Posts tagged motorcycles

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!

OK, so I’m getting ready to leave again, and instead of staying up until

2:30AM writing the race report and ruining my chances at a good nights sleep,

I’m keeping this short and getting it done early.
There are new people on this list. A little background for the people just

joining, I’ve been racing now for about 3 months, and this last weekend was my

4th weekend of racing. All totalled, in the race school I went to and in the

first two race weekends I managed to end up wrecking a total of 4 times (all

low sides), which earned me the nickname “Joe Crasher” early on in my career

However, around the various wrecks, I’ve actually done pretty well for a

newbie in his first outings. To catch up on the previous weekends, just wait

about 1 1/2 weeks. When I get back from the GNF (Grand National Finals, this

is where WERA invites you to attend if you do good enough in the year to

qualify for running in the championship races basically, and if you don’t do

good enough in the year then you don’t get to go) I plan to add an archive of

my race reports to my web page so that people coming in late can hear the

details of all my wrecks and misadventures early on in the sport
So, this last weekend was another VIR event. I drove up Saturday morning at

6AM after getting about 2 hours sleep This is nothing new for me. It

seems like it doesn’t matter what the event, if I was competing and it was

even moderately important to me (aka, something other than a team sport, like

debate tournaments or history day competitions) then I couldn’t sleep well the

night before anyway.
So I got there, I registered for two of the 30 minute races on Sat. and 5

sprint races (about 15 minutes each, with the goal being 7 laps at VIR).

While registering I missed the first practice session. There was a second

round getting started about the time I was ready to go out on the track. I

was in practice group 1 on my SV650 and in group 2 on my Aprilia Mille. So, I

went out on the track on the SV, got in about 4 laps, then the practice was

red flagged due to a rider being down. I came back in, and they announced

over the loudspeaker that when the track was clear, group 2 would be next

(well, they announced that about 20 seconds after saying “OK, group 1, the

track is clear, put your hats back on and head out”, the actual announcement

then was something like “Oops, no one tells me anything, sorry, group 2 get

ready to head out!”). I was lucky, both groups meant me, just on different

bikes. I sure heard the grumbling out the guy on the EX500 pitted next to me

though So I went out on the Mille, and got in another 4 or so laps before

it was *again* red flagged. I came back in, and the next group to go out was

group three. So that did it for me for practice. Two bikes, two sessions,

four practice times total, I missed the first two and the last two were both

red flagged half way through the practice.
So I got ready for my first race, and what also was the first race of the

day. This one was a 30 minute race and I would be on the SV. The pack in

this is pretty good for running an SV, with all other bikes aside from the SV

being at a power disadvantage. Of course, since I just got my CCS license

that day, I obviously had not pre-entered the race So, I was gridded

*WAY* back in the boondocks on that race, about as far back in the pack as

Donnie is outside Raleigh But, I got a good launch in my second wave

start, and managed to pass roughly 12 of the 16 or so people gridded in front

of me. From that point on, I did what I said I was going to do. I settled

into my own pace and didn’t let the “red mist” drive me to another wreck. I

kept that up, passing quite a few people, getting passed by a few people, and

generally have a good race. I was a little unnerved, in a Donnie’esque way,

when as I was going around the track, I saw a rider go careening off of the

track in front of me in a classic lowside. Then a little later I saw another

rider in front of me go running off the track when they decided they had hit

the breaks too late on the front straight. Then later I watched another rider

go sliding off of another corner in a classic lowside. Then later I was

coming through turn 6 to see the wreckage of someone that had gone into the

hay bales in front of the guardrail. I mean, I ran smooth and easy the entire

race, but make no mistake about it, this was a race of attrition! I saw four

riders go down myself in that one 30 minute race, and that last one caused a

red flag that ended the race. So I cruised on around to the pits, parked the

bike, and took a break since my next race wasn’t for several hours. I noticed

that there were only something like 4 people on the lead lap of that race when

it was finished, with the winner having 18 laps. I came in 6th with 17 laps

complete, so I was pretty happy. I had passed just about everyone that

started in front of me with the exception of those few people that were fast

enough to be lapping me instead
The next race was on the Mille and was another 30 minute race. I was again

parked in Donnie’s pond for the start (VIR has a long front straight and when

the first wave gets to go all the way through turn 1 before the second wave

goes, that’s a LOT of ground to make up, but I don’t grumble and whine about

those things We got going, and one of the first things I noticed was that

the new steering damper sure was damping things. There weren’t any head

shakes or anything like that, but then again, I was about dead tired after

only 5 laps The thing was way to tight and just forcing the bike around

the corners was being difficult. Well, I was saved, after roughly 5 laps

there was a red flag. I pulled into hot pit road and lined up with all the

other riders. Then we sat there for about 5 minutes, long enough for the

ambulance to make it out and back, then they brought out a regrid sheet,

showed it to all the riders, and sent us out on our warmup lap for a restart.

