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Our YART visit….WHAT an experience!!

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As previously teased, Brian the Barnes and I visited the YART HQ in Austria last week. I had kind of invited myself when I chatted with Manfred Kainz in France during the Bol Dor 24 hour race in September and so the plan was hatched, as they say. Barnes was keen to visit too so he flew RyanAir from Birmingham to Bergamo (near Milan) where we met up and the next morning we drove to Rijeka in Croatia to visit a mate and then up to Austria the following morning to the YART premises near Graz in south East Austria.

Our man Manfred was busy when we rolled up so we looked around their beautiful showroom until he was free. He then took us into the meeting room for a coffee and from there we had a tour of the simply amazing facilities. Goodness. Some pictures follow which give you an idea of what they are and what they do and here are a few bullet points that I remember…

  1. YART was started in 2001 by Manfred (aka Mandy) Kainz and he started an endurance team which won the WEC in 2009, a truly amazing achievement for a non factory team. AND they just won again in 2023!
  2. YART employ about 26 people mainly very specialised engineers, mechanics and experts in many fields so bikes, engines, suspension and so on.
  3. As well as racing YART work very closely with Yamaha and manufacture a wide range of components which they supply to Yamaha Japan for GYRT, for instance.
  4. YART prepare customer bikes for racing in most classes from SSP300 up to SBK, as required. They specialise in Brembo, Ohlins and many other top level components. We had NEVER seen such stocks!! They also sell new Yamahas and concentrate on the R1s and R6s and now R7s. The R9 is due in 2025 we understand.
  5. To support the tuning and engine building they have a rolling road dyno (which we heard in action) and they also have a set of computer controlled machines for development and construction of a range of components.

To say we were knocked out by the man AND the company is really an understatement!! Thanks Mandy and please feast your eyes below!!!

Responses

  1. Arturo Avatar
    Arturo

    Belle! Quale ti porti indietro?

    Reply
    1. Simon Avatar
      Simon

      The stunning MT10 is mine mate…..2016 but looks semi new.

      Reply
  2. Brian Barnes Avatar
    Brian Barnes

    What a fantastic few days away. The start of the journey didn’t start that well my plane was delayed by an hour so didn’t get to Bergamo till about 23.00pm never mind.
    The next day we drove to Croatia what a beautiful country this was a first for me having never been there before. Whilst there we visited a seaside village which could only be described as stunning the Monica of Croatia.
    The next day we travelled to Austria another stunning country we arrived at YART headquarters a modest looking building but nothing was going to take your breath away like what we where to find inside. We were greeted by Manfred what a fantastic man he knowledge is incredible. Manfred took us into his showroom and left us alone to have a look around while he took a call. I’ve never seen such an array of race bikes ever. Once we’d got our breath back Manfred came back to chat with us then took us on a full tour of his business and what a business it is. There facilities are absolutely fantastic with a full workshop machine shop a design studio. If you want a bespoke race bike then these are the people to talk with. The YART team won the 24 hour endurance race series this year and we also saw there winning trophy in the vast display of winning trophies in the vast trophy cabinets a real joy to see. We left there showroom with such a buzz being so privileged to see the whole business I’ll be talking about this for a long time.
    From Austria we then drove to Germany we spilt the trip across Germany into two parts the second part was with a stay next to the Nurburgring we stop in a little hotel called the Home of the silver arrows. The owner of the hotel explained why it was called this. We where taken into the garage where he had photographic evidence of the original Mercedes Silver Arrows racing team building there cars also in the pictures was Ferdeno Porsche over looking the work. This place is well worth a look in. Be fore we left we went to the Ring but unfortunately it was closed with nothing going on for a few days.
    We then travelled back to Calais for our last night. Well the drive was absolutely horrendous the storm was at its high with strong winds and terential rain Simon did really well to get us to Calais safely what a drive was so nice to get to the hotel. Once settled in we had a look at the ferries schedule only to find out the crossings had been cancelled for the two previous days. After checking the DFDS web the service was back on our ferry was back on for the allotted time. We started off a bit earlier than needed thinking there would be big cues but no straight through no problems and sailed away on time unbelievably the weather was excellent and only a short time from leaving Calais it was that clear you could see the white cliffs of Dover and the sea was really Calm. After leaving the Port of Dover heading home took a diversion to see Simon’s sister Penny and her husband Don we had a lovely lunch before setting off for home.

    All in all what a fantastic trip can’t thank everyone enough for making this a truly memorable trip one of the best. What will the next trip be ? This will take some beating really enjoyed the whole experience

    Reply
    1. Simon Avatar
      Simon

      Hehe thanks Brian great comments 😊

      Reply
    2. Simon Avatar
      Simon

      AND Brian mate, how on earth are we gonna invent a better trip than this one???? In the meantime I plan to visit Le Mans in May and then Paul Ricard in September next year for sure, and you???

      Reply
      1. Brian Barnes Avatar
        Brian Barnes

        Well Simon that is a very difficult question to answer after that trip it’s going to very hard to improve on. Need to put our thinking caps on got quite a few months to think 👍👍

      2. Simon Avatar
        Simon

        So please get your thinking cap on mate, we now have all winter to make our plans for the spring, for sure I plan to visit Le Mans for the WEC again and that is in April….

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