Jens Buchberger has been driving solo in the Class B license very successfully for almost 25 years. However, the North German has to postpone his anniversary race because he injured his shoulder.
Jens Buchberger is the “Mister” B license. The now 52-year-old, but young at heart, racing driver from Hemmoor in the Cuxhaven district has raced in this class for 25 years, but never entered the international class with an A license. Although from the experts’ point of view he could certainly have dared to do so in terms of performance. SPEEDWEEK.com spoke to Buchberger about his career.
Hello Jens, on Sunday you could have celebrated your 25th anniversary as a B-license soloist at your home track in Hechthausen. But you’re not driving. Why?
Unfortunately, I fell in the finish curve during the race in Osnabrück and injured my shoulder. But I continued racing after that, and both in Werlte and the next day in Schwarme I received further blows in my damaged shoulder. It was clear that something had to be done. I have now got an operation date in Hamburg for the beginning of November.
Air fences are always installed in Osnabrück. Did they help you or not?
Rather not. I got stuck on it, if there hadn’t been any there I might have just slid along the plank and things would have turned out better. But in general I don’t want to say anything against the air fences. For example, they were very, very helpful when Stephan Katt fell in Scheeßel two years ago.
So the first chairman of the Niederelbe Motorcycle Friends, who you are in your third year, is not going to the sand track race in the Waldstadion on the B73 this Sunday?
No, my anniversary round will be postponed to 2025, but it’s still worth coming to our race.
Tim Scheunemann from Augsburg is your race director again. He’s come a long way.
How to take it. He married his Johanna, who comes from up here. In any case, he helped us a lot when putting together the driver fields. The teams include Markus Brandhofer/Sandra Mollema and the new DMSB champions Manuel Meier/Lena Siebert. And the Dane Kenneth Kruse Hansen is joining the soloists.
How did you actually get into track racing? I remember seeing you as a trials rider at AC Rastede in the 1990s.
Yes, that’s right. I also actively drove car trials for two years and also took part in the fishing harbor race in Bremerhaven with a rented road machine. Back in Rastede, the idea definitely came up at the counter, to be honest, to try driving a long-track motorcycle on the grass track in the castle park. I rode there for the first time in 1999, with an old Combi from Simon Wigg and with the help of Helge Hü, who put the motorcycle together for me.
So you started there with a B license and still do so today. for 25 years. Kind of unusual.
Maybe, but I didn’t want an A license because I had to earn money every day and be back at work on Monday as normal. So track racing has always remained my hobby, until today. And I always drove with my head and always switched on my brain during the races. At the internationals it would always have been “money or bones”, that was never my thing.
