quite a lot of time because by dropping one position, Remy Gardner was actually quite far behind him. And yeah, so obviously you've got to, if you drop one position, you've got to drop one position. Doesn't matter how far back the guy behind you is. So yeah, he lost quite a lot of time by giving that to Remy Gardner. Yeah, he spent quite a bit of time looking over his shoulder, didn't he?

Trying to work out when the best time to do it was. So yeah, again, Boulogne out in front, 1.742 seconds ahead of Lecce owner. Sam Lowe's in third. So we've got the identical top three again, which I think that's happened. That is the same over each race that we've had before.

Same top three has worked across the weekend. Balthister in fourth, Alex Lowe's fifth. Vieje pipped Petrucci on the final lap to claim the last second row spot for race two. And then, let's say, the penalty for Locatelli to drop him behind Remy Gardner. Yeah, there was a bit of a last minute, a last second scrap between Petrucci and Montella.

Yeah, very close at the finish line. I think they had a very close battle in the last chicane. Yeah, they came across the line one thousandth of a second apart. Very, very tight. So that win for Boulogne in this SuperPole race takes him to sixty four points ahead of Lecce owner.

And that is his twelve consecutive win, which is one short of the all time record. He's yeah, he's not missing out on anything, is he? He's he's on rails at the minute. What we should mention is, you know, Sam Loews has had third in race one and the SuperPole. And this is all with a fractured wrist.

Obviously it's healing, but he's still not going to be pain free on that, is he? Yeah. So fair play to him. Yeah, still a lot of pressure on that wrist. Absolutely.

Yeah. Race two then. So fifty seven thousand four hundred and ninety four in attendance over the weekend, which is not bad going for World Superbikes. And this one little bit of extra pressure on Boulogne because a win would equal top racks, all time World Superbike consecutive wins of 13 in a row. So we had Boulogne, Lecce owner Sam Loews on row one and row two, Bautista Vieje Petrucci.

Yeah. So the start from Sam, as you mentioned, he was on the front front row, Sam Loews, and he was into first place into turn one. And it stayed like that for the first lap, basically. Then lap two, Lecce owner tried to pass Sam at the chicane, but he ran wide and he nearly actually, instead of overtaking Sam, he nearly got passed by Boulogne. Lap three, Lecce owner passes Sam, he finally managed to make it stick into turn one.

And then unfortunately, Boulogne also passes Sam into next one to two corners. So Sam Loews lost quite a bit of time. And then at the end of lap three into that final chicane, again, that final chicane at Aspen seems to be a very critical passing place. They're either passing or they're getting a massive amount of final drive if they line it up correctly in that final chicane. So Boulogne passes Lecce owner in that final chicane and also Bautista passes Alex Loews in the final chicane.

Fairly static then for a few laps in terms of positions. When we get to lap seven, Oliver lost a lot of ground on the start finish straight because he lost, again, we're talking about this final chicane, he lost the front on the way into that final chicane. And he's then passed by Gardner and Bridewell and he shuffled back to 14th. And Montella passes Alex Loews into fifth place. Again, we've got a bit of static there between lap seven and lap 10.

Lap 10, Baldazzari passes Alex down the start finish straight into sixth place. Lap 15, Gardner comes from a long way back, passed Bridewell into the final chicane for 13th place. That was a really big, big lunge from Remy Gardner there, but he did manage to make it stick again. Just going to mention that final chicane yet again, but that seems to be one of the most critical places at Aston. Also on lap 15, Bousani seems to have an issue with his promoter as both Bridewell and Manzi pass in quick succession.

And then it's followed by a contact between Bridewell and Manzi, which pushes Bridewell back to position into 16th. You can see from his body language, he's definitely not happy about that, about that contact between him and Manzi. And then from there, again, fairly static into the last lap, Balega is leading. Locatelli passes Petrucci into eighth place. But that's about it for the race two.

Again, Balega finishes first. You do surprise me. Yeah, he crossed the line 2.724 seconds ahead of Lecuono, which obviously 13 in a row. That's the all time record. He's now up there with top rack.

Nine wins from nine in 2026. And it's the first manufacturer ever to lock out the podium in all three races of a round. So yeah, so the actual race two results. Boulogne, Lecuono, Samlouz, Bautista, Montella, Baldessari, Vierje, Locatelli, Petrucci and Taz McKenzie. It's pretty good for the Ducattis really in Aston.

