Team Folkesson Racing and Peter Clark went to Vallelunga (Italy) on 28th and 29th April for the 2nd round of the European Supersport Championship.
Stefan finishes 12th, with ahead of him only 7 competitors doing the all championship. The other competitors were wild card riders.
Once the race was finished, the Team Folkesson Racing left for Sweden for the 1st round of the Swedish Supersport Championship.


Results of the 1st round :
1. Kailborre Andersen (Norway) on a Yamaha R6
2. Rickard Osterberg (Sweden) on a Yamaha R6
3. Stefan Folkesson (Suède) on a 748 RS 2001 Ducati
4. Par Johansson of the Team Castrol Honda on a CBRSP 600
5. Anders Lilja (Sweden) on a Suzuki GSXR600

Fastest lap : 43 seconds 014, Stefan fastest lap : 43 seconds 017

After the pre-season Swedish championship testing session at Pau, complete with Swedish television coverage, Krister and I returned to Vendemian for a week before the next race.
Some maintenance on the bus, and we were ready for the Italians. Hot, sunny weather greeted us in Vallelunga, 20 km North of Rome. It's a great circuit.
A bit short, 3,228 km, very technical and enclosed in a small valley, which sends the roar of the Ducati exhaust echoing around the paddock, placed in the centre of the circuit. There is a superb infrastructure, hot showers, toilets, paved paddock, with functioning electricity, stands and all the trimmings of a race track, enclosed in a relatively compact area, with excellent spectators facilities and a cappucino bar !
The organisation was good, the only sour note being the organisers letting inexperienced Italian riders (slow as well !!) out with the free practice sessions, resulting in one lost Italian missing his braking point for the chicane, going straight through the gravel trap and rejoining the track, directly in front of fast Danish rider Soren Hole on his very rapid R6.
Soren collected the crazy Italian head-on at around 160 km/H, destroying the Suzuki and reducing his Yamaha's wheelbase by about 1 metre!
The shock was so much the fork legs snapped off. Soren was badly injured, a nasty break to his wrist, torn ligaments in his knee and a broken arm put paid to what could have been his European champion crowning season, as he was one of the top riders, aiming for victory in the series !
The organisers seemed totally oblivious to the dangers of the fastest European Supersport riders mixing it with complete amateurs, but one of the senior track marshals gave a stern warning to the more inexperienced riders to ride like the amateurs they are, and not like Biaggi's trying for the pole !
The rest of the sessions passed OK. We found a good suspension set up, and Stefan was relaxed and in good form.
The most frustrating part was during the qualifying, where local Italian riders would drive like maniacs for two really fast laps, then shut off the gas and cruise around, or brake like crazy to overtake on the entry to a corner and then act as a mobile chicane for the rider behind who came in fast with lots of corner speed, causing him to lose his trajectory and speed, while the late braker gets back on the gas and hurtles off to the next corner !!! (before usually crashing a couple of corners later…).
Fiberglass repair was the most common paddock activity !
The track is very hard on the rider, with an aspect similar to Carole, slightly longer, and a bit wider, but difficult to overtake on, and with a dramatic chicane at the end of the start finish straight.
In total there were only 15 riders doing the Full European series and 22 wild card Italians. Wild was a good description, as we were leaving the paddock for the 2nd qualifying round, a mad Italian left his tent behind us, gave his R6 a huge handful of gas (to impress the ladies ?) and ploughed straight into the back of me and Stefan , Stefan on the n° 1 bike and me taking the n° 2 down to the pre-grill.
The Italians mechanic had forgotten to pump the brake lever after changing the front wheel, and the rider hadn't checked he had brakes before leaving the tent… Result, one broken Termignoni on the Ducati, two scratched fairings, bent brake levers on both bikes, and a wailing Italian clutching his injured finger (the R6 was a bit damaged, but that's too bad…)
We were pretty unhappy, as a new Termignoni is 3000+ Francs, and the Italian was reluctant to pay, damn, he was reluctant to even apologise ! Whining that it was "an accident of racing" ! True, he was faster in the paddock than on the track, but that's still not a " racing accident…"
A bit perturbed, we finished our qualifying lower down that we would have liked, 23rd place on the grill, 9th placed permanent rider. The Ducati worked perfectly and the 208 GP Dunlops proved totally superior to the 207's they replace.
Race day was even hotter and sunnier, and we were concerned our engine temperature may move above 80°, but happily it was perfect at 80° - 85° on the pre-grill. Stefan made a good start, but was crowded out by the locals at the first chicane and was only in 16th place at then end of the first lap, and unable to get past the group ahead of him.
In front the battle was fierce, with fast local rider Gianluca Nanneli on a 748 holding off the attacks of Alessio Corradi (R6), victorious at Le Mans, and Roman Nello Russo, on another R6.
By mid course, the three were almost 10 seconds ahead of the other riders, and Nannelli bowed to Corradi's pressure as his tyres started to slide, letting through the R6 n° 15, then two laps later Russo got past. The very, very cool and all round nice guy of "Nana" Nannelli finished 3rd , first podium for a Ducati 748 at this level of racing so far this year.
Behind, Stefan had closed up to 12th place and was happy to settle for points, but disappointed to finish out of the top 10. Vallelunga is a good track, but allows no errors and pardons no accident. French ex-GP rider Vincent Philippe crashed heavily in the 250 race, and may have compromised his chances of finishing at the head of the championship and countless crashes during the weekend testifyed to the hardness of the races.
It is a hard and fast championship this year, but that's the way we like it !
Stefan and expert Danish engine builder Michael Jansberg left on Sunday night to spend the Monday in Rome, sightseeing, while Krister and I packed the bus, cooled down with a needed shower, and trundled off through the spectacular autostrada, Rome to Florence, then Bologna (now you know why the 996 and 748s are the best handling high speed sports bikes money can buy, with a lunatic racetrack of an autostrada like this, so many fast corners for the Ducati test riders to use!)
There was such a temptation to unload the 748s and do a couple of up and down trips between Florence and Bologna !
Then the splendid Lake Garda, the Dolomites, the Brenner pass, and Austria and Germany, bathed in hot spring sunshine, the ferry to Sweden, still more sun, a service of the bikes and we were ready for the next race, the opening round of the Swedish Championship…