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Marketa is competing in the 2005 European Superstock
600; she’ll be on a Suzuki GSX-R 600 #77
Marketa started racing on a minimoto at the
age of eight. Later on she successfully transferred
to 125 and won that classes Czech Championship
in 2000 already. She replicated that success
in 2001 and once more in 2003 (but the source
is rather vague, reporting only “she has
won the championship last year”), don’t
know about 2002. 2003 was also the year of her
MotoGP debut as she was able to participate
in the race at her home circuit, Brno, thanks
to a wild card. She managed to get to the 25th
place with her Honda.
2004 has been rather rough and full of up and
downs. At first she targeted the European 125
Championship on an Aprilia (Team Gold), but
she really didn’t get familiar with that
motorcycle. As a result she crashed and broke
a hand and a foot and had to suspend a few races.
At the very next race, in Hungary, someone else
took her down, then, at Misano, the engine broke…
But there was light at the end of the tunnel,
a very bright one indeed: at midseason the Team
Angaia was looking for a replacement on one
of its Hondas, because they weren’t really
happy with Mattia Angeloni’s performance.
To Marketa that meant a test ride on a real
World GP 125 along with Spaniard Julian Simon,
and after her efforts at Assen the team decided
to keep her. But then, alas, more crashes followed
and she didn’t make it to the race quite
often. Instead you could find her on Dr. Costa’s
Clinica Mobile.
A quote from news pages at the time: "Team
Angaia Racing have dropped Italian rider Mattia
Angeloni and replaced him with Czech sensation
Marketa Janakova. Angeloni has had a
difficult start to the season riding the Honda
as team-mate to the impressive Julian Simon
and definitely loses his place to Janakova for
Assen and Rio, with the 16 year old female set
to continue for the remainder of the season
and start with a full-time ride in 2005 if she
impresses.
“For the moment Marketa will form part
of the team in Holland and Brazil but it is
almost certain that this substitution will continue
for the rest of the season so that we can have
a look at her ahead of the 2005 World Championship,”
said an official statement from the team."
So it’s all new this year, new team,
new bike, new championship – an entirely
new challenge.
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