In this case, I was gridded closer to the front because I had passed a few

people, but it still wasn’t good. They dropped the green flag and our wave

sat there, again. Then the second wave of the green (this time they didn’t

wait as long thank God). I take off, I’m running, I’m smooth, damn, we’re red

flagged again about 2 laps later. All in all, I didn’t have squat for time to

try and make this race a good one. The race winner and all the rest of us (at

least as far down as me, in 18th position) finished the race with 6 laps

complete. That’s shorter than a sprint, but with 2 starts and two red flags.
So I went home Saturday night instead of camping at VIR. I had gotten done by

about 4PM and between having only gotten about 2 hours sleep and the thought

of sleeping in the trailer, I decided I would just go home and crash out

early.
Sunday, I got up, I got ready to go, I stepped outside to get in the truck and

leave and went “Hot damn! I won’t have to stop for ice on the way to the

track today!”. Of course, that thought was immediately followed by the

thought “Let’s see, I have perforated leathers, and a special airflow

increasing shirt, and a massively vented helmet, so what would the wind chill

factor be at 150mph and an ambient air temperature of roughly 40 degrees?

Hmm, I won’t want any ice for my drinks today I don’t think….” A cold front

had moved in overnight and the temperature had dropped a good 25 degrees

overnight relative to the day before.
I got to the track early, about 7AM straight up. Lots of people were not

there yet or still sleeping in, so I reclined the seat in the truck and

relaxed until about 10 minutes before they called for the first practice.

Then I got in my leathers, started up the SV, then realized I had wanted to

adjust the forks on the Mille so it might be easier to ride. So I shut off

the SV and got to work on the Mille. I worked through the first practice

group, then headed out on the Mille about 2 minutes into the second group’s

practice. The changes helped, but it still wasn’t enough yet. I came back in

and did some more adjustments (BTW, these are adjustments that the tire guy JB

has been helping me make on the bike, since he sold me the tires and knows the

profile better than anyone else I figure he’s the guy to help with this

stuff). When I went out in the second practice session, the new adjustments

only marginally helped.
So, as we are getting ready for the races to start, I noticed that Scoob and

Wrenn had made it up for the Sunday races. I hadn’t expect Fred on Sunday,

but he was mysteriously missing on Saturday Of course, we now know that

his bike wasn’t running at 2AM Saturday morning so he gave up, tsk, tsk Fred

My first race Sun was the Supertwins race, and this is a much easier class to

run because it’s devoid of all the 600 and 750 sportbikes you have in the

other classes. As it turns out, there were only 8 bikes in my race (the

novice portion anyway, the expert side had more riders). I did OK, not

stellar, with a 5th out of 8 finish. There weren’t any red flags in this one

at least.
The next two races I had were back to back (which didn’t help me at all) and

the first one was on the Mille and the second one was on the SV. In the first

race, I was running smoother, but still fighting the Mille around the track.

I think I finally figured out why the Mille wears me out so much. It’s that

death grip as I try to hang onto the bike instead of coming off the back due

to acceleration and wind force that wears me out so bad. After only 7 laps,

my right arm feels like a piece of driftwood that’s just been tossed in a

fire. Part of the reason for this is that I don’t allow myself to slide back

in the seat until my rear hits the back of the seat and use that to hold me on

the bike. The reason I don’t do that is because I’m trying to keep my weight

as far forward as possible since the problem appears to be that the bike is

simply too light in the front end, having a tendancy to pull the wheel off the

ground at inoppurtune times So, I came in from race 4 having ran OK, but

not fast, and immediately hopped on the SV and headed out for my warmup lap

since all the other racers in race 5 had already been let out the gates
Most of you reading this probably don’t know anything about the race tires I

had on my SV. Well, they were Michelin Pilot Race tires. These are generally

considered to be a very good tire, but worse than most when cold. Well,

sitting by pit road with no source of heat while I ran a race didn’t keep

those things warm at all. They were frigid. And I felt it, going around

corners thinking I must be riding a bike on top of asphalt coated in vick’s

vapor rub or something like that. It was flat greasy feeling. By the time my

warmup lap was over it was better, but I still didn’t have full confidence in

the tires. As it turns out, this was somewhat well founded. Once the race

started I hit the gas hard and headed down the straight. I got a good run,

but I let off and took it easy into turn 1 because of the way the tires felt.

This cost me roughly 3 spots. After the first lap, I started to turn things

back up like I had the day before. Well, in turn 12 (or something like that,

it’s hard to remember the right numbers when there are 18 to 20 corners on the

track depending on what you call a corner), the rear tire decided to let me

know that a warm up lap and one race lap at moderate speeds wasn’t enough for

it. I felt my rear end going away and I saw my perfect record of having never

dropped the SV start to evaporate, as well as my streak of continuous race

days without a wreck. Heh, well, I decided I didn’t want that. So, instead

of just letting the rear end slide out on my while on the throttle, I started

working the throttle to get the wheel back (aka, let off a little to match

road speed, but don’t just drop it entirely lest you might break the wheel

loose with a slide instead of a spin), and sure enough, the rear wheel

caught. Then is when I learned a small lesson of what Haga must have felt

like in the WSB picture we debated on TriDoD for a while (you know the one,

with Haga actually launched in the air and both wheels of the bike having left

contact with the asphalt as the bike was leaned way over). I didn’t do

anything that spectacular, but my legs flailed around like kite tails in the

wind as I managed to grab the bars and hang on their while the bike righted

itself. Once the bike was stable, I managed to find the footpegs again and

finish the corner. That kinda spooked me. On the next lap, I looked where it

had happened and there was a nice fresh black mark about 15 feet long. That

was enough for me. I decided I had been running those Michelins long enough.

