Race Report from WERA Grand National Finals at Road Atlanta, Oct 11-15 (I was
only there to the 13th though)

Executive summary: 9th of 21 finishers, 12th of 21 finishers, 10th of 13
finishers, 3 hours 6 minutes and no wrecks in the endurance race, and Fred’s a
wuss ;-)

So, I got invited to the WERA Grand National Finals at Road Atlanta. I only
qualified for 5 races total, including the endurance race, but I still felt
pretty good about it. I sent in my registration early and got my stuff ready
to go to the races.

I arrived on Wed. morning at about 7:30AM, went to registration and got the
bikes entered for the Wed. practice. I’d never been to Road Atlanta before so
I figured it was important to get that day of practice in. But, it was
frickin’ COLD that morning. I think it was down in the 40’s overnight. So, I
wasn’t in a horrible hurry to get my bikes out on a fridig track, so I layed
back and took it easy in the morning. About noon or so, I finally took the SV
out. I actually only skipped three of my eight practice sessions, but I
skipped all the really cold weather when the tires would be like butter on a
hot skillet. I was playing it safe for another hopefull weekend without a
crash.

I spent some time talking to the guy who pitted next to me (can’t remember his
name, but he also rode an SV650, was in two of the races I was in, and was
british with a pretty thick accent). We discussed the track, proper lines,
that kind of stuff. By the end of the day, between all the practice I got and
the chit chatting, I felt pretty good as I ran around the track.

I slept in my trailer like normal. Normally, I would use my fan to keep cool
at night, but this time if I had turned on the fan I would have just been a
full block of ice by morning instead of a partial block. It was actually
frosting overnight down here! I didn’t get a bit of sleep past about 5AM
because of the cold. I wouldn’t mind not getting sleep if it was for
something interesting, but loosing it to cold weather sucked!

I again skipped the early morning stuff to save my bike from a cold tire
getoff. Later that day, after a couple practice sessions, the time came to
start racing.

In my first race, I was gridded on Row 13 in the second wave. Normally, I
would think that was a great spot because the experts would be in the first 10
rows, and I would effectively be on row 3 of the novices. Not this time, the
first 10 rows and the entire first wave were all novices, this wasn’t a
combined expert/novice race :-( That makes it a bit hard to be competitive.
Oh well, I waited for them to wave the green flag for the second wave and got
a kick ass start. I went into turn one with something like 2 guys ahead of
me. Unfortunately, we caught the end of the wave 1 group between turn 1 and
2. Some of those guys were crawling around the track. In the first two laps
I managed to pass something like 10 guys. After that, I settled into a
compfortable pace and held that for the rest of the race, coming in
respectable 9th out of 21 finishers, with 3 DNFs and 3 DNSs.

The guy next to me in the paddocks was giving me a hard time in the pits after
the race. I had *just* beat him, but evidently he was slightly faster than me
in the corners, but couldn’t get around me on the straights because our bikes
were perfectly matched ;-) As a result, I had held him behind me for 6 of the
8 laps without even knowing it.

The next race, I was in a *far* worse grid position. At RA there are 34 rows
on the grid. This race was a combined expert/novice race with two waves. I
was gridded on row 33!! There was no one on row 34! Hell, I was the only
person on row 33! I was gridded dead last. That sucked. Plus, this group of
riders was slightly better than the last group. As a result, I went into turn
1 damn near dead last, I ahd only gotten 4 or 5 guys on the start. But this
race I settled into a slightly faster pace and I was actually catching a lot
of the guys. As it turned out, I was just about to catch my friend from the
pits when one of the experts decided to play bumber pool with the hay bales in
front of the wall in turn 5. I got red flagged probably no more than half a
lap from passing him. Oh well, at least I had some fun on that last lap, I
passed a guy as we crossed the start/finish line coming out of turn 12.
That’s one of the more exciting turns to pass in since you are going 100+ mph
going into the turn and rolling the throttle on all the way as the race track
merges with a concrete wall ;-) When they threw the red flag, I had managed
to get up to 12th place. Oh well, next year I guess ;-)

My next race was on Friday and it was the endurance race. I’m going to save
that for last though.

