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Race Face Well here goes nothing. This is my first writing attempt since high school, but I kinda figured that it probably wouldn’t be so bad. At least I don’t HAVE to do it. I know I’ll never make any money because of motorcycles, (at least not enough to live on.) So if I fail and nobody reads this, it’s not a big deal. All I have to lose is time. So this week I have to get my shit together to go racing. My brother Pete and I road race the ccs amateur class at Loudon, NH. It’s pretty cool, it’s like a 5 or 6 hr drive in my van and about 4 days in my motorhome. That will definitely be another story. Maybe this issue but I’m not sure yet. We race a pair of FZR 600’s. His is a ’92 and mine a ’93. It doesn’t really matter what year because they’re all the same. All the way until now. ‘98’s are the same as ours, part for part. That still amazes me. Well, back in the early ‘90’s these things weren’t even competitive now with the new ZX6R and the GSXR’s we get killed, plus if you factor in how bad everybody cheats, and they do cheat, we must be down 25 bhp on the rest of the class. But we all know that old saying a bad day of racing is still better then a good day of work, right? Well, we go out there and race against each other, which is pretty cool. The bikes are identical, and they are ABSOLUTLY LEGAL in the mw supersport class. So we have to factor in how much we saved in motor work (about $3,800 per bike) to justify always coming in last. The 2 of us in a heated battle for 34th. It’s pretty funny and that’s just the mw supersport, we also race mw superbike, mw grand prix, hw supersport and hw superbike. HEAVY WEIGHT SUPERBIKE ON OLD FZR 600’S WITH TWO 200LB PLUS RIDERS!!! We get spanked like a couple of 4-year-olds at K-Mart. But it really is fun. We ride safe, have a good time, and we don’t really crash. We race the clock and each other, just trying to get our lap times to within a few (read ten) seconds of the leaders. Even that is kinda hard. I believe Doug Chandler holds the lap record at Loudon on a 600 with like a 1:13 or something like that. These AMATEUR riders are running like 1:22’s. That’s CRAZY! They should have to move up. But I’m not griping. I’m just complementing the fast guys. They’re fast enough to be experts, or at least Jr’s. Really I mean it. So move up already. Pete brings his kids and I bring my dogs. He used to bring his dog, Axle until my dog Rocco tried to play with his dog’s head like a tennis ball. Now Axle stay’s home. His daughters come most of the time and my daughter has no interest in racing right now, but she’ll come around. The kids hang out because for them it’s a camping trip. For us it’s a zoo. Running around trying to get everything ready, before the trip and at the track. It’s hectic, but fun. I figure I must get this out in the open now before my bro reads this… he almost always beats me. His best lap is usually 3 or 4 seconds better then mine. There man, I said it. Don’t get me wrong he’s older, fatter, uglier, but I’m slower. I am so slow my claim to fame is being the last bike to cross the line at a Bridgehampton ccs event. It was a sprint and I think I was lapped. I was so far behind spectators thought I was leading. I was waving to little kids on the side of the track. If I could do those bitchin’, stand-up, one-handed, wave-to-the-crowd, wheelies I would have. It’s all about fun, and that’s what we do. When it’s not fun anymore that’s when I’ll stop, and not a lap before. L
Catfish
This page was last updated on: 05/03/2006
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