They dropped the Mille, and they tried to drop the SV. So I finished this

race, coming in a reasonable 12th out of 21. The previous race on the Mille

had not been quite as good, coming in 17th of 25.
My next race was again on the Mille, and I was already worn out. Fighting

that thing around the track for a long period of time was getting to me. I

ended up finishing a pretty dismal 21st out of 26.
My last race was on the SV. I was debating whether to put the new tires on

before the race or after the race. I decided I wanted to show up at the GNF

on brand new tires, so I ran the final race on the same tires that tried to

spit me off earlier. In order to help the rear end heat up quicker, I dropped

another 1 1/2 psi of pressure out of the tire. I had already been running 2

psi less than normal. That seemed to help the back stick a little better, and

I came in at 10th out of 20.
All in all, I was happy with my first CCS event. I stayed upright the entire

weekend, I saved what would have been a wreck earlier in my career (at least I

think so, so I think I’ve got a bit more bike control than I used to), and I

got in some good practice to help make me ready for the GNF. That’s what I

wanted.
That’s it for now, later all and thanks for reading !!

So, at the last BB, I was reminded that I never did send out this race

report. It’s a bit late now, and the details get fuzzier every day, but I’d

rather get it out now before I head off to the races tomorrow morning
So, I was packing things up Friday the 25th to head up to the track. Summit

Point is a good 6 hour drive from my house, and more like 8 when you add in

traffic and one food stop and one or two fuel stops. I like to travel

comfortably when going that far, and I’ve long since decided that pushing

myself to go that far with one or no stops just isn’t worth it. Especially

not when you don’t manage to even get out of the driveway until 9PM As it

turns out, I didn’t make it to the track until 4AM Saturday morning.

Fortunately, Summit Point isn’t like VIR, the track gates are open all night

long on race weekends (VIR closes that gates at midnight, so if you are

camping at the track like I do, then you have to be there before they close).
I didn’t get much sleep that night. Getting in at 4AM, I didn’t want to make

a lot of noise. Normally, when I camp at the track, I unload my trailer

(which is a 12′ x 7′ enclosed trailer), set up my bikes and seating area, then

pump up the air mattress and put it and the sleeping back in the trailer.

Well, since I didn’t want to wake everyone up, that was out of the question.

So, instead, I laid down in the front of the truck and tried to get some

sleep. Well, between 4AM when I got there and 7AM when it got to noisy to

sleep, I didn’t get 3 hours sleep because it was too uncomfortable I got

maybe an hour of sleep. I’m sure that doesn’t help a person on the track any.
This particular weekend wasn’t a WERA National event, like my last trip to

Summit Point. This was a regular WERA Sportsman Regional event. That changes

the schedule a little bit, seeing as how there is no endurance race. Instead,

you have the Solo20 races. These are 20 lap races that take roughly 30

minutes at most tracks. At Summit Point, because of track length, these races

are Solo18s instead.
So, I got out of the truck that Saturday morning and headed for the

registration trailer. After getting everything registered, I came back and

set up my pit area. This was the first race weekend where I could unload the

bikes and be ready to race. Prior to this weekend, I had spent *every*

*other* Saturday working on my bikes prior to the races, making me miss one or

more practices each time. This was a new feeling for me to be able to

actually be ready to go out during the first practice. So, I get both of the

bikes inspected at the tech shed, they both pass right off. I get suited up

in my leathers and get ready to head out on the track.
Practice actually went pretty well. My first time at Summit Point had been an

interesting weekend. Saturday had been the endurance race, and I had

crashed. After my crash, we repaired the bike, and I ended up going back out

in the race. However, I only got about 15 laps total in. That’s enough time

to get lightly acquainted with the track, but not enough to memorize it and

really get it down. Saturday had been raining. I ran one race on Saturday,

and one practice. But, running in the rain is *totally* different than

running in the dry. This time out, I was able to run 4 different practice

sessions. That gave me roughly another 25 laps on the track. It helped for

sure, I knew the track much better after practice than I did when I arrived.
Around noon they got the races started. First for me was the Lightweight