My last race was Friday and it was on the Mille. This was another combined
novice/expert race and I was out on the track with guys like Lee Acree, Scott
Harwell, Trey Batey, and of course Wrenn and Fred. I was lucky that by the
time the race ended I hadn’t yet been lapped :-* I only finished 10th out of
13 riders in this one. But, I’ve mentioned several times I’m not as fast on
the Mille as I am the SV, and this is just another example. I think part of
it also boils down to the competition on the big bikes being better, with
fewer entry level racers to compete against, but I could be wrong.

So, that leaves the endurance race. This is where all the interesting stuff
happened. Or didn’t happen as the case may be.

As normal, Fred started out the race. He took his warmup lap, got gridded on
the line, and waited for the flag to drop. Then he raced off to turn 1. Then
we watched as *everyone* passed him in turn 1. Then we waited. About 1:30
later, Trey Batey comes around turn 11 headed for turn 12. Then the rest of
the pack follows. No Fred. So we start watching. No Fred. Finally, about
1:00 after the last of the pack went through, along comes Fred. Great! He
heads into turn 1 after going down the front straight. I turn my head to the
right, and I’ll be damned if Trey Batey wasn’t already coming down turn 11
into 12 again! I could still see Fred in turn 1, that wasn’t right! So we
watch the pack go by after Trey. Then we wait for Fred to go by. After about
1:20, along comes Trey Batey in turn 11 followed by Fred! He had gotten
lapped before completing even two laps! I was sure that WERA was going to
throw the “Dangerously Slow” flag at us and yank our team off the track at
that pace!! So we wait to see how the next lap goes. After another 1:10 or
so, Trey pops over the hill towards turn 12. Then the rest of the pack. Then
a big space. No Fred! Finally, about another 15 seconds later Fred pops over
the hill, in the wrong lane! He’s in the pit lane and headed into our pit
*way* early! I wasn’t prepared for this. He didn’t even signal by tapping
his helmet as he went by on the front straight like he’s suppossed to! So
Fred pulls up to the pit area, kills the bike, gets off, helps me get it on
the stand, pulls off his helmet and announces “I can’t ride that bike!”
What? Did my ears deceive me? Fred just announced he couldn’t ride the
bike. What’s up with that. So Fred starts to relay a tale of how he managed
to go so slow that he got lapped in two laps. I’ll leave the actual details
up to Fred to relay, but suffice it to say we can all call Fred “Superman”
from now on, seeing as how he can fly (and I don’t mean go fast ;-)

Well, given how Fred’s bike talked to him at VIR, I’m not sure I want to know
what it had to say this time, but “Why don’t you go enter something more your
speed, like a yodleing contest” came to mind as possible alternative ;-)

After Fred announced his intention to not ride the Mille any more that day, he
then (as his position of team captain dictated he do) announced that I was up
and that I should get suited up immediately. So I did. And I went out on the
Mille. And I was slow compared to the others. But, I stayed out for 30
minutes on the bike. I was starting to get a little tired from the stress of
riding with all the really fast guys (most of the endurance teams put their
fastest people up first to try and build a lead before the first rider
change). When I almost didn’t brake in time for turn 10, I decided I would
pull into the pits and let Wrenn take over. Wrenn went for the next 30 minute
stint. When he came back in, I was feeling refreshed and a little more
confident and comfortable with the thought of riding with the fast guys, so I
actually managed to go out and ride for the next hour solid. After that,
Wrenn went out for his final 30 minute stint. I then went out for another 30
minute stint of my own. After that stint, we parked the bike behind pit road
wall and called it a race. I had managed to put in roughly 2 hours of seat
time without a single incident. Wrenn had put in another hour. And our own
Fred Farzanegan put in another 6 minutes ;-) That’s what accounted for the 3
hours and 6 minutes of racing that the score sheet said Red Hat Racing had
managed to log during the race. We didn’t actually go across the start/finish
line when the checkered flag was out, but we didn’t crash out either, so this
was a milestone in our endurance racing efforts. I don’t have the results
from this race, but people can look them up (if they are interested) by going
to the Results page on WERA’s web site (www.wera.com) and looking for Red Hat
Racing, bike #686. I do remember that we weren’t last in our class though ;-)

So, Friday evening I drove home and I’ve hung my leathers up for the remainder
of this year. Now it’s time to start prepping my bikes for next years racing
efforts. To the other people racing next year, I’ll see you then! So long to
this season!