Pistany - Czechoslovakia
On the shores of a very large lake, we found Pistany was a
very attractive small town and very popular with tourists from
across the Eastern Block, even back in the 60's. Arriving rather
late and exhausted from our long journey from Bautzen via West
Germany and Austria, we again elected to take the soft and rather
more comfortable option of booking into a small hotel on the side of
the lake within walking distance of the town.
From
memory I recall the circuit, just outside of the town, encompassed
part of an old airfield which had a poor surface and was not
particularly interesting. The paddock left much to be desired of
an International road racing circuit.
Our late arrival meant we had no opportunity to
reconnoiter
the circuit prior to practice which was further delayed by the need
for us to deal with lengthy paperwork before the organisers would
let me go out and then it started to rain which lasted for most of
the early practice sessions. Not an encouraging start to the
meeting!
Fitting front mudguards and changing rear sprockets time and
again on my 125 and 250 Moto Parilla's, all in the pouring rain, I
was not at all surprised to find I could not get anywhere near
the lap times of Heinz Rosner and the other MZ's. I
would be starting well back on the grids for both the 125 and 250
races the following morning. There was nothing more we could now do
to improve my positions so we packed up and returned to our hotel
for a bath and in my case, an early night, whilst Vic went off with
some of the other riders and mechanics to see the
lights of the town.
As
I half expected, things did not go well in the 125 race.After a good
start, and now with more suitable gearing, I was making up quite a
few places and getting some useful tows down the straights when I began
to miss gears and the change mechanism just got stiffer and stiffer.
Less than half way through the race I pulled into the pits and
retired as I did not want to destroy the box! - It later turned out
to be a bearing and oil seal on the gearbox output shaft which was
gone and this was easily rectified.
The 125 race was won by Klaus
Enderlein followed by Heinz Rosner and Jochen Leitern - all DDR
riders mounted on MZs
Things improved in the 250 race when I got an even better
start and this time, after being overtaken in the early laps by a
dozen or more riders, I was able to fight my way back eventually
taking 8th position.
Leaving Pistany with mixed results, we knew we were now off to
the big one, Solitude for the West German Grand Prix and my very
first World Championship meeting!
On
to the next chapter...