Solo18 race. I was in the second wave of the race, and I was fourth in that

wave going into turn one. The three people that got in front of me stayed

there I kept things in reasonable shape for the remainder of the race,

and there wasn’t anything special about my performance. I got passed by a few

other people, and I never passed anyone. There were a lot of people that

didn’t manage to pass me either, so at least that’s one positive.
For those that might recall, in my last race report, I relayed the fact that I

crashed twice in one race I wasn’t happy. The analysis I came up with

was that I wasn’t getting my lines right before I went fast and as a result, I

was going down. I made a decision that I wasn’t going to make stupid mistakes

any more, and going fast before you had your lines down is stupid in my

opinion. I stuck to that decision in this race. I didn’t let someone going

faster than me cause me to push myself faster than I was ready to go. The net

result is that I came in 9th out of 17 riders in this race. Squarely middle

of the pack, things could be worse
Next was the Hvyweight Solo18. I always let my first lap go easy while I warm

the tires up a little bit. I learned this habit from the Michelin Pilot Race

tires. They are *GREASY* when they are even a little bit cold. Once they are

warm they work much better, but on the way there you feel like you are racing

on ice So I let one or two people by as I took the first lap easy. Then

I started to turn the heat up a bit. It wasn’t long before I was thinking

“Gee, this heat seems awful lukewarm to me”. I was running one of the corners

as fast as the Mille could safely go. I had the rear end sliding around on

me, getting lose and acting weird. But, while I’m setting there sliding my

way around the corner, two guys on 600 class machine passed me on the inside.

So I’m wondering how they can go that fast when I’m at the limit of my rear

tire. That kept up for the rest of the race. I didn’t do so well in this

race. I finished 13th out of 15 or something like that (I can’t remember the

exact placing, what I remember is I was second to last). So when I got in

from that race, I was looking the rear tire over to see why I was doing soooo

poorly. Well, it didn’t take much to see what had happened, I *cooked* the

rear tire.
This is the first time I had actually used a tire up since I started racing,

but I had certainly done it to this one. I remember reading a tire test in a

magazine where they would rate how fast the race tires started to loose

traction. I had never realized what they were talking about before, now I

did.
Race tires have this nice property where they will slide softly to begin with

then a little more as you go faster then they will finally let go when you

really push them. Street tires are different, once you start sliding on

street tires, they simply let go and you’re on your back I’m not a tire

expert, but based on what I do know, what I saw on that tire, and what I know

of physics and friction, I think I know how race tires manage thier little

trick. I think the way they do it is by being very soft and having a

reasonable amount of rubber depth. The deeper that rubber is, the more flex

it has. When a slide starts, the rubber has been deformed by the forces on

the tire. It bounces back to it’s original position when the slide starts,

relieving some of the tension on the rubber. This gives the tire a chance to

actually catch on the asphalt again. Well, my theory is that as the tread

depth gets thinner on the tire, it has less and less ability to flex. With

less flex, the slides start coming earlier and faster. The tread on my tire

was reasonable when I went out for practice that morning, but sometime along

the way it started getting too thin to keep up. The wear on the tire is

exponential then. The more worn the tire is, the faster you keep wearing it

off. By the time I pulled in at the end of that race, my right side of my

rear tire was worn to the point that it basically had no tread left. Now I

know what it means to cook a tire
Sunday, I get awoken by Fred in his normal good humor as he yells through my

trailer door something about Jessica having a hard job if she has to get me

out of bed. He had made it up during the middle of the night Saturday night

and set up his spot next to mine. So, I filled him in on the previous days

events, as I had him look over that tire on the back of the Mille. He agreed

with me that it was shot. I was going to go ahead and run the sprint Sunday

on it though, to avoid buying a new set of tires that weekend, but he

convinced me that would be a bad idea. So, I got to work on the Mille, trying

to get the new tires installed. As it turned out, I wanted to try out a set

of the Pirelli race tires instead of the Michelins I had been running, but

Trackside Racers Supply, the normal Pirelli vendor at the track wasn’t there

this weekend. So, I went with the new Bridgestone BT58r tires. These tires

have a more pointed profile on the front tire that is supposed to help the

bike turn in quicker. The side effect to a tire that wants to turn in quicker

is that it wants to go straight less. I found out just how much less during

the races Sunday.
Due to the tire change (which took a long time because the tire vendors air

compressor blew right after I brought my tires up, and since he was the only

tire vendor there that weekend, he had to run to WalMart in Summit Point and

buy a new compressor before he could change my tires) and some unforeseen

track issues (the weekend before, during some car races, someone had wrecked

their car and gotten killed, this weekend there were some officials from

somewhere at the track doing an investigation, and while that was happening we

had to stay off the track, which cut into our practice time pretty heavily and

resulted in the race officials combining several of the practice groups

together, including I got moved from the third practice group on the Mille

into the first group, while the SV was moved from the fifth group to the

third) I was looking pretty bad as far as practice time was concerned. I was

most concerned about getting some practice time on the Mille since it was

going to have new tires. As it turned out, all I could get in the Mille’s

practice session was about three laps because I didn’t get out until it was

almost over. Putting the tires back on, combined with delays in getting them

back from the vendor, combined with having my practice session moved up just

kept me from getting it all done in time. The other side effect of the

investigation was that we only got one round of practice sessions instead of

the normal two. So, when I went out to the HvyWeight Twins race that

afternoon, it was without hardly any experience on the Bridgestone tires.
It didn’t take much time on the track for me to develop an opinion about the