They were top six, weren't they, in the final race, followed by two Yamahas and then BMW and another Ducati. So I don't think this fuel rate really working. I think they might need to reassess. Maybe they need to knock it down by another one or two percent. I don't know.

But my closing thoughts for all three races are basically on paper. It looks like Balega is still dominating and he is to a certain extent. I don't feel that he had it all his own way this time, like we saw in the previous two rounds. He has won, obviously, won all three races, but he did have some stiff competition. He didn't get it all his own way.

Yeah, definitely. And I think he's he's aware of that fact, isn't he? He knows he's got to be on his A game. Otherwise, there are four or five that are just going to take him anyway. But as it stands, I don't see him slipping out to lose such a lead as well this early in the season.

Unless anything drastic happens. Couple from stats corner. So like I said, nine wins out of nine from for Balega. Thirteen consecutive wins, twenty two consecutive podiums, which is three behind the all time record. He led nearly every race again, didn't he?

Three pole positions from three new lap records in the race, which was 132.144 and the super pole, which was 132.357. And Lekka Wiener's fifth consecutive podium. But they've been they've all been second. He's crying out for that first. Sam Lowe's first podium in twenty six, but he went on to obviously get the three podiums.

And here's a little fact. Sam Lowe's race to P3 was Britain's nine hundredth World Superbike podium. There you go. That is that is digging deep for a statistic that take that one to the bank. You could you could definitely be on GNT Sports statistics board with that.

That is digging deep. Was that statistics or sadistic? And then, yeah, the Ducati is locking out the podiums. They've got a manufacturer's lead over Bimota of 91 points. I think that's about it for the race.

Yeah, just my final comment on Assen about World Superbikes. What a track. I mean, it still remains a legendary track. I know it hasn't got a topography of Portemar and places like that. We've been in the Netherlands, obviously famously flat.

But yeah, what a track. And I just felt that maybe I'm wrong, but I just felt that the bikes looked more aggressive. The sliding and maybe the smoothness of Assen exaggerates that. Or maybe I'm talking nonsense. I don't know.

But it just seemed to be a lot more the bikes just looked more aggressive and more sliding. And, yeah, it was it was a real good spectacle to watch on the TV. TNT definitely had some good footage of those bikes coming around the corners, almost sideways, weren't they? So championship standings as they are. So we've got Nicola Buliga in first with 186 points.

Ikela Kona 117. Sam Loews on 82. Miguel Oliveira on 69 points. Alex Loews on 69 points. Axel Bassani 67 points.

Alvaro Bautista 59 points. Lorenzo Valdesari 58 points. And Yari Montella on 48 points. That is a pretty outstanding Buliga on 186. And the next La Cona on 117.

And then our own Sam Loews on 82 and third. Sport bikes. Yeah, so we'll just make a quick reference to sport bike racing from Assen this weekend. I must admit it's a class that has passed me by a little bit because everybody wants to watch the big bikes. Don't they?

The headlines. But yeah, sport bike. I did watch the racing from sport bike and I've got to say, I think it could be the new Axmurderer class similar to the early days of Moto2. Yeah, incredible racing. Yeah.

And I didn't also I didn't realize about these this middleweight racing that the rules can be changed after every two rounds. If one bike is dominating, they can they can make changes to the rules and they can they can make the bikes closer to each other. So if if you're listening to this and you haven't watched the World Sport Bike Championship, yeah, I'd recommend I'd recommend giving those give another watch because they're very, very close racing. Very intense. So what's next?

We're packing up from the Netherlands and heading to Ballaton Park in Hungary. It's got a wide variety of corner types and overtaking opportunities. But obviously, everybody's going to be watching. Is Booliga going to be stopped from breaking the all time record of 14 consecutive World Superbike wins? It's going to take something pretty special to stop him from doing it.

But I think Lecwona or possibly one of the lows could be there. So 69 points difference between Booliga and Lecwona. So that is effectively a full weekend of races that Booliga has got to knock scoring for Lecwona to get up into first. We'll be waiting for Ballaton Park next time. Yeah, so Ballaton Park will take place first weekend of May.

So the first to the third of May. At the same time, we've got Alton Park as well. The first round of BSB, which we're hoping all the UK hosts will attend Alton Park. I myself will be going. Hopefully you, Dan, and hopefully Rich.

If I can stomach the long, long drive of three hours, I'll be there. Sorry, Jim. Yeah, Jim's laughing. I've done reluctance to drive three hours. I'm doing double length because I have to drive around all the potholes in the country.

