Race report 8/17 - 8/18/02

I’m going to try to write this one while it’s still fresh in my head.  Thursday night Pete and Cynthia and bought a used minibus, brought it home, set it up, and got loaded for the track.

We had ferry reservations for 7 PM on Friday and 9:45 PM on Sunday for our return. Kinda late but it was all they had open.

We were both running a bit late and got to the ferry at right around 6:30.

Everything went pretty smooth and we got on the boat, got over to New London at about 830. Their minibus wouldn’t start!

After pushing off the boat and trying to jumpstart it one of the ferry crew realized it was a Ford and decided to find the solenoid switch and give it a good tap.

That got his truck to start and got us on the road.

I followed them for about the first 45 minutes then decided to pick up the pace a little bit. I took my van and trailer since my motorhome was DOA.

The van ran great. Drove up the whole way with the AC pumping.

I got to the Texaco by the track and around 11:45 fueled up, got some groceries since I left everything home, got to the track about midnight.

Petie and Cynthia were pulling into Texaco as I was going out probably only 20 minutes behind me.

Got to the track and found a spot between turns two and three along the fence. Started to unload the trailer and set up camp. I had to have the whole trailer unloaded Friday night because I was sleeping in it.

I got the dogs set up, canopy set up, table set up, bike by the road, everything ready to go so I can blow up my air mattress.

Went to sleep pretty late on Friday got pretty early on Saturday. I had to renew my AMA card. That line was huge. Then I had to go to the registration line. Walked back to the pits and helped get Cynthia ready for her first practice. Then after she took off I helped Pete get ready for his first practice that proceeded to miss my first practice. There was about an hour break before Cynthia had to go back out so I had about an hour in half. Pete noticed that the junior practice is a lot faster than the amateur and they pass a lot closer than expected.

I got geared up, got to TiGcraft on the rollers and fired it up.

It ran for about a minute and died

Somehow we kinked a fuel line and then I proceeded to miss second practice.

So far I was doing good, eligible for two practices and I missed both!

So my first time out for the day was going to be raced 9 Lightweight Sportsman.

I made sure the fuel line was straight and I geared up early had the bike started and headed out to the track to take my warm-up lap. Pull back in for positions when a scorer runs over and tells me to pull the bike against the inside wall and hop over the wall for safety.

I asked him why and he pointed down. I looked down and found my bike smoking like Waco TX.

I told him that is just oil from the oil leak burning off the exhaust wrap.

He told me that my bike shouldn’t be leaking oil.

I told him it wasn’t that it is from last week and that the oil just needed to burn off of the exhaust wrap.

He told me couldn’t take the chance with so many bikes on the grid.

I completely understand, the track workers had no ideas why my bike was smoking so bad. They couldn’t risk me lunching a motor and taking out half the field.

I had to wait for race nine to end to get my bike back to the pits.

A guy, his name was Jessie I believe took his scooter and pushed me back to the pits. Thank God it is about 95 degrees out.

I took the belly pan off and I cut out the offending section of exhaust rap and rewrapped the middle of the pipe so that it wouldn’t burn through the belly pan once it was reinstalled.

And now I’m ready for race 13! Super Singles!!!

Started the bike kind of early just make sure it wouldn’t smoke. It looked like we were good.

I got up to pregrid and took my warm-up lap. Still no smoke! WOO-WHOO!!!

Cynthia’s wave whet first, Middleweight Sportsman. Then wave two went, Production Twins. Then my wave, Super Singles.

I told Cynthia that if I past her she wasn’t going to live it down at least not this weekend.

I got lapped by the leader of Middleweight Sportsman on probably lap four.

I was ready for riders two, three, and four to come blasting past immediately afterwards but nothing, no one.

About two laps later a few more guys for Middleweight Sportsmen started to come by that guy was leading by a long shot.

So at the end of lap 6 I get the white flag (being that was lapped I only run seven laps).

Going into the bowl I see Cynthia coming out on the other side.

I ride through their like a mad man.

I catch up to her in the short shoot between 10 and 11.

I figure I’ll pass her around the outside of 11 and come up on the inside of 12. Plus with the power of my bike being close to hers I can hold her off to the finish line.

Not a bad plan except for the waving yellow and a bike across the track between 11 and 12.

So now my only chance is the run from 12 to the finish line.

No dice.

She beat me by 1/10 of the second.

That’s OK. I didn’t think I was gonna be able to catch her and I didn’t take any unscheduled ambulance rides so it’s a win in my book.

After race 13 we all took showers and iced down the keg. We drank, we ate, we drank, and then we ate a little bit more.

Greg Wolf was hanging with us. We drank a lot, we had some habanera jelly on Triscuits

and basically yucked it up until about 3 AM

Damn 7:30 comes early!!!

Greg wanted Petie and I to take out his FZR 400 in practice and he wanted me to race it in one race.

I wasn’t even sure if I was gonna ride with the way my head felt, and the lack of sleep, but I decided that my bike was running and that I should stick with that and I declined to take out the FZR.

Pete felt the same way.

I ran both practices on Sunday.

Toward the end of the second practice I decided to move my weight a little more forward. Kind of sitting on the tank and it seemed like the bike handle the little bit better. I have to see about raising rear ride height and lowering the front end a bit.

I need to get my ass to Loudon and get some Thursday practices in. That’s what I need.

After practice, I decided to pack up, get the trailer loaded and I got on the road by 3 p.m.

I got to ferry by 5:45 and I had 9:45 reservations luckily they got me on a 7 PM boat I was home by about quarter to 10.

Backed straight in the driveway and called it a night.

By the way, I took 3^rd in Super Singles.

Yes, it was outta 3, how’d you guess?

This site last updated on:

05/03/2006