new tires. Even if they did stick to the pavement well, they made my Mille

shake worse than a 90 year old man’s hands after sex. The Mille comes with a

steering damper, but it isn’t adjustable. Before the tire switch, the bike

was occasionally a bit on the twitchy side, and several times we (Fred, Wrenn,

and myself) thought that we might like to be able to add one or two clicks of

damping on the steering damper. With the new BT58r’s though, I needed about 6

more clicks of damping! Coming out of turn 10 at Summit, I’m doing about

100mph, I’m just by the rumble strips, I open the throttle wide open as I

straighten the bike up. Right at the end of the rumble strip there is a

slight ripple in the asphalt. Between the fact that my bike will make the

front end very light when you open the throttle up at 100mph and the little

ripple in the asphalt and the twitchy new tires, my bike tried to go into a

tank slapper at 100mph. It was enough to make me pucker so hard that I just

about sucked the seat into my butt. A few laps later, I had the same thing

happen at turn 9. I had the same thing happen 2 or 3 times coming out of turn

3. All in all, the bike became so twitchy that I had to slow things down just

to keep my shorts clean. I didn’t do all that well in this race either,

although I didn’t do bad. I finished 5th, out of I think 9 or so racers.
Later that afternoon I ran the D-Super race on the SV. In the D-Super class,

the SV is the undisputed horsepower king, so you can usually trounce on all

the smaller bikes, and you only have to worry about other SVs. At the start

of the race, I got a good start. But, I was on those Michelin tires again, so

that first lap saw me getting passed by about 3 or 4 riders. After that I got

myself up to speed. I wasn’t getting passed any more (at least not by other

novices, although I might have gotten passed by a few experts still).

Unfortunately, that’s about the time that they red flagged the race

Someone had gone down in turn 10 and they had to pull out the ambulance to

pick them up. Fortunately, the rider wasn’t seriously hurt and he only got a

ride to the pits instead of to a hospital. We all rode back out to the grid

positions after about a 5 minute break. That meant I was heading back out

with fairly warm tires. They got the race underway again, and I got a decent

start. I ended up middle of the pack into turn 1. As I was running around

the track this time, I was holding my position fairly well. There were 6

people in my class ahead of me. The leaders were really pulling it out and

away, but I was catching the people in 5th and 6th. I had been catching

glimpses of both of them as I went around the track, and each time they would

be a little bit closer to me. I was getting about caught up with them, they

were only one turn ahead of me by now. As I’m watching the track going into

turn 5, I catch a glimpse of them going into turn 6. As I’m coming out of

turn 5, I catch a glimpse of them going into turn 6. I immediately think

“Damn I’m fast!”. Then I immediately starting thinking realistically “Damn,

they slowed down!” It becomes much more apparent as I noticed that they

weren’t really going into turn 6 anymore, they were more like laying in turn 6

now. Then I start thinking “Damn, they slowed down a lot!!”, which stands to

reasons since they were no longer rolling, instead they were sliding. Well, I

guess they were still rolling actually, just not on their wheels, more like

barrel rolls now, and those just aren’t as fast.

They were headed off into the dirt now as a matter of fact. Once they left

the asphalt, I had a pretty good idea that I was sure to be able to pass them

They red flagged the race again, but this time we were over half done so it

was considered a completed race instead of being another restart. Since those

two took each other out, I ended up finishing in 5th.
All in all, I was fairly happy with that weekend. I didn’t have any stellar

finishes, but things were getting better towards the end and I didn’t ever go

down. That’s a first for me, a race weekend where I didn’t go down at least

once
Now I’ve covered that race weekend, and I’m ready for VIR tomorrow. Oops,

that would be today now

> Someone wrote:
>
> Well, the TrackDoD contingent saw the results of Saturday’s efforts at the
> track late in the afternoon. It wasn’t pretty! Fred’s bike didn’t look at
> all like a TL1000 and I understand that the Mille took another beating.

Ahh, well, I guess I can go into the Team Red Hat endurance race results.
I’ll let Fred cover his Sunday of racing and I’ll cover my own Sunday of
racing this time.

So, the short story for Saturday is Doug – 0, Downed Bikes – 2.

The longer version is that I arrived at VIR Friday morning to get ready for
practice. Because of having to run around trying to get parts to make the
Mille reverse shift properly Friday morning, I didn’t even get to the track
until about 1:30PM. By the time that I gave up getting the Mille’s shifter
done in time for practice that day, it was about 4PM. I had precious little
time to get the SV preped to go out on the track. I currently still had rain
tires on the bike and I knew those weren’t going to work on Saturday so I took
the wheels off and carted them down to BJ to get the Michelin Race Pilots put
back on. About the time I’m hauling the second tire back to the bike, the
raindrops start hitting the asphalt.

