Race Report

I’ve been strapped for time before race weekends lots of times. In fact, almost every time it seems. This was something else though. I won’t bother starting up listing my tasks, as that would take the whole report, but let’s just say I had two bikes that had never been run before. One was just a frame and wheels, the other was the same plus a motor. Things didn’t go smooth in the last couple of days either, with hang-ups that cost much time and stress. When I finally got to the track on Friday morning with both the bikes running, I was very happy. The stock state of the bikes was another thing, but at least they both ran.

Friday afternoon and all day Saturday was spent getting the bikes in the ballpark. I got a couple sessions on each bike and we were making changes hand over fist to the suspension and gearing to try to make them work. The 600 was pretty close, but the 1000 (a.k.a. Blitzkrieg) needed quite a bit of attention. We played with fork oil heights, spring rates, ride height, clicker settings, and chopping footpegs for ground clearance every time we came off the track until we got them in the range. I was able to get a lot of solid practice time on Blitzkrieg in fast practice, and I got my times down into the 1:07.5 range. The 600 I was taking out in medium practice though, and already got in trouble for going too fast so I had to adopt a different strategy. I was just practicing sections of the track on the 600, then pulling into the pits. I didn’t feel very confident on the 600 until Sunday morning warm-up when I was finally able to string a few laps together at full honk.

Sunday morning qualifiers went well enough. Although I had trouble getting off the line with both the bikes, I was able to win all my heat races by safe margins to earn pole for all four of my main events in the afternoon.

The first main event was 600 Superbike. I got into turn 1 in third position, and moved into second by the third turn. Nathan Hester was riding really well in the lead, and I had to push the little Suzuki harder than I ever had to close the gap to him. I was dragging parts through the turns that I hadn’t before, and slowly closed the gap. Part of me felt that I wouldn’t be able to get away from him, and wanted to follow till the end of the race to try a pass on the last lap, but the racer in me passed him on the brakes at the end of the back straight. I put my head down for a couple of hard laps, got down into the 1:09.2 range (equal or faster than my best time ever on the Yamaha) and broke out a safe margin. It’s a good thing too, as the race was red flagged on lap 7 or so and called complete. I was awarded the win.

Everything went crazy come the start of the Open Superbike race. With the new 1000 I can put on a pretty good show coming off the last turn onto the straightaway. Reports of big black lines, tire smoke, sideways bikes and wheelies had the crowds filing down to the turn 9 grandstands. Well, I didn’t let them down I guess – except for all those cheering me on to win. While exiting turn 9 on lap four I was trying to get the bike turned a bit before standing it up and driving it on the big part of the tire. It helps to spool the rear end up a bit with the gas to turn it quicker, and I guess I just got a little anxious and launched myself out of the lead. I thought I was going to save it for a while as the bike bucked side to side, but in the end it flicked me over the front and down hard onto the dry pavement. I ended up in the middle of the track, so they red flagged it. There was a lengthy delay to clean up some oil that my bike puked, but no chance for us to repair the machine in time. Even though I only got a couple of dry laps in with the good tires on the bike, timing and scoring still had me at a 1:07.096, which is only 0.3 seconds off of the outright lap record set back in 1996 or 1997. It was either Scott Russell on the Muzzy superbike or David Sadowski on the blown "no rules" fire breathing FUSA bike. I'm looking forward to calling that title mine here next race out!

We were frantically working on Blitzkrieg to see if it could be fixed for its upcoming race when it started to rain. We didn’t have rains mounted up for the 600, and despite heroic efforts from the guys at the Pirelli truck, we weren’t able to get the bike onto the grid for the start of the warm-up lap. If you miss the warm-up lap they don’t let you start from your grid position, you must start from hot-pit lane after all the other bikes are gone. It’s a serious disadvantage. At one point in the soaking wet race I thought I was going down. Another rider either passed or cut off Tamer Kekhia into turn 3 and he checked up. I tried to get my bike slowed but the closing speed was too great. We collided, but thankfully neither of us went down. My apologies to Tamer. I ended up charging through the field to finish 2nd. I was closing on the leader by over 1 second per lap, but it was just too far of a gap to make up.

We got Blitzkrieg back together in time for the wet start of the Open Supersport race. I settled into 2nd place, but launched myself again on the 6th lap while driving out of the left hand turn 3. There was no warning this time, before I knew it I was flying through the air and as soon as I was airborne, I knew the trajectory was all wrong. I couldn’t have landed any more squarely straight onto the top of my head. Thanks in no small part for the quality of my Shark helmet, my head is basically fine. Between the two tumbles, I’m fairly beat up in general, limping around and moving slow, but I’ll make a full recovery.

Some people really went out of their way to help me this weekend, and it’s absolutely necessary that they be thanked. Andy Nelson worked himself to the core making changes on the bikes and hauling wheels and tires around for me – the guy straight up rules. Dale Pestes and Josh Bryan for letting me rob parts off their bikes to make mine work (Dale’s 2005 GSXR1000 only had 37 miles on it to boot!). GP Suspension worked all weekend to get both my bikes working great. The guys up at Gateway Powersports pulled out all the stops to get me parts to even make it down to the races. Flexi-Glass worked all night for days to make molds for the 1000 to get me skins for the weekend. Connor Gabbott and Marbod ran errands and lent me tools and parts to save much time. And finally Shark helmets for making it so that I can still focus my eyes after that mad pile-up.