Yeah, there is that. But then I'm sitting here throwing stones in a glass house because I'm only 40 minutes away from Alton Park. So I'm OK. It's Dan and Rich that got a problem with driving up to the north of the country. It's cold up there.

The beer is cheaper. That is true. So something else that's coming up is a bit of the road racing. I know Rich and Jim have mentioned covering a bit more about this moving forwards. So looking on, we have the Northwest 200.

It's the Triangle Circuit in Northern Ireland. That is on the fourth to the ninth of May. And then ahead of that, we have the Isle of Man TT. This is the biggie. This is the one that's world known.

And that is between the 25th of May and June the sixth. If you haven't seen the road racing, please, please, please put YouTube on. Have a look. Just see what these people do. It's a completely different beast to the track racing.

You know, they're 200 miles an hour on a road that is used by normal traffic on a day to day basis. You've got people with huge talent, the likes of Dunlop, McGuinness, Dean Harrison. It's just endless. So a bit about the Northwest 200. It's in Port Stewart and Coleraine, Port Rush, Northern Ireland.

It's 14.4 kilometers, which is 8.9 miles on closed public roads, obviously. But these guys are going up to 200 miles an hour. And it's one of the fastest road races on the planet. This one's a bit different to the Isle of Man. The Northwest 200, it's a mass start.

It's like your normal racing. And it is spectacular. It is wheel to wheel. And, you know, it attracts phenomenal crowds. I think it was about 150,000 last year.

And it's all broadcast live on VPCI player. So, yeah, the Northwest 200, as Dan has mentioned, it's kind of the precursor to the TT. It's almost like a bit of a shakedown for riders who are heading towards the Isle of Man a couple of weeks later. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how these guys perform at Northwest 200. As Dan mentioned, it's available on VPCI player.

It's covered by BBC Northern Ireland. So even if you're an international listener, if you happen to have VPN access, you can set your location as the UK, access iPlayer. And if you look, if you search iPlayer, BBC iPlayer for bikes, exclamation mark, that's what is the Northwest 200 coverage. And, yeah, as Dan has already mentioned, insane speeds is basically a triangle. There's a few chicanes in there.

These guys are going flat out, flat out around there. And it is the precursor to the TT. It is incredible. And just on those chicanes, we won't dwell on it too much. But it was nearly the end of Peter Hickman's road racing over in Northern Ireland after the debacle of what happened last year.

But we'll cover that later on. Just while we're on the BSP podcast as well, Storm Stacy is taking part in the Northwest. Yeah, I saw that. Seems a bit odd. He's I think he's riding.

Is he riding a BMW at Northwest? Yeah, I think he is. Yeah, I think he is. So he's riding a Ducati in BSP, but then he's been signed for BMW for the roads. Let's see how they get on.

I think a lot of them classify Northwest 200 as a road racing, but kind of a lighter version of road racing. As opposed to the full flat version that is the Isle of Man TT, the really scary version is the Isle of Man. As you mentioned, Northwest 200 is a mass start. Isle of Man is a timed event, so they're set off in 10 second intervals. Yeah, and they're basically playing catch up.

They're racing themselves. I've been over there a few times and sat inches away from the road. Seeing the bikes come past at 200 miles an hour on full chat with nothing to save you from the bite. And you can just see the whites of their eyes. It is immense and a cracking island as well.

The Isle of Man is a phenomenal place. Just hope the weather holds out this time. So obviously main racers over there, Michael Dunlop, he's the record holder that he's racing on a Ducati this year. Then Peter Hickman still has the all time lap record. Now a lap of this place is 37.73 miles.

Yeah, 37.75 miles is the lap of the. So we're talking about the TT now as opposed to North. And it's not just one lap. It's six laps at times. Pit stops.

It's and Peter Hickman had an average speed around this course of 135.452 miles per hour. And that was done in 2023, which, you know, I'm sure you have Carl on on a closed circuit, never on the open roads. But I've never been that fast on my bike. Yeah, the fastest I've ever been has been on Autobahn in Germany. And that's not that's not a lie, by the way.

I'm not putting that in inverted commas. Yeah, the fastest I've ever been is on Autobahn. But what did you go to? Go on. I bottled out at 17 something.

I don't know. On the GSX-R. That was speedo recorded, though. So I don't know how accurate I was with. There was no GPS.