I say to myself, “Well crap, here I am, just putting race tires back on the
bike, the rain is starting, the tires are ice cold, I’ve never been on this
track before in my life, I don’t even have a map of the track, and I think
they just started the last session of practice for my practice group.” I
wasn’t happy. So, I got the tires back on and snuck out into a practice
session for a different group because I had indeed missed the last practice of
the day for the group I was suppossed to be in. So, I got to run about 5 laps
at a *very* slow speed because A) I didn’t know the track or lines and B) the
track was wet. When you combine A and B above, you get C) my speed was so
slow it made gramms look quick with her walker.

So that was all the practice I got on Friday. All in all, it was a bit
expensive to pay $10 bucks for track entry + $50 for practice fees to get only
5 laps in the wet

That evening I drove into Danville and picked up the tools I needed to really
get the Mille shifter working right, ate, then came back to the paddocks where
I was camping. I fixed up the last bit of the shifter that night, then went
to bed.

The next morning I get up, it’s overcast but otherwise nice. The bike is
ready to go all except for the tires. So, I pull off the wheels and get ready
for Wrenn to take the tires down and get them changed. I also start looking
around for Fred and Wrenn since we still have to register and tech the Mille.
Between getting the tires changed, spending a few minutes riding Jessica down
to the South Course so she could use the SV, and getting registered, we
managed to miss the first morning practice session By the time we also
got the bike inspected and the right sticker on there, we had missed the
second practice session as well. All that was left was the endurance only
practice, and we still had to get our pits set up properly. So we ran around
for the next 20 minutes carting things to the pits so we would have someplace
to actually do our thing during the race. By the time we had gotten all set
up, we had missed some of the endurance only practice as well Fred headed
out on the Mille first, then I went out on the Mille part way through the
practice (which is part of the endurance only practice, letting you change
riders and such in preparation for the race). I think I got in around 5 laps
or something like that.

Things weren’t going smoothly that morning. No practice and only slightly
more prepared than last time in terms of our pits. It wasn’t pretty, really

So we get ready for the race and Fred is going to be starting. I’ll be rider
number 2, and Wrenn will be the last rider. We agreed we would do 1 hour
stints, and each do two of them during the race.

Fred goes out on the warm up lap, comes around to the grid, and waits for the
green flag. The flag goes out and the group is off, with Fred nearly getting
hit by someone a bit on the heavy side with their clutch as the guy manages to
pop two seemingly uncontrolled wheelies at the green flag and just about
looses control of his bike. Fred gets a good start from our far back
position, and he starts running around the track. Of course, the Arclight
Racing team is out in the very front of the entire race, and Fred’s putting in
a good privateer performance running mid pack within the first few laps.
Wrenn and I settle in for a little while to wait for something to happen.

Somehow, we miss Fred going by tapping his helmet at about 30 minutes into the
race, so when he pulls into the pits on the next lap with Wrenn gone and me
the only one there, I’m standing there going “Oh shit!! What’s up?” I help
get the bike on the stand and Fred lets me know that the only reason he came
in is because his arm is pumping up and he needs replaced for a while.
Wrenn’s gone, so that’s my cue. I suit up real quick, put on my helmet, get
some fuel in the bike, then jump on about the time Wrenn shows back up and I’m
outta there. I take my first lap at a reasonable speed and get passed by
quite a few people. On my second lap I start to turn up the speed just a bit
to try and at least keep pace with the middle of the pack type guys, and lo
and behold, I wash out the bike in turn #1 As the bike goes down, I go
tumbling along and out into the grass. When both myself and the bike came to
a stop, I ran over to the bike and immediately looked at the clip on. Oops,
it’s broken again I’m telling you, Aprilia clip ons couldn’t survive a
pillow fight at a girls slumber party. They break as soon as you even talk
about “pavement scraping” or “rumble strips”. Of course, true to nature, the
throttle cables are tweaked beyond usability in the wreck also. The front
brake lever is also broken off. Well, I had a spare clip on and a spare brake
lever in the trailer, but no throttle cables. That ends the Mille’s day of
riding unfortunately So, the crash truck comes to get me (which was being
run by Wrenn’s step father BTW). They take me back to the pits and I can see
the looks of disappointment on Fred and Wrenn’s faces as they see that I’ve
held true to my now well deserved track nick name.

Here I am, thinking that we might just call it a day before something else bad
happens when Fred decides to go ahead and pull out his TL-R and run it (we had
signed it up as a backup bike). Well, I’m a bit nervous after what just
happened. Not about going back out in general mind you, but about taking
someone else’s bike out! So, Wrenn gets on the TL-R and takes it out. He
stays out for close to the full hour, making some good times and moving us
along in the pack (keep in mind that when we switched to our backup bike, we
lost all the laps we had on the original bike, so we were starting over
then pulls it back in to switch riders. At this point, Fred informs me I’m
the next to go out. I’m nervous, but I figure I better just get it over
with. After all, I wrecked at Summit Point to begin with, but after the
initial wreck I held on for a while and ran a vertical race later on

