RIP Kamil Holan

---

The road-racing paddock is mourning Kamil Holan, the 48-year-old Czech competitor who lost his life following an incident during Thursday’s opening Superbike qualifying session at the North West 200. Organisers later confirmed his name with the permission of his family. Holan’s results tell part of the story, but not all of it. To many, he was the curly-haired, smiling privateer who seemed to turn up wherever there was a road race worth riding, and who carried Czech road racing proudly onto some of the sport’s biggest stages.

Kamil Holan in action at the North West 200, where the Czech rider had quickly become a recognisable figure in the road-racing paddock.

Kamil made his NW 200 debut in 2023, but had been competing on the Isle of Man since 2012, when he won the Newcomer’s A race at that year’s Manx GP on a borrowed Yamaha YZF-R6.

The Prague native became the first Czech rider to climb onto the top step of the podium of a race on the TT Mountain course; writing his name into the history books and becoming a hero in his homeland.

Kamil Holan’s easy smile and unmistakable hair made him one of the most recognisable characters in the road-racing paddock.

In the years that followed he progressed to the TT, where he competed between 2015 and 2018. In his final race, he scored his best result; an impressive 20th in the 2018 Senior TT – a highlight of his career.

Kamil was the kind of racer who could turn up anywhere and quite often did. In 2019 he travelled to Colorado in the USA for the final running of motorcycles at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Riding a Ducati Streetfighter, Holan finished fourth with Rennie Scaysbrook taking the win.

Holan’s career took him from the Manx Grand Prix and Isle of Man TT to Horice, endurance racing, Pikes Peak and the North West 200.

In recent times, he had competed in the Endurance World Championship – a demonstration of his versatility and the standard of his riding.

But more than anywhere, it was the Horice Road races in his home country where he cemented his status as a legend of Czech motorsport. There, he was always fighting at the front and had accumulated over 30 Horice podium finishes over the course of his career; only Marek Cerveny has managed more.

A versatile and well-travelled road racer, Holan was as closely associated with Horice as he was with the international road-racing scene.

A highlight came in 2015, when he won the Superbike race ahead of Danny Webb and Davey Todd. When the ESR series heads to Horice for the ‘300 curves of Gustav Havel’ in just two weeks’ time, there will be a fitting tribute or it is hard to imagine the meeting passing without a fitting tribute.

Rest in Peace, Kamil Holan.

Rest in Peace, Kamil Holan. A popular figure in the paddock and a proud representative of Czech road racing.