That was 2008. So there's no GPS going on or anything like that. I'll bleep the speed out so that your wife doesn't hear, shall I? And just while we're on the side of the road racing, obviously, you mentioned a couple of podcasts ago at Daytona, David Todd and his accident, broken femur, tibia, foot and his nose. Whether he makes the road racing, we don't know.

But there was an update from Peter Hickman recently saying that he thinks he will be fit for these these races, which if he is fair play to him, that's unbelievable. But yeah, it's definitely one to watch. Go and watch the replays. See if you can watch an onboard. There's been a few onboard camera laps put together.

Keep your eye out down the cranky body straight. You might see me jumping around like a lunatic. And obviously at the TT, you've got the sidecar class as well. These guys are absolutely insane. You've got one in a pod and one hanging off in the back for dear life, counterbalancing the actual bike itself.

Hopefully have a sidecar and TT rider on a sidecar. We've got a rider on at some point to give us a bit of an interview. Michael Russell. So that's work in progress. And then a bit later on in the year, we've got the Southern 100, which is in Bealtown circuit.

Isle of Man again, but it's a different circuit that they do. Yeah, Southern 100, Southern part of the year, Southern part of the Isle of Man. But just going back to the TT for a moment, anybody, so any of our international listeners don't understand what the fuss is about. As Dan's mentioned, you know, get yourself on YouTube, have a look. But also if you want to if you want to watch the action this year from the TT, you can buy a TT Live pass.

So this has been going through about three years now. I didn't buy it the first year that it came out, but I bought it the other two years. So in British pounds, it's £23.99 this year. That actually gives you a year of access to TT footage. By the way, Moto Pod's not sponsored by TT Live.

I'd like to add. Now, shall we try this? So, yeah, understand everybody's wallets being here at the moment. But if you club together with a couple of mates, if you're international listening, you don't understand what the fuss is about with the TT. Get a few mates together, pay £23.99 British pounds.

That gives you access to all the TT footage for a year, including previous years. Yeah, I've bought it for the last two years and I've got to say, yeah, it's mind blowing. I've been to the TT myself for two years in a row, 2018 and 2019. I was going to go in 2020, but then obviously the pandemic got in the way and knocked me around to going back again. I would have gone this year, but unfortunately, unfortunately being in very inverted commas at the same time as Mugello, MotoGP, and I'm going to Mugello instead of the Ardham Man.

Yeah, thanks for that little rubbing the salt in the wounds there. Yeah, heading over that way is immense. You'll have such a good time. The TT pass as well, that's got all the historic races on there, so you can play catch up on everything that's gone on across the years. But it's well worth the purchase.

There's some very good documentaries on that TT as well, that live pass. So it covers a lot. Again, we're not sponsored by TT live pass. But if the international listeners don't really get what it's about, if you want to take a punt and just see what it's about. Yeah, I'd 100% recommend it.

And if you get a bit starstruck, they're filming over there this year, a new film, Channing Tatum and Brad Pitt, just for if anyone's interested. So what else have we got coming up? We have got this weekend is Haereth and I believe we've got Moto America as well. We've got MotoGP from Haereth this weekend. So Jim and Rich will be covering that in a future episode.

But before that, we've got Road Atlanta and that'll be Jake and Scott. I know we say this every time, but obviously it doesn't cost us anything to put these podcasts out. But it does cost to get to the tracks, get the interviews. So anything that you can do to help is greatly received. Head over to motopodcast.com and all the links are on there.

And we've got this is a new one, a link tree. I didn't know about this until a few weeks back. And that is official underscore MotoPod. That will give you all the links to the social media, Instagram, Twitter, Blue Sky, X, threads. I don't think there's any more that I think of.

But it's also got the links to all the places where the podcast will be going out. And the email address that you can contact us on is? It is MotoGPOD at MotoGPOD.com. So yeah, if you guys have got anything, any feedback, positive or negative, constructive criticism is always welcome. But also if you've got any points you'd like raised in the podcast or any discussions you'd like us to have, please let us know.

And breaking news, World Superbike, Ballerton Park, Cooney is going to be replacing Jake Dixon. OK, there you go. Good old social media. Breaking news. Yeah.

So thanks for listening, everyone. Let's say Scott and Jake should be next. Hopefully Scott with Moto America, Road Atlanta and then Jim and Rich will be bringing you all the action from Haereth. And then we'll be back for Ballerton Park. So until next time, thanks for listening.

Cheers, Carl. Cheers, Don. Thanks, mate.