So, I go out on Fred’s TL-R. I’m not used to it at all, so I take it easy the
first lap as I start to get used to the feel of the bike. It doesn’t feel
like it handles as nice as the Mille, but it has equivelant power to the Mille
and does feel plenty fast. It does feel heavier though, which doesn’t help me
any. So, I start trying to get a pace going on the second lap, and when I’m
entering the top of the roller coaster I take what turns out to be a bad line,
I feel the rear tire step out on me, I work to try and get the rear tire back
under me, and very shortly feel the first jolt as the bike actually hits the
pavement. Shit! I did it again as I feel both myself and the bike slide into
the red dirt on the outside of the first right hander going into the roller
coaster. I remember thinking something like “Ahh hell, I did *NOT* want to
wreck Fred’s bike!!!”. So, I get it up, and this time it’s at least ridable
back to the pits. So, I take it back to the pits with no front brake lever
and only a stub of a rear break lever and no right foot peg. Fred looks it
over and it wasn’t all that bad, but we didn’t have the spares on hand to fix
it promptly. So, we had to call it a day. My lap count for the weekend so
far, 5 practice laps and less than 3 full laps at race speed It was a bad
day.

I was particularly amazed at how well Fred handled everything. He was truly a
gentleman in the face of disappointment that was caused by someone else’s
doing. I really felt bad about doing this to Wrenn because he had come up
from Charlotte just for this race because his own bike was out of commission
(he had lost third gear the weekend before and when it went out it trashed
about half of his transmission and the parts are on back order). I could tell
Wrenn was upset, and I couldn’t blame him. Not only did I take out the
primary bike, but I also took out the backup It was a bad day.

So, Fred got to work on his TL-R. He scavenged some parts from Scoob’s bikes,
he got some others from elsewhere (what was that footpeg you used Fred?) and
he actually got the bike back together. It didn’t look any better than before
for sure, but it didn’t look horribly worse either (that bodywork was already
pretty munged from Fred’s get off at Summit Point two weeks ago, thank God I
didn’t do all that damage I think Fred actually took the bike down to the
South Course and ran a couple of laps at TrackDoD II just to make sure nothing
was tweaked that would need further repair. All that pretty much got Fred
running again. He can elaborate on anything else he had to do

Wrenn spent the rest of the day running crash truck, and also did the same
thing on Sunday. He seemed to be a little less upset with me by the end of
Sunday at least. I was happy about that. I felt pretty bad for munging up
his weekend the way I did. Saturday was a bad day

So, I was waffling on whether or not to go back on Sunday and race. I was
feeling bad about how things had went, about crashing two bikes, and about the
fact that I really didn’t have a strong grasp of what had went wrong on both
wrecks. Finally, I decided that if I didn’t go back on Sunday to at least
clear out my jitters, then I would carry them forward to the next track and
that would be a bad thing, so I made plans to go home and get a good nights
sleep Saturday night and come back Sunday morning.

I was registered in 3 races Sunday, and I had planned on running the Mille in
one and the SV in the other two. Well, since the Mille was out of commission,
I decided I would up run the SV into the Mille’s race. I wanted the time on
the track So I got to the track at about 8:15AM. Tech had just opened,
and the first practice session was going to be in 15 minutes. I got
everything together and headed to the tech shed. Shit!.. the lines were
long. I waited through the line to get told that the brake lever wouldn’t
pass since Jessica knocked the ball off the end in her wreck on the SV
Saturday at TrackDoD II. Plus, I forgot my pink sheet that proves I paid for
the races, so I couldn’t tech without that either. Fortunately, Jim from WERA
who happens to be a tech inspector also happens to have a sideline business of
selling levers to people that can’t pass tech inspection (Gee, now is
that a racket or what :->) So, Jim didn’t have an SV 650 lever, but he pulled
out his bag and fumbled through until he found an R6 lever and it looked like
it would fit just fine. So he told me $15 for the lever, and I headed off to
get my pink slip and my money. I came back, passed tech inspection, and got
ready to pull out of tech. Unfortunately, I had missed my practice session,
they were just coming back in off the track by the time I got done.

I went back to my pits, put on the new brake lever (which fit amazinly well,
the only difference between an SV brake lever and an R6 lever is the curvature
of the handle portion, the mount and and the actuator surfaces are all
identical), and then set back to wait for the next practice session.

During this little break in time, I spent a lot of mental energy covering what
might have happened the day before. I came up with the following answers.
First, why did the wrecks happen and what kind of wrecks were they. They
happened because I was flat going to fast. They were your run of the mill
wash outs. The tires lost traction and went away because I pushed them too
hard. That then brought up the question “if I was pushing my tires too hard
and washing out, why weren’t the guys that were passing me doing the same
thing?” Well, the answer to this one was pretty easy. The other guys had a
better feel for the track, they knew the race lines to take, and even though
they were going faster, they were also following better lines that
straightened out the corners far more than mine did and as a result were able
to go faster without pushing their tires too hard. So those two answers led
me to the next conclusion. I’ve *GOT* to figure out the lines of this track
to be any where near safe or competitive. In the endurance race I was trying
to follow around behind guys going faster than I would have on my own, and if
I had actually been smooth and followed the race lines I probably would have
been OK. But since I was being an inexperienced dork and not learning the
lines first, I was wrecking.

There was a reason I was following behind these guys and not just running at
my own pace mind you. (It may be a bad reason, but it’s a reason none the
less) I was concerned about going to slow around all these experts and ending
up getting tagged some time. I don’t really mind a nice low side in a corner
all by myself, but I have no interest what so ever in someone tagging me at
100mph because I got into their race line when they didn’t expect it. I might
not be so paranoid about that if it hadn’t happened once on Saturday.
Fortunately, it was a light contact, but someone did indeed go past me on the
track and because the Mille was running wide a little bit in the corners, my
front tire hit their rear tire as they were passing. It was enough that I
knew it happened, and enough that the other rider turned around and looked to
see if either A) I was still vertical or B) I could see him glaring menacingly
at me, I couldn’t tell which it was.

So, at the next practice session, I made a concerted effort to not just drive
around the course, but to spend a lot of attention on trying to pick the right
visual references to help me grab the right lines and do the right thing.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get much of a chance to do this since my session was
red flagged on the second lap!! Damn! That’s only maybe ten laps in the dry
so far this entire weekend and this was my last practice session before my
first race!!

Well, I didn’t have a lot of time before the first race was scheduled to
start, so I spent it in quite contemplation. When they finally called my
race, I got on the bike, went to pit out area and waited to take my warm up
lap. I took the warm up, gridded for the race, then took the green flag and
went running. This was a two wave start with me being in the second wave, so
the guys up front had a head start on me by quite a bit. This was also the D
Superbike class, which is the class that the SV really RULES all the other
bikes. The only real competition in this class is from other SVs. But, I was
taking my own advice and running the track slowly until I got a better feel
for the lines. I made my own pace, got passed by a few people, and finished
the race without incident this time. I figured I had done really horrible and
came in last. The first three laps I was *really* slow as I worked out some
of my lines. The next three laps I was faster, but not zippy. As it turns
out, that was good enough to finish 9th out of 17 riders.

After this race I had about 3 hours to kill before my next race. So, I got
out of my leathers, met up with Jessica who had just arrived with a friend of
ours, Jennifer, and prepared to go walk around the viewing area of the track.
We ended up walking to all of the parts of the track except down by turn 1.
While I was doing this, I decided to watch the Arclight Suzuki guys race and
see what they were doing. I paid very close attention to the lines the faster
guys were using. Once I saw those lines, they all made sense. The big
difference in most cases is that I was looking at them from the top of the
hill where I could see the progression through the turns where as on the bike,
the course has enough crests in the middle of turns that picking a line from
start to end of the turn is impossible to do from a rider’s perspective. As
it turns out, seeing these lines made me feel a *lot* more comfortable with
the track.

So, I went back for my next race, which is the one where I had intended to run
the Mille. I would be putting the little SV 650 up against all sorts of big
bikes like TL-Rs and Super Hawks and Ducatis and all that. I was giving up a
*lot* of horsepower and a good 30mph top end on the front straight. That
makes it very hard to be competitive. So, I spent this entire race paying
attention to my lines and trying my best to make sure they were good solid
lines like the ones I had seen when walking around the course. It paid off.
Not only did I stay vertical, but I actually came in fifth in the heavyweight
twins novice group (OK, it was out of six, but the one guy I beat was on a big
bike that should out run the SV easily and the guy right in front of me was on
a Super Hawk and I was catching him on the SV when the race ended). At this
point my lap times had also gotten much better.

I didn’t have all that much time until my next race, so I stayed in my pits,
drank a bottle of Gatorade, and did more mental reflection. When they called
up the next race, I was ready. I got on the bike and headed out. This race
was the Lightweight Twins race and one in which the SV was the king of the
hill. Of course, there were a lot of SVs in this group, so it’s not like I
could run away from everyone, but if they weren’t on an SV then I wasn’t
worried about them

The race started in a single wave this time and I took off. I got a pretty
good start and jumped past about 4 guys around me from the line. I took the
track and started running at my own pace. I could see a group of guys pulling
away from me up ahead, and I let them go. I decided to conentrate on my own
pace instead of pushing too hard and wrecking After that, the race got
pretty boring! I didn’t get to pass anyone because that group pulled away
from me, and I didn’t get past anyone. I felt like I had the track to
myself. I found out later from both Fred and Jessica that I pretty much did.
The pack that had pulled away from me was all expert class riders with the
exception of one novice. Then there was a huge break in the racing. Then
there was me. All by myself. Then there was another fairly strung out pack
of bikes that were pretty much all novices. It stayed like that the entire
race. As a result, I took second place in the light weight twins novice race.

So, that was a good finish to what started out as a bad weekend. I was very
happy, I picked up my plaque, I packed up my stuff, and I headed home to rest
and recuperate